Additional Information from Indigenous Environmental Network

This following information is courtesy of Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network

Attached are two documents that the Indigenous Environmental Network has disseminated to all the delegates and participants of the PFII 5. The two documents were information materials meant to provide talking points related to te PFII 5 theme of "Re-Defining MDGs".

The Indigenous Environmental Network delegation is accredited under IITC and part of the IITC delegation. Both IEN and IITC are sister organizations with IEN providing expert advice on environmental justice and natural resource issues. IEN is not an accredited non-governmental organization (NGO) within the UN system. For anyone to enter UN meetings, they have to register, or get credentialed under an accredited NGO. IITC is the first Indigenous organization accredited as an NGO within the UN system (back in 1970's). The IEN delegation had been in NYC for 2 weeks prior to the PFII 5 participating in the 14th Session of the UN Commission on Sustianable Development (CSD).

The CSD is the UN entity that meets every year to bring world governments, UN agencies, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs) and private sector together to make reports on how governments are (or are not) making progress in meeting targets and timelines on saving the planet - Mother Earth. Grasroots peoples and youth need to know there are global agreements such as Agenda 21 (from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and the Joint Plan of Implementation (JPOI) of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002 that world leaders signed on to (and where the grassroots peoples of the world need to hold them accountability to meet their targets).

As part of the US-based environmental and economic justice movement, the Indigenous Environmental Network had brought our local Indigenous grassroots issues to the global level, starting with the UN POPS Treaty (international treaty agreement for governments of the world to reduce and eliminate 12 toxic chemicals, called peristent organic pollutants - POPs) and later bringing an Indigenous youth and grassroots community delegation to the WSSD in Johannesburg, SA in 2002. Prior to bringing these Indigenous grassroots communities from the local to the global level, there had been many communities working through IITC bringing human rights cases to the Commission on Human Rights meetings in Geneva.

In 1999, IEN and IITC participated in the 3rd Ministerial World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Washington. This is known by activists as the "Battle in Seattle". IEN, IITC, and groups like Seventh Generation Fund, worked with other Indigenous groups to bring an "Indigenous face" to these so-called free trade and globalization issues. Later in 2003, IEN and IITC participated as "civil society" in the 5th Ministerial meeting of the WTO in Cancun. There are Indigenous statements and declarations developed at both of these WTO meetings.

Coming back to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)...... there is an Indigenous Peoples Caucus within the CSD meetings. The Indigenous Peoples Caucus is 1 of 9 Major Groups that formally participate in the CSD and have formal opportunities for dialogue with high-level ministers (governmental hee-haw leaders). The issues the CSD talk about range from water, sanitation and human settlement (at the 12th and 13th Session of the CSD in 2004 and 2005, respectly) to recent issues of energy, climate, industrialization and air/atmospheric pollutants at the CSD 14. From May 1-12, the CSD 14 on a "Review Session" of the topics of energy, climate, industralization and air/atmospheric pollutants as held here in NYC. The review session means NGOs, Indigenous Peoples and governmental leaders were accessing progress, barriers and constriants of whether governments of the world were making progress towards saving the world, by meeting targets and timelines of Agenda 21, the JPOI and the MDGs.

IEN and IITC have been participating in the CSD meetings each year, along with other Indigenous organizations. There is a direct link between the CSD work, that focuses on the environment and sustainable development. Much of the work of IEN has been related to MDG-related issues, especially to Goal 1: Eradication of Poverty and Hunger and Goal 7: Environmental Sustainability.

Taking from that experience, IEN wrote up some talking points for the delegates attending the PFII 5. These two documents are:"Millennium Development Goals (MDG): Key Points of Problems, Constraints and Barriers and Re-Defining MDG 1 (Poverty) and MDG 7 (Environment)". The document has already helped many PFII 5 delegates and grasroots people to better understand some examples of MDG issues.

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDG): WATER AND SANITATION

Millennium Development Goals (MDG): Key Points of Problems, Constraints and Barriers and Re-Defining MDG 1 (Poverty) and MDG 7 (Environment)

Climate Change and Global Warming Crisis. A Dilemna for Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS)