Friday, August 04, 2006
Taking the Lead
At the 1999 UN Development Programme workshop on indigenous peoples, Fourth World participants observed that as long as Western society doesn't understand their need to protect the environment from capital interests still exploiting their natural resources, no resolution on development is possible. To illustrate their common philosophy, indigenous representatives from around the world made presentations highlighting indigenous peoples' spirituality and the special relationship that exists between spirituality and the environment--the spirituality that makes indigenous peoples particular as a group.
The sacredness natural resources hold in their communities and the constant threat by government sponsored economic interests, they noted, is what motivated the indigenous movement to work in partnership with the UNDP, explaining to the international institution how to own things collectively, "because it is the owning and the becoming rich that has been destroying the earth for the last few hundred years."
In essence, the indigenous delegates observed, "it is an unbalanced world governed by greed. Development as it is known today has perpetrated this devastation." "There is," they insisted, "so much potential for creating alternative economies on a local level, and indigenous communities could take the lead."
http://www.undp.org/cso/resource/workshops/ny99.html
The sacredness natural resources hold in their communities and the constant threat by government sponsored economic interests, they noted, is what motivated the indigenous movement to work in partnership with the UNDP, explaining to the international institution how to own things collectively, "because it is the owning and the becoming rich that has been destroying the earth for the last few hundred years."
In essence, the indigenous delegates observed, "it is an unbalanced world governed by greed. Development as it is known today has perpetrated this devastation." "There is," they insisted, "so much potential for creating alternative economies on a local level, and indigenous communities could take the lead."
http://www.undp.org/cso/resource/workshops/ny99.html
