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Cali, Colombia – Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations biodiversity summit denounced the International Monetary Fund’s plans to commodify sacred whales for biodiversity and carbon offsets. Such perverse proposals have prompted many delegates to wonder if the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the Convention on Biological Diversity is not, in fact, the Convention on Selling Biological Diversity.
Roquin-Jon Quichocho Siongco of the Chamoru People from Guåhan (also known as Guam) with the Micronesia Climate Change Alliance was alarmed by whale offsets. “We face the risk of oil companies using whales as supposed sponges for their pollution. The United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, 41 countries and conservation NGOs are turning whales into offsets for the carbon market and greenwash. This is a false solution to our climate crisis and could accelerate the extinction of whales.” According to Siongco, “whale offsets could also potentially be used to pretend to compensate for the far-reaching devastation of Deep Sea Mining.”
The exposé SAVE THE WHALES… from the carbon market! written by Cassandra Smithies and available from Global Justice Ecology Project reveals that “the IMF wants you to help pay whale killers, including the gas and oil industries, not to kill whales so they can be used as carbon offsets, even though those very same whale killers also pollute and cause climate change, which in turn kills whales. Using whales and the sea for offsets and “Blue Carbon” form part of the colonialist Ocean Grab for extractivism in the name of saving the climate.”
Alberto Achito Lubiasa, a Eyasake traditional authority of the Embera Dobida People of Colombia of the Nussi Purru territory, shared that “in our cosmovision whales are our sacred daughters. To use whales for carbon credits and Big Oil’s greenwash is offensive to the Embera Dobida People. Whale offsets would make global warming worse and threaten our future.”
Roquin-Jon Quichocho Siongco of the Micronesian Climate Justice Alliance spoke out against whale offsets at the UN. photo: CNT
Adrienne Aakaluk Titus (Iñupiaq) from Alaska of Indigenous Environmental Network explains Indigenous Peoples’ opposition to using whales for carbon credits and greenwash at COP16
Adrienne Aakaluk Titus (Iñupiaq) from Alaska of the Indigenous Environmental Network explained Indigenous Peoples’ connectivity with whales and opposition to whale offsets. “As Indigenous Peoples of the Global North and Global South, we are connected through the oceans and the relatives who travel these waters. It is our inherent right to speak for the animals, birds and living and non-living beings, the oceans, rivers and lands to ensure a healthy Mother Earth for generations to come. There is a symbiotic relationship which has allowed us to thrive in our ecosystems. We demand a stop to using our sea and land relatives for carbon and biodiversity market schemes to allow business to continue as usual. We need an Indigenous-led just transition for the world to heal. This is only possible if we stop capitalizing on what is left of the ecosystems that have been maintained by our Peoples since time immemorial with little or no carbon footprint. Our peoples have suffered the brunt of extractive industries, but contribute the least to this carbon emissions crisis causing climate disasters. We say NO! to the expropriation of whales and other animals for the carbon and biodiversity markets. Be better. Do better. Our food security, ways of life and humanity itself depend upon it.”
Also from Alaska, Sonny Ahkivgak of the Iñupiaq People with the Anchorage-based Native Movement organization, noted that “it is offensive and hypocritical to believe that capitalizing off of the natural ways that whales live could save us from the climate crisis. The corporations and countries that are selling this false solution know that it is only a quick cash grab banking on the vulnerability of a hopeful people that know the severity of the climate crisis. It is also a strategy to continue to disconnect Indigenous People from our traditional ways as well as to distract and prevent us from being empowered enough to recognize their problematic and genocidal behavior. Coming from one of the few Indigenous communities that continue our millennia-long relationship of harvesting whales, it is heartbreaking to imagine a reality where we could no longer have our beautiful and respectful relationship with whales. That is why we’re all committed to building an international community to ensure the health and non-privatization of the existence of the ancient and sacred beings of whales.”
Sonny Ahkivgak protests carbon and biodiversity offsets at the UN
Tom BK Goldtooth denouncing the commodification of whales for offsets with IMF graphic of whales as dollar signs at COP16 in Cali, Colombia – photo – CNTI
Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director of IEN concludes “The Indigenous Environmental Network stands with the Colombian-based Indigenous organization, the National Commission of Indigenous Territories (CNTI) that was alarmed at learning that their whale sisters and brothers of the waters are being turned into a product of carbon capitalism. IEN is a global network that includes Indigenous knowledge holders that view the whales, jaguars and buffalo as spiritual relatives. Turning nature, biodiversity and all Life into “natural capital” and auctioning them off to the highest bidder in these credit trading systems is wrong. It has nothing to do with preservation and conservation and does not protect biodiversity nor save the climate.”