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THIRD WORLD NETWORK INFORMATION SERVICE ON SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE Dear Friends and Colleagues Reconnecting Food, Nature and Human Rights to Overcome Ecological Crises The COVID-19 pandemic, global warming and the dramatic loss of biological diversity are clear manifestations of the ecological crises that threaten humanity and the planet. The 2020 issue of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch entitled, “Overcoming ecological crises: reconnecting food, nature and human rights” is a rallying call to collectively resist the exploitation of nature and to overhaul how we produce, distribute and eat food if we are to regain control and radically transform our societies. To address the deep crises that humanity faces today, we must overcome the separation between humans and the rest of nature. Our food systems are a perfect entry point. Small-scale food producers’ organizations, and Indigenous Peoples have proposed food sovereignty as a way to generate a broader, deeper societal transformation, especially through localized, circular economies. Agroecology is based on food sovereignty, builds on the co-evolution of human communities with their natural environment, and is opposed to the domination, exploitation and destruction of nature in the industrial food system. We must place agroecology at the core of our strategy to transform society. A crucial step is to support the rights of those who know how to protect ecosystems namely, indigenous peoples and small-scale food producers such as peasants, small-scale fishers, pastoralists and forest dwellers. Women must be at the center of this struggle: in many places, women are subject to structural discrimination and exclusion despite their special connection to seeds, forests, and wild plants. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) and other international instruments provide us with an opportunity to put center stage the rights of peoples, groups and communities that directly depend on functioning ecosystems. Their management and production systems need to be fully recognized and protected, including their tenure and seed systems. The recognition of the human right to a healthy environment could be a promising entry point where nature is not just something functional ‘at the service of our survival’. Protecting human dignity is inextricably linked to preserving nature and vice-versa, and managing land resources sustainably and promoting local knowledge, innovation and practices are crucial to addressing climate change. Convergence among social movements is needed to strengthen bottom-up proposals for systemic change to tackle interrelated crises. With best wishes Third
World Network —————————————————————————————————————- PRESS RELEASE: FOOD AT THE CENTER OF THE RESPONSE TO ECOLOGICAL CRISES FIAN
International Changing the dominant food system is indispensable to reset our relationship with nature and overcome today’s ecological crises, argues this year’s Right to Food and Nutrition Watch, released today. Past and current policies have treated humans and the rest of nature as two separate and independent spheres. This artificial separation has led to domination and exploitation of the natural world by humans with dire environmental and social consequences. Within this framework, corporations and finance capitalism are driving the destruction of ecosystems, greenhouse gas emissions and the expulsion of communities from their lands. Tackling the ecological crises, the 2020 edition states, requires us therefore to reconnect nature and human rights. And food, where our connection with the rest of the living world is most evident, is the perfect starting point for doing so. The global economic and political system transforms natural goods into tradeable commodities and exploits human labor. This illustrates the close link between the way societies exploit humans and nature, but also how much the environmental and social justice movements must work together to find alternative pathways. This year’s Watch, ‘Overcoming Ecological Crises: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Human Rights’ is a rallying call to collectively resist the exploitation of nature and to overhaul how we produce, distribute and eat food – if we are to regain control and radically transform our societies. The 2020 issue illustrates how the profound social, political and ecological crises boil down to the same systemic patterns. Articles cover a range of issues from the role of industrial agriculture as a trigger of diseases like COVID-19, to how central land is to our responses to eco-destruction and climate change. The Watch also features an interview with activists and their views on veganism as one of today’s prominent currents to fight climate change. Among its highlights:
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Ecological Crises: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Human Rights’ Supplement OVERCOMING ECOLOGICAL CRISES: RECONNECTING FOOD, NATURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS Right
to Food and Nutrition Watch THE WORLD TODAY The rapid spread of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in early 2020 is yet another sign that humans are devastating the planet. The COVID-19 pandemic forces us to reassess our relationship with the rest of the living world in a context of multiple, interconnected crises. Global warming and the dramatic loss of biological diversity are clear manifestations of the ecological crisis that threatens humanity and the planet. Local ecosystems are experiencing unprecedented degradation rates. This situation is linked to a socio-economic crisis marked by increasing inequalities and the concentration of resources in the hands of a powerful few. It is also anchored in the destruction of our social fabrics, leading to migration, wars and famine. Meanwhile, the rise of authoritarianism and political polarization is exacerbating violence against communities and people around the world; and women and non-white-males are particularly affected. In short, there is a close link between the way societies (mis)treat and exploit both humans and nature. Today’s existential threats are rooted in an artificial separation between humans and the rest of nature, as evidenced in the beginning of modernity. This separation underpins modern Western thinking and action – especially since the scientific ‘revolution’ that took place in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It manifests most strongly in capitalism and patriarchy, as ways to organize our economies and societies, and to perpetuate inequalities. Indeed, capitalism is built on the premise that it can dominate and exploit nature in order to generate profits. As a consequence, capitalism has radically altered the natural world and continues to destroy ecosystems. The idea that capitalism may do with nature as it pleases is imposed on the rest of the world through imperialism, (neo)colonialism, and globalization. Today we see new frontiers of exploitation: through the socalled ‘green’ and ‘blue’ economies, nature has been redefined as a set of ecosystem services to which monetary value is attributed. Land, water, forests, fisheries and biodiversity are transformed into assets that allow big business and global finance to generate profits. Additionally, this illusion of separation is seen in the disconnect between international human rights law and environmental law. Founding texts of human rights are largely silent on nature, while environmental law disregards peoples’ and communities’ rights to protect the environment. However, recent developments in both human rights and environmental law indicate increased awareness and concern about the complex relationships between human societies and their natural environment. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) are important milestones: they reaffirm that people and nature are intricately connected. TAKE ACTION! To address the deep crises that humanity faces today, we must overcome the separation between humans and the rest of nature. Nowhere else is our interconnection more evident than in food. Through eating and digestion, nature is transformed into people. Moreover, food production and the availability of nutritious, healthy and culturally adequate food depend on functioning, biodiverse ecosystems, as well as on humans’ ability to cooperate with living beings – plants, animals, insects, and microorganisms. Food and its social and spiritual values are also crucial for our communities’ social fabric, and thus central to our human nature as social beings. Especially in times of pandemic, nutritious food keeps us healthy and enables us to respond to threats, such as pathogens and illness. CONNECT THE ISSUES Global warming, mass extinction and the COVID-19 pandemic clearly show that we need to reorganize our societal relationship to nature. All of these crises are deeply interconnected and therefore we must address them jointly, if we want to overcome them. Recently, governments increasingly recognize that protecting human dignity is inextricably linked to preserving nature and vice-versa, and that managing land resources sustainably and promoting local knowledge, innovation and practices are crucial to addressing climate change. Likewise, governments are starting to acknowledge that indigenous peoples’ and small-scale food producers’ agroecological management practices are key contributions to ensuring functioning ecosystems. These advances are chiefly due to pressure by social movements, indigenous peoples’ and civil society organizations. We must take it further! As social movements and social organizations, we must talk about climate change in our land struggles; and about human health when we fight for the protection of ecosystems. As individuals, you can join this global effort and help connect the dots by raising these topics in your community and movements, and also with your family and friends MOBILIZE TO PROTECT RURAL PEOPLE’S RIGHTS A crucial step toward overcoming the human-nature divide is to support the rights of those people and communities who know how to protect ecosystems. These include indigenous peoples and small-scale food producers such as peasants, small-scale fishers, pastoralists and forest dwellers. Let us not forget that women must be at the center of this struggle: in many places, women are subject to structural discrimination and exclusion despite their special connection to seeds, forests, and wild plants. UNDRIP, UNDROP and other international instruments provide us with an opportunity to re-interpret current instruments of environmental and climate law from a human rights perspective. This is crucial to put center stage the rights of peoples, groups and communities that directly depend on functioning ecosystems. If climate change and the rapid decline of biodiversity are to be tackled, policy makers and other actors need to create the conditions in which rural peoples can play their roles as custodians of biodiversity and stewards of ecosystems. This means that their management and production systems need to be fully recognized and protected, including their tenure and seed systems. You can mobilize in different ways: from joining street demonstrations to support indigenous peoples’ and small-scale food producers’ rights, to using UNDROP and UNDRIP as tools to engage local and national policy makers in the struggle. Recent advances in international law and governance spaces – like the UN Committee on World Food Security – also present new openings to bring together human rights and ecological concerns. Movements and organizations – locally and globally – should seize these opportunities to demand policies that ensure the health of ecosystems. The recognition of the human right to a healthy environment could be a promising entry point where nature – or the ‘environment’ – is not just something functional ‘at the service of our survival’. STAND UP FOR TRANSFORMATION Capitalism cannot continue doing with nature as it pleases – at least not without provoking profound crises that threaten human survival. There is no other way: we must radically transform our societies. Our food systems are a perfect entry point. Small-scale food producers’ organizations, and indigenous peoples have proposed food sovereignty as a way to fundamentally reshape food systems and power relations. Food sovereignty can generate a broader, deeper societal transformation, especially through localized, circular economies. Against the backdrop of an ecological crisis, agroecology is a critical proposal for transformation. Agroecology is a way of producing food in harmony with nature. This innovative approach builds on the co-evolution of human communities with their natural environment, and is opposed to the domination, exploitation and destruction of nature in the industrial food system. Agroecology is also much more than that: it challenges existing power structures and proposes ways to overcome the exclusion and exploitation of certain groups of society, in particular women, indigenous peoples, people of color, as well as peasants, pastoralists, small-scale fishers and other rural people. We must place agroecology at the core of our strategy to transform society. CONVERGE OUR STRUGGLES Rural communities are on the frontline of struggles for social justice. Social movements of small-scale food producers, indigenous peoples and grassroots organizations are raising their voices. They practice real solutions, old and new. More recently, new movements have emerged, adding their voices to ongoing struggles, especially for climate justice. Peasants struggling for land and seeds, fisher peoples for their territories, indigenous peoples for self-determination, youth movements to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions – each struggle is unique, but all of them are interconnected. This whole host of struggles constitutes the strength of growing movements worldwide. Achieving systemic change depends on our capacity to embrace this diversity, build strong alliances and make people’s voices heard in all spaces where decisions are made
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