Rev.
RaDine Amen-ra and Rev. Denise Hylton participated for the first
time in these high level talks. Rev. RaDine Amen-ra participated with
drafting the recommendations to the Forum from the Indigenous Peoples
Caucus of the Commission on Sustainable Development, and the Women’s
Environment and Development Caucus along with Rev. Denise Hylton for sustainable Development of Small Island States proposal.
Thematic Issues of this Forum were: Water, Sanitation and Human Settlement.
Privatization
of water- spearhead by the United States has become a major
movement by governments all around the world. Issues relating to
water, sanitation and human settlement are indeed complex and
invariably inter-connected with all aspects of human existence- from
health to human rights, the environment to the economy, poverty to
politics, culture to ethnic genocide. A crisis of global
magnitude is looming resulting from de-forestation leading to
dwindling amounts of fresh drinking water. Water is a fundamental
life-support, which cannot be treated as a commercial commodity, with
supply and demand manipulated to increase its value and alternatives
that can be substituted. Water is a Public trust issue that must not be
privatized. New developments in international human rights law provide
a viable and enforceable framework for recognizing water as a human
right and indigenous sovereignty to water equity rights. The
Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Right of the U.N has
elaborated specific rights, the Convention on the Rights of the child,
the convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination
against women, the Protocol of San Salvador and others.
These
issues are very important to the Indigenous American collective for it
can effect how they will live in there homeland in the future. Water in
America is dwindling fast. It is estimated less than 10 years before
severe water shortage, Water shortage for the cities even less. Water
wars between states are already in process. As the stakes for water
increase so will the need to reduce accesses to it. The poorest
communities will be exploited for the basic water to live. In America,
those communities represent the indigenous American women and
children will be deprived , resulting in there demise.
FIAAH recommendations for implementation are as follows:
- 1
evelopment of Environmental educational programs- to reach our youth in
all age groups. Youth environmental education is mandatory for our
survival thru the future.
2 Establish partnership with UNEP, WIPO for information exchange, policy and programmatic engagement.
3
Recruit professionals in the agricultural areas to start looking
seriously at viable ways to integrate indigenous people back to a
agricultural eco- economy lifestyle.
4 Create a committee on
sustainable development outreach to create linkages to
organizations to promote the awareness to the educational community
concerning there investments in Urban sprawl . The impact the
Indigenous communities is creating for there own genocide., and ways to
redirect there perception and focus for our future survival.
5 Development of a Environmental trust to protect the remaining indigenous lands from State acquisition.
6 All people/ organizations interested in working with the Environmental Committee please e-mail revradine@fiaah.org also Forward background please
