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‘The EARTH Does Not Belong to Human Beings; Human Beings Belong to the Earth’, Permanent Forum Hears as It Takes Up Issues of Climate Change, Land

All of humanity must work together to re-establish harmony and unity with the NATURAL environment by implementing the Kyoto Protocol and creating a global governance system that respected and supported vegetable, mineral, animal, human and cosmic life, Nicolas Lucas Ticum, a Maya priest from Guatemala and a researcher on the Calendario Maya, told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, as it continued its eighth session.

“The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), FOOD and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Governments must recognize the sustainable development that indigenous people have been promoting for centuries”, Mr. Lucas Ticum said, adding that “The Earth does not belong to human beings. Human beings belong to the Earth.”

The Kyoto Protocol followed the Maya tenet of balance with nature and all living beings as necessary for sustaining the well-being of the planet and current and future generations of mankind, he said. Global leaders planned to review the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, the same year as the thirteenth B’Aqtun of the Maya people -– a year which, according to Maya wisdom, would usher in a new era of respect for others, LOVE, solidarity and brotherhood. But that transition would require a spiritual strength that humanity had so far wasted at its own peril.

He said that most Western countries had embraced dogmatic, egoistic approaches to commerce and trade that had gradually eroded the quality of life of most people, destroying the planet’s biological, linguistic and cultural diversity, its ecosystems and genetic heritage. That line of thinking, which had caused climate change and mass-scale environmental degradation, must change. He called on the Commission on Sustainable Development to review and adapt concepts about the environment, natural resources, development and economics, INCLUDING those based on the age-old experience of indigenous people. And he called on all people to care for the planet by building sustainable development alliances and strategies, and on the scientific and research community to “recognize the spiritual dimensions of human beings, the connection and interconnectedness of all the elements of the universe and scientific pluralism”.