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11-20-2024 10:31 pm • PDX and SEA Weather
MLK Breakfast
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — They share stories of rising seas, burning trees, contaminated water and disease. But they also come ready to discuss solutions, sharing work their communities are doing to help confront a major threat to life on Earth: climate change.
For the many Indigenous peoples who attend the annual U.N. climate talks, this year being held in Azerbaijan, it's a chance to make their voices heard. Their communities are often hard hit by weather extremes that are made worse by climate change. At the same time, traditional practices make many such communities vital in efforts to combat global warming. After all, for thousands of years Indigenous peoples around the world have successfully cared for lands, finding a balance with nature.
The Associated Press asked 12 Indigenous people attending this year’s negotiations to say one thing about how climate change is impacting their community, or how their community is helping to combat climate change. Here are their reflections:
“When I was a child, we had a lot of snow. We played in it. We made labyrinths with it. Now we don’t have much snow.”
“As a young Mapuche, I denounce the contamination of my home of Ranco Lake in southern Chile. I live on the third largest lake, on an island in the middle of it, and we do not have drinking water.”
“We have a connection, like an energy, with the lakes, with the water in general. We have a connection with fire, we have a connection with the the air and other things that you in the Occident don't have a connection with. So, we have solutions for climate change.”
“We have been in a drought since I was born. We have been in extreme drought the last 30 years and completely surrounded by wildfires.”
“Sea level rise is eating us up. It threatens our food security, contaminates our water source, infrastructure is destroyed and the increase in gender-based violence goes sky high.”
“Think about the Amazon. You have trees and rivers, and then you see the rivers, which are the mode of transport for many people, drying up.”
“As ethnic people in the area, we don’t destroy any natural beauty. We don’t cut trees. We plant them.”
“Right now we are experiencing the biggest floods we have ever had. Two million people have been displaced and thousands are dead.”
“The main work we do is to raise awareness among people to stop deforestation. But we are also restoring degraded areas by planting trees. And we are working very hard to strengthen the spirituality of our people by restoring the sources of the rivers and repopulating the streams and rivers."
“My place is located in one of the remotest places in Papua New Guinea, where there are mining activities. Especially when mining activities are involved, my area is being impacted by climate change when it comes to the environment — the land, the water, the resources, the food and forests — that sustains our livelihood."
“The community (of pastoralists) contributes to combatting the effects of climate change. When moving from one place to another, we leave cow dung that allows the soil to be fertilized and the ecosystem to regenerate."
“Heavy rainfall is affecting wildlife. Now the government is making a lot of effort to protect and preserve wildlife.”
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org
