Global Justice Sheffield are holding a public meeting:
Thursday, October 17th 2024, 7.15-9.00 pm
at Central United Reformed Church, Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JB
“Indigenous Peoples vs False Solutions to the climate and environmental crises”
with speaker Callum Russell, an on-location activist for Survival International, the solidarity campaign for indigenous tribal peoples.
Indigenous peoples make up just 6% the world’s population, but they
safeguard huge areas of the world’s biodiversity, and have been shown to
be by far its best guardians. They also play a vital role in controlling
climate change, by defending the world’s carbon-absorbing forests and
grasslands against extractive industries – including for some unthinking
global-North Green New Deals!
In fact some of the most urgent and overlooked issues facing Indigenous
peoples today centre around the industrial world’s false solutions to the
climate and environmental crises. Indigenous peoples are bearing the
brunt of these false solutions, which are devastating their territories and
usurping their custodianship of the planet’s green and blue spaces.
In Indonesia, for example, the Hongana Manyawa people are facing
annihilation from nickel mining in their rainforest, nickel which is destined
for electric car batteries. Meanwhile, from Tanzania to Cambodia,
Indigenous peoples are being abused and restricted from their lands in
the name of “conservation” and “carbon offsetting”, while so called
“sustainable” logging and trophy hunting is being actively encouraged.
It is a cruel irony that, in response to marches on the streets for a Green
New Deal, the market system has produced false solutions which target
Indigenous peoples who are defending the green lungs of our Earth.
Our speaker Callum Russell is the Asia Research and Advocacy Officer in
the Indigenous rights organisation Survival International. Callum helps
to coordinate Survival’s campaigns for the rights of uncontacted peoples
in Asia. He works closely with the Hongana Manyawa people in
Indonesia, who face annihilation from nickel mining in their rainforest,
nickel destined for electric car batteries.
The public meeting will be preceeded by our AGM, 6.30-7.15 pm.
