"We're sending a strong message to the next UN Climate Change conference this December in Copenhagen, Denmark, that business as usual must end, because business as usual is killing us," some 400 Indigenous people from 80 countries said wrapping up their first global summit April 24, hosted by Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska.

The five-day global assembly of Indigenous Peoples on Climate change, a United Nations-affiliated conference to discuss mitigation and adaption to climate change, was held in Anchorage, Alaska, some 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the Alaskan village of Newtok, where intensifying river flow and melting permafrost have forced 320 residents to relocate to higher ground.

Participants reaffirmed that indigenous peoples are most impacted by climate change and called for support and funding for to create adaptation and mitigation plans for themselves, based on their own traditional knowledge and practices. Indigenous peoples also took a strong position on emission reduction targets of industrialized countries and against false solutions.

Indigenous people who "have contributed the least to the global problem of climate change" are often "on the front lines" of the problem, said Patricia Cochran, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, an organization representing approximately 150,000 Inuit of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka in Russia. The council hosted the event.

"We wanted to have a unified voice, to be able to have more influence over the political and other decisions that are being made that impact our communities," said Cochran.

At least 5,000 distinct groups of Indigenous Peoples have been identified in more than 70 countries, with a combined global population estimated at 300-350 million, representing about 6 percent of humanity.

The majority of those attending looked towards addressing the root problem - the burning of fossil fuels - and demanded an immediate moratorium on new fossil fuel development and called for a swift and just transition away from fossil fuels.

Summit co-sponsor, Sam Johnston of Tokyo-based United Nations University (UNU), said southern Australia is experiencing the worst drought on record. The drought is occurring in an area of the country where much of Austalia's fruit, vegetables and grains are grown.

"It is having a dramatic impact on everybody, including the indigenous people," he said.

"While the arctic is melting, Africa is suffering from drought and many Pacific Islands are in danger of disappearing. Indigenous Peoples are locked out of national and international negotiations," stated Jihan Gearon, Native energy and climate campaigner of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network's Executive Director, commented: "We want real solutions to climate chaos and not the false solutions like forest carbon offsets and other market based mechanisms that will benefit only those who are making money on those outrageous schemes."
He added: ". . . one the solutions to mitigate climate change is an initiative by the World Bank to protect forests in developing countries through a carbon market regime called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)." He concluded: "Don't be fooled, REDD does nothing to address the underlying drivers of deforestation."

At a World Bank presentation at the global summit, Egberto Tabo, General Secretary of COICA, the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations in the Amazon Basin denounced "the genocide caused by the World Bank in the Amazon."

Tabo also categorically rejected the inclusion of forests in the carbon market and the Bank's funding of REDD. The World Bank's representative Navin Rai admitted that "the Bank has made mistakes in the past. We know that there were problems with projects like the trans-Amazon highway." But REDD, he argued, would not be more of the same.

However, indigenous leaders at the global summit were unconvinced by his assurances and the World Bank presentation ended with a Western Shoshone women's passionate appeal to the Bank to stop funding projects that endanger the survival of indigenous peoples.

"In Alaska, my people are on the front lines of climate change and are devastated by the fossil fuel industry," related Faith Gemmill, Executive Director of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL). "Alaska natives network and we are fighting back. We recently won a major battle last week as the District Court of Columbia threw out a plan to access 83 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf that was driven by Shell Oil. Shell has a long history of human rights violations, for which many have suffered and died, like Ken Saro-Wiwa of the Ogoni People in the Niger Delta of Africa."

Organizers said indigenous groups not only shared with others how climate change is affecting their communities but also share ways in which traditional knowledge can be used to lessen the affects of climate change.

Indigenous groups have knowledge that can help, said Cochran. That's because indigenous people have centuries of experience when it comes to adapting to harsh environments, he said.

Dr. Anthony Oliver-Smith of the Universty of Florida and UNU's Institute for the Environment and Human Security, who researches the link between the environment and migration, says the impact of climate change on Indigenous Peoples will be particularly severe because most practice subsistence lifestyles and share a deep connection with ancestral lands.

Prof. Oliver-Smith said: "Climate change will make things significantly worse for people with difficult lives already due to discrimination, poor nutrition and health conditions. Most Indigenous Peoples today live oppressed existences as minority groups within states. Climate change for them layers another potentially crushing pressure on top of many others."

Alaskan human rights lawyer and Summit participant Robin Bronen is part of a growing group of experts calling for an international legal regime to protect the rights of people uprooted by the creeping effects of climate change.

"Climigration"

She coined the term "climigration" to describe forced, permanent migration of communities due to severe climate change impacts on infrastructure such as health clinics and schools, and on livelihoods and well-being.

Their traditional knowledge contributes to understanding climate change – observations and interpretations by Indigenous Peoples of changing Arctic sea ice, for example, has proven important across a wide range of economic and scientific interests. Traditional knowledge of fire, meanwhile, is helping to create more effective strategies for year round forest management and reducing the risk of killer wild fires.

Interestingly, in a world's first, the aborigines of Western Arnhem Land have used traditional fire practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, they have sold 17 million dollar worth of carbon credits to industry, generating significant new income for the local community.

Over millennia, Indigenous Peoples have developed a large arsenal of practices of potential benefit in the climate change context, including:
- Traditional methods of shoreline reinforcement, land stabilization and reclamation;
- Protecting watersheds with Indigenous farming techniques; and
- Fostering biodiversity and the growth of useful species through planting, transplantation, and weeding techniques, the benefits of which have often gone unappreciated outside Indigenous communities until traditional peoples are relocated or their practices restricted.

Traditional drought-related practices used to hedge against normal climate variation include:
- Sophisticated small dam systems to capture and store rainfall;
- Temporary migration;
- Planting diverse varieties of crops simultaneously; and
- Using alternative agricultural lands, food preservation techniques, hunting and gathering periods and wild food sources as required.

Conference recommendations will be presented in December to the Conference of Parties at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. 26.04.2009