From the ground up: building a toxic-free future for youth, peoples and planet 

Boozhoo – Aniin – Mino Gigizheb

I greet you all this morning in my Indigenous language of Anishinaabe-mowin. The words translate to “it’s a beautiful day” and it surely is. I am honored to be speaking here today not only on behalf of a significantly impacted constituency but also as an Indigenous woman. I humbly feel the weight of being the only speaker in this category and can only hope to do it justice. I am thankful to FAO and the CFS for including voices from the community and to the CSIPM, which I am also representing here today, for their tireless work that helped to make this possible.

Before I continue, it’s crucial to acknowledge the most vulnerable. As we all have seen, a forced starvation is occurring in Gaza as we see men, women and children emaciated. Their lands have been decimated – all biodiversity now lost, lands and waters contaminated and babies starving to death. I hope that everyone here and listening can lend their voices to stop this ongoing atrocity.

It’s important to share a little about where I come from to set some context. I am citizen of the Indigenous Nation – Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.  It is the land of 10,000 lakes and we are fishers, small-scaled farmers, gatherers of wild rice, hunters and harvesters of maple syrup. My family stewards 43-acres on our traditional homelands where we protect the health and biodiversity of the lands and employ mitigation strategies for climate change.

However, impacts are increasing every day and threats against the world’s biodiversity are numerous and desertification is on the rise. This meeting here today is a step in the right directions. I believe FAO can play a key role in streamlining Right to Food based initiatives throughout the Rio Conventions COPs and processes. At COP-21 during the negotiations for the Paris Agreement we saw a huge pushback to any mention of human rights, …on the right to food, language.

After 2 long weeks of intense negotiations at COP-21 in 2015, we ended up only seeing it in the preamble with very weak language – should consider human rights and rights of Indigenous Peoples. Not even SHALL CONSIDER! Not even binding to consider. And as the Chair of this session just shared – it does not mention the right to food anywhere. And as the current COP negotiations are continuing down this path. FAO and the Right to Food office are a champions in this regard and I hope in the future we can see UNEP follow in this direction.

We do have the solutions at our fingertips. But it is crucial that we avoid promoting and investing in false solutions such as market-based initiatives in the UNFCCC and CBD. Carbon credits will not save the planet. On the contrary, what communities are on the other side of those credits? How would they be impacted? What communities are being kept off their lands in the name of protected areas? These are questions we must consider before creating and implementing this policies and agreements.  Keeping those that have stewarded the lands for generations is not the answer either. We need more dialogues and partnerships centered in the communities most impacted.

We are also currently in negotiations for the emerging UN Treaty on Plastics Pollution including the Marine Environment that could be on the road to failure. We have one more chance in August at INC 5.2 to uphold and respect human rights, the right to food, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples to address the full life cycle of plastics. I believe it is said we eat one plastic credit card per week. This is definitely a threat to our right to food. It is important when we try to find solutions that truly focus on protecting Mother Earth, and really focus on our children and Indigenous Peoples, when we are looking towards protection and what our responsibilities are passed to the next 7 generations, we need to be looking that far to ensure any solutions we have are truly sustainable.

For example, Indigenous traditional farming practices offer valuable insights into adapting to climate change and promoting sustainable agriculture. We have developed resilient agricultural systems that are well-suited to extreme environments and can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and this has been proven over time. However, this must be tied to land rights for Indigenous Peoples, small-scale farmers, and small-scale fishers.

In my community, Indigenous food sovereignty is at the center of our policies and practices. However, our food systems are contaminated through no fault of our own. Our fish are filled with mercury, PFAS and other Persistent Organic Pollutants, pesticides, and chemicals. What good is the right to food if our food is contaminated?

Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge hold solutions and if respected can help lead the fight against biodiversity loss, land degradation and climate change. In this regard, its important that we move away from technology and innovation and back to community-led solutions.

A prime example of this is the current work to amend the Pesticide Code of Conduct to respect and uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Free, Prior and Informed Consent as outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I’d like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to Mr. Baogen Gu, head of the Pesticide Unit here at FAO, and his powerful team, as well as the Right to Food team. We are all working tirelessly to ensure this happens.

FAO has been a leader in this regard beginning in 2010 when they adopted its Policy on Indigenous Peoples, affirming the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the “highest international standard” in this area and FPIC as a “core principle”, and recognizing “FAO’s responsibility to observe and implement UNDRIP”.

But unfortunately, we have heard it undermined during negotiations of CFS resolutions as being merely aspirational as only a declaration and not a treaty. However, more and more legally binding Treaties and Conventions are supporting it. Indigenous rights are human rights and upholding these principles will benefit all people and the planet.

I will end with a quote from our youth – the youth from the CSIPM have joined with the Global Indigenous Peoples Caucuses from the Rio Conventions to share key messages and this is a summary of their asks:

“The CFS policy tools are people-centred, integrating the voices of the most affected constituencies, such as smallholders, women, young people and Indigenous Peoples. They are based on human rights, in particular the right to food. The policy recommendations are also evidence-based, supported by reports from the High-Level Panel of Experts. The CFS’s guidance can promote intersectoral coordination by:

• • Aligning national climate adaptation policies with food security objectives.
  • Promoting and supporting agroecology.
  • Encouraging sustainable land management to combat degradation.”

Let’s here today commit to take concrete steps towards a toxic-free future for our youth and to protect our peoples, lands, waters and food systems in a truly sustainable manner led from the ground up.

Chi miigwech – in my language it means, many thanks!