[Wigsat-l] Rural and Indigenous Women's Environment Day: Defend Our Land and Natural Resources!

[Sophia Huyer]

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development
APWLD NGO in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council  
of the United Nations
	
	
World Environment Day
June 5, 2009
Rural and Indigenous Women's Environment Day:
Defend Our Land and Natural Resources!
For rural and indigenous women, land and the environment are  
inseparable entities. We derive our life, livelihood and survival from  
the land and the resources within. As farmers, fisherfolk, herders and  
farm workers, we produce more than half of all the food that is grown  
all over the world. Women have a critical role in the development of  
sustainable and ecologically sound management system for environment  
and natural resources. For us, the environment and the rich base of  
natural resources within it are not sources of profit or capital but  
are shared for the common good. We engage with the environment for  
subsistence living, preserving and nurturing it for our use as well as  
for future generations.

In contrast, aggressive “development” pursued by transnational  
corporations (TNCs), international financial institutions (IFIs) and  
governments in the framework of free trade and markets have grabbed  
and exploited our land, stolen natural resources and destroyed  
biodiversity. Natural resources on indigenous land, which had been  
preserved for many millennia are now depleted, with water and  
agricultural sources poisoned by large corporate mining and agro- 
chemical based agriculture. Small lands of subsistence farmers have  
been converted into corporate monoculture plantations. Forests have  
been destroyed and transformed into industrial timber plantations to  
produce pulp and other cash crops such as palm oil for biofuel, which  
is a major reason for the massive food price increase in the past few  
years. Coastal areas which are home to small scale fisherfolk are  
being developed for the tourism industry or have been replaced by big  
harbours to accommodate foreign vessels, polluting the rich marine life.

Peoples’ resistance to reclaim their sovereignty over their land and  
natural resources is often suppressed violently by the governments and  
the TNCs. While the world’s powerful few continue to accumulate and  
monopolise super profits by plundering the environment and natural  
resources, majority of the poor in the Asia Pacific region face  
increasing levels of hunger, poverty and abysmal misery: 950 million  
in the region live below the international absolute poverty line  
(2008). This destruction of lives and of the environment is further  
exacerbated by regressive neoliberal policies of globalisation,

We are now facing the global problem of climate change. Imperialist  
governments, inter-government bodies, IFIs and their corporations  
refuse to acknowledge their big role in the plunder of the environment  
and natural resources. They rally the whole world in reducing the  
emission of gases yet they do not command their own to reduce their  
consumption and emissions.

Climate change is a result of the unparallelled greed of imperialist  
governments and their TNCs in their aggressive pursuit for profits.  
The benefit of open-market policy of globalisation has allowed them to  
access and exploit human and natural resources. The increasing push  
for opening up the markets for free trade by the World Trade  
Organisation (WTO) has led to the intensification of international  
marketing and thus to more carbon emission. The role of the WTO in  
exacerbating global warming has to be scrutinised. It has been causing  
vast destruction of the environment in third world countries, which  
have accelerated global warming. Solutions to climate change and the  
global food and economic crisis offered by imperialist governments,  
TNCs, IFIs, the WTO and the UN are guided by and are enhancing  
policies of neoliberal globalisation.

Global warming and climate change and the inter-related impacts that  
they bring about have taken a heavy toll on the lives and livelihoods  
of rural and indigenous women. Rural and indigenous women engaging  
with small-scale agriculture, fishery and herding have been  
experiencing greater incidence of insect infestation, diminishing fish  
catch, devastation of crops caused by climatic events such as changing  
patterns of rainfall and drought, unpredictable cyclones and flooding.  
Rural and indigenous women are also being affected more severely and  
are more at risk during all phases of natural disasters and extreme  
weather events due to existing gender discrimination, inequality and  
inhibiting gender roles which vary across class, caste, religion,  
ethnicity, culture, education, and other social economic factors.

The viable and sustainable systems of rural and indigenous women on  
food production and environment management are systematically being  
eradicated by the impositions of modern commercial agriculture,  
forestry and fisheries. Conflict situation, including the prolonged  
war in Sri Lanka, military regime in Burma and other militaristic  
exercise of the power by the governments and TNCs is magnifying the  
devastating impacts on women. These conditions often force rural and  
indigenous women to leave their community as they migrate internally  
or internationally in search of shelter and livelihood exposing them  
to various forms of violence. Majority of these women are forced to  
imbibe a foreign culture and are often not prepared to cope with a  
highly exploitative system based on industrial production.

Rural and indigenous women suffer the most during disasters and  
economic or conflict induced displacement caused by imperialist  
plunder of natural resources and the environment. This makes us even  
more resolved in asserting our positions against neoliberal  
globalisation policies and heightens our collective efforts in pushing  
these to governments, inter-government bodies, IFIs and corporations.

Rural and indigenous women assert our human rights and the collective  
rights of our peoples that must prevail over pursuits of private  
profits and power. Social justice must be the guiding principle of  
development policies on environment, natural resources management and  
climate change. People’s sovereignty and self-determination over  
natural resources must be honoured and restored to ensure genuine  
democratic principles in policy making.

Rural and indigenous women challenge unequal power relations and  
discrimination which have historically and disproportionately  
marginalised women; these must be remedied through affirmative  
measures by women themselves and by governments and their  
institutions. For societies to exist under social justice and lasting  
peace, our critical role as rural and indigenous women in managing the  
environment and natural resources must be recognised and integrated in  
policy making at all levels.

On World Environment Day, we, the women of Asia Pacific:

       · Emphasise the on-going injustice of imperialist control over  
our land and natural resources;

       · Call attention to adverse impacts of environmental  
degradation and climate change which is disproportionately affecting  
rural and indigenous women;

       · Reject market-based mechanism being used to address climate  
change, natural resource management and other environmental issues;

       · Demand that governments encourage local production and local  
marketing of agriculture and other products and thus ensure food  
security and environmental security to the people. Governments should  
withdraw from trade policies that are aggravating the effects of  
global warming;

       · Assert the importance of our roles as rural and indigenous  
women in the protection of the environment and natural resource  
preservation; and

       · Declare our commitment and involvement in the global  
initiative to work on climate change by asserting our principles and  
rights.



Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)
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