Action in the Wildness and Warding Off Weeds
The week of starting 6th of August through till the 12th marks Conservation Week. The Department of Conservation is organising a number of events with a focus on outdoor recreation, from guide walks to mountain biking. There should be something for everyone! Check out events across the country here.
In Wellington events include a Weed Swap on Saturday the 11th of August. The idea is simple: bring down a problem weed species to The New Dowse Gallery, 45 Laings Rd, Lower Hutt, between 10am and 3pm and you’ll receive a free native plant. Some introduced plants have had a devastating effect on our forests, water ways and indigenous ecosystems. These plants are sometimes referred to as “space invaders” as they spread rapidly due to Aotearoa’s favourable growing conditions, becoming an environmental menace. One example is Clematis vitalba more commonly known as Old Mans’ beard, which belies it’s sinister, tree smothering ways with its’ pretty scented flowers and fluffy white seed heads, which resemble a white beard. This vine like plant grows up and over the host trees, covering the host tree with its’ lush foliage, blocking sunlight and eventually killing the tree.
To find out what plants are problem weeds go to the Department of Conservation website.
What are we losing? Language is such a fragile thing
When you say ‘Kia Ora’ to someone, and te Reo is not your first language, you’re actually doing something really important – you’re helping to keep a language and culture alive.
Recognising a language and speaking it helps raise awareness and encourages people to know more about the culture the language represents. A study carried out in 1991 by the M.I.T found that an estimated 3000 of the world’s 6000 languages are doomed, because no children speak them.
If a language disappears completely, traditional knowledge tends to vanish with it, and this can be disasterous for a tribal or indigenous group. The tribe itself does not always die out, but the soul of their culture withers away, as the young people no longer carry the knowledge of the traditions, rituals and practices associated with the tribe.
In the estimated 15,000 cultures that are still functioning today, there are vast archives of knowledge and expertise which are being lost. This knowledge is often stored in the memories of elders, healers, midwives, farmers, fishermen and hunters, who pass on their wisdom orally and through practice, showing the young what to do.
But as the world's tribes are dying out or being absorbed into modern civilization the world is losing their irreplaceable knowledge. Knowledge to farm deserts without irrigation, and the ability to produce abundance from the rain forest without destroying the ecosystem. In the Pacific they learned how to navigate vast distances in the Pacific using their knowledge of currents and the feel of intermittent waves that bounce off distant islands. The knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants that scientists today can only hope to rediscover. All this knowledge is under threat. It’s like a huge library of information that has been gained over thousands of years being threatened by fire.
Photo & information from www.survival-international.org
There are an estimated 150 million individuals that belong to tribal groups in over 60 countries in the world.
The greatest threat that tribal groups face is the loss of land. Although their land ownership rights are recognised in international law, they are not properly respected anywhere in the world. Often their lands are invaded by settlers, by businesses, mining or logging companies, by cattle ranchers, by private or government development schemes such as road-building and dams, or for nature reserves and game parks.
The loss of land is the start of a decline in health and the ability of tribal people’s to feed and take care of themselves. Facing extinction is often a reality when the younger generation move away to the cities and lose their connection with the land and their elders.
Following the loss of land, there is the loss of language and with that, the loss of culture. It can sound alarming, and unfortunately, for many tribal groups it is an all too familiar story.
Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa New Zealand is a good example of cultural survival and of a tribal culture that is thriving in the modern era. The Kohanga Reo program that began in the 1980s has been one successful part of a concerted effort to place te Reo in the midst of the culture of this country. Any good kindergarten or school will have Maori language as part of their core program. Our very own example of keeping alive a culture though language, is often a huge source of encouragement for other tribal groups around the world.
Have a look at how Maori culture is represented on the international stage by visiting this website.
You can be a part of keeping alive a culture and tradition by continuing to use te Reo in your everyday speech. Don’t lose a thousand years of culture, keep it strong, keep it alive!
Toku reo toku ohooh!
My Language, My Awakening!
More Info:
The Köhanga Reo National Trust
Kōrero Māori
UN Draft declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Within weeks, the United Nations General Assembly must make a decision on the long awaited and urgently needed UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Either the international community will move ahead with final adoption as has been urged by Indigenous peoples and their supporters worldwide, or adoption of the Declaration will once again be delayed due to the demands of a small, yet vocal group of states.
Survival International describes the Declaration as being “the most important advancement for tribal peoples in fifty years”. The leader of Canada’s Official Opposition has emphasised the urgent need to adopt the Declaration, believing it “makes a unique and much needed contribution to international human rights standards. It focuses largely on indigenous peoples’ collective rights, including land rights, essential to their survival, well-being and ways of life”.
There are two opposing camps on indigenous rights at the Assembly. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States (CANZUS), as well as the Russian Federation (RF) have actively opposed the Declaration. It has also been severely weakened by the actions of ‘the African bloc’ led by Botswana, Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria, who have proposed a counter-draft with changes in 36 places. Mexico is leading around 60 governments who support the existing draft.
Government opposition is believed to have stemmed from exception to various sections of the Declaration, relating to self-determination, the language used and the integrity of the consultation process.
Aotearoa Indigenous Rights Trust (AIR Trust) has addressed these key concerns in an open letter to CANZUS/ RF, which refutes all of these points. The trust states that anxiety over self-determination is unfounded, with the terms of the declaration not exceeding rights currently recognised in the ICCPR or ICESCR. It believes that the ‘ambiguity’ of the declaration has also been overstated, and that while the states have difficulty with the process of the declaration, they have been involved at all stages of negotiation and compromise.
The Maori Party of Aotearoa points out that the New Zealand government has not consulted with hapu, iwi or the Maori Party over its changed stance: despite its obligations to do so under the Treaty of Waitangi. In March the Chairperson of the Indigenous People’s Forum outlined a number of pressing arguments for the adoption of the declaration. As well as explaining that no new rights have actually been created, it pointed out that opposing states are violating their obligations to constitutional and international agreements.
We are now in the second decade of the World’s Indigenous People, with the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People coming up on August 9th. If adopted, the Declaration has the potential to have a positive impact on the situation of indigenous peoples here in Aotearoa and internationally.
If you would like to show your support for the Declaration then click here to sign a global petition.
For more info and ways to take action:
And check out this article by the Maori Party
Slavery - It still exists!
The UN, Amnesty International, Free the Slaves and Christian Science Monitor estimates that there are 27 million people enslaved in the world.
Trade Aid is currently running a campaign to raise awareness on this critical issue. An increasingly globalised economic market means that consumers may indirectly be supporting the slavery industry, or be unsure of how to make a positive difference through their actions.
Trade Aid has identified the modern day slavery system as consisting of people in bonded labour, people trafficked, child slavery, forced labour, marriage as slavery and traditional forms of abduction slavery.
Slavery is prevalent in the brick-making, carpet-weaving, stone quarrying, fireworks manufacturing, textile production, fishing, farming, football stitching, cocoa and other agricultural plantations such as sugar, rubber and other products.
“This means that slavery could be in the sugar in your soft drink, the cocoa in your chocolate, the rubber in your car tires, the fireworks you watch and the matches that light them”.
AntiSlavery International describes the ways that slavery is intricately linked to global economic concerns of poverty and migration and trafficking.
The New Internationalist highlights that the modern day slavery industry has been on the increase since 1945.
Population increases in the majority world, massive debt in poorer countries, and a lack of government controls on the trade and industry have ensured that slavery is booming. They point out a further element encouraging the growth of the industry is the low cost of buying slaves and the disposable nature of the humans involved.
In 2003 it was estimated that slavery was worth $12.3 billion per year with much of this tied up with international trade. The lack of ‘Northern’ trade association action on the issue, coupled with a failure on the part of the World Trade Organisation to introduce measures to block products produced by slave labour have also allowed the industry to continue.
The Trade Aid Organisation and FLO Fair-trade System see ethical consuming as a concrete way to challenge the economic systems and systems of production that allow slavery, particularly in the forms of forced and bonded labour.
By ensuring fair terms of trade to grass roots producers, engaging with producers themselves as well as lobbying for fair international trade rules these organisations believe it is possible to address structural causes of inequality.
Go to the Trade Aid’s website to find out how you can support their campaign.
More info:
Resources in the Dev-Zone Library:
China Blue is a DVD related to sweatshop conditions and the linkages between where products come from, and what consumer buy.
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy a book by Kevin Bales
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