3 December 2023, Dubai, UAE – Indigenous communities from all over the world are at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP28) to share their stories about the losses and damage they’re experiencing in their communities as a result of human-induced climate change.
Pacific Island youths have been sharing about the realities of being at the front-lines of the negative impacts of climate change, including the non-economic losses and damage they are facing within their countries, with the most damning being the loss of their culture and heritage.
Today they find that they are not alone in their struggle, as youth in Latin America have shared that they too are at risk of losing their cultural heritage due to the rapidly changing climate and the impact it has on their environment.
Ms Açucena Marinheiro da Silva, 19, shared some of the challenges faced by the youth in her community, the Tumbalalá indigenous people located in the north of the state of Bahia, along the banks of the São Francisco River in Brazil.
According to Ms da Silva, her people and their rituals are very connected to river and the Caatinga biome, a large, naturally occurring community of flora and fauna.
“Our origins are very connected to the river, and we use it and the Caatinga to make everything we wear during our rituals. We cannot do that anymore because everything that we use – from the plants to the river – no longer exist.”
“As a result, the youths will grow up without this cultural heritage that they are used to, and will not be able to pass it down to the next generation,” she added.
To combat this, the Tumbalalá youth are replanting species that can provide them with the materials that they need to make their traditional wear for rituals, and species that can provide them with the paint that they use during their rituals.
Access to resources and finance is one challenge that they also face to implement some of the initiatives that will help them adapt to these losses and damage brought on by climate change.
At COP28, Ms da Silva wants to see world leaders and their governments to listen to the voices of indigenous people and traditional communities because they are the ones who are affected by the climate crisis and may have solutions that can help solve the issue of climate change. She also wants to see some concrete and effective outcomes coming out of the negotiations.
“We don’t want more words on paper. We need urgent action now.”
The Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion at COP28 is a Pacific partnership with Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia managed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).
The Pavilion was featured at the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change hosted in Dubai, UAE from 30 November – 12 December 2023.
To learn more about the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion please visit: www.sprep.org/moana-blue-pacific/