www.paxmundi.info - Weblog

last week followed the talks at the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth in Tiquipaya, Bolivia directly from the conference website which provided streaming media reports of the major events.

I am hoping that in the future the organisers will make hard copies of audio and video recordings of all sessions available on the internet, ideally with English translations in Ogg theora file format and released under a creative commons licence on Wikipedia’s new open media website.

I am a regular listener to the ‘Democracy Now’ war and peace report, usually at breakfast time, I listen to the dulcit tones of ‘Democracy Now’ host the delightful Amy Goodman with my coffee and toast.

All last week ‘Democracy Now’ reported live on location directly from World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth, the daily reports featured so many interesting interviews and discussions during the summit. (more…)

On January 31st, the deadline passed for countries to submit their pledged targets to be included in the Copenhagen Accord, the 3-page document that emerged from the Copenhagen climate talks in December and set up an architecture for countries to commit to their own chosen targets, and
have them reviewed by an international body. The deadline has come
and go, and 97 countries have chosen to associate themselves with the
Accord; yet Bolivia, now one of the leaders of progressive governments on climate change, is quick to point out that while the countries involved may represent a large percentage of global emissions (80%), their actual commitments are simply not up to the task of getting us to 350ppm.

Bolivia and it’s ALBA allies, along with Tuvalu, Sudan, and a few other vulnerable nations, were the few countries who stood firm till the very end in Copenhagen when the unambitious Copenhagen Accord was being thrust upon delegates in the final hours. Without their courage and opposition
to the weak document, the Accord would likely have been adopted,
making it far easier for leaders like Barack Obama to call the summit
a victory. Instead, world leaders had to admit that this agreement
was not enough, and that we would have to keep working hard in 2010.
And what’s important is that the media reported this to the wider
public - while this may not seem like much solace, it’s key to
continuing the momentum of our movement that the general public
understand that we are not done yet. (more…)

The Struggle of Indigenous Andean-Amazonian Culture

by Hugo Blanco

Over the course of more than 10,000 years, the rich biodiversity of the Andes-Amazon region has created a culture that is closely interlocked with Pachamama (Mother Nature). This culture is marked by deep knowledge of nature and is highly agricultural. Ours is one of the seven zones of the world to have originated agriculture. It has yielded the greatest variety of domesticated species. This has given rise to a cosmic vision different from the Western outlook that views the creator as a superior immaterial spirit who created man in his image and likeness and created nature to serve him. For the indigenous cosmic vision, humanity is a daughter of and part of Mother Earth. We must live in her bosom in harmony with her. Each hill or peak, each river, each vegetable or animal species has a spirit.

Indigenous, collectivist mentality is strong enough to have endured solidly through 500 years of invasion and the dictatorship of individualism. (more…)