The Flax Roots Perspective
Interview in Dev-Zine, December 2002, Issue 3
Pauline Tangiora is Chair of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples and a Rongomai wahine iwi member. She attended the International Indigenous Peoples Summit on Sustainable Development that met in Kimberley the week prior to the WSSD. It produced the Kimberley Declaration, the Indigenous Peoples' Plan of Implementation on Sustainable Development and a Statement by the Indigenous Caucus insisting that the following sentence be added to the WSSD's declaration: We reaffirm the vital role of indigenous peoples in sustainable development.
Pauline was also one of six people featured on billboards, displayed throughout Johannesburg during the World Summit, as a practical example of a person involved in sustainable development We spoke to Pauline about her impressions of the summit and the issues facing indigenous people. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
WERE THERE PARTICULAR AREAS YOU CONCENTRATED ON AT THE SUMMIT AND DURING THE NEGOTIATIONS?
It's very difficult as an indigenous person because you really don't put little boxes up. While on a world basis they put this on this shelf and this on this shelf. However, within the indigenous sector we have noticed that the world has gone back over the last ten years since Rio. It's not for the best at all.
WHAT WAS THE ROLE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES?
Helen Clark, our Prime Minister, actually stood up and reaffirmed the place of indigenous peoples' in sustainability. The amendment that went into the final declaration of the conference in Johannesburg — the indigenous peoples' conference was responsible for this. Originally in the Rio Declaration indigenous peoples had a special mention and then when the draft came out they had been dropped out altogether. That really concerned us, they were going backwards. So, we lobbied for a reaffirmation of the role of indigenous peoples. You could say that was one to chalk up.
What really concerned most of us was it wasn't really turning out to be a sustainability conference. People were more concerned about finance, trade and globalisation and they seemed to have lost the whole thing about sustainability. Whilst we were allowed to be part of the so-called Vienna process, the pre-meetings involving the major parties of the UN, and we could be a player in that, [at the summit itself] you couldn't get very much further into the governmental structure unless you got at somebody outside the door whilst they were having a cup of tea. Those of us who knew somebody from the government from a country then we could lobby him or her. But the concern was, especially in the two days of the pre-summit negotiations, that it was really moving from sustainability to the trade and finance area. We began to wonder what it was really about. At the end of the day, we noted that there was a new partnership in the United Nations and that was the with the oil and trade companies, because the oil companies were doing an awful lot of lobbying. I remember in 1992 there was a lot of negotiating between sovereign nations — that didn't include Maori or indigenous nations, of course — behind doors. But you could actually talk about negotiating, having the documents changed. But in the current one at Johannesburg we noticed that there was a tightening with oil companies and big businesses.
One of the things we noticed was this New Partnership for African Development — NEPAD. Strangely, it came into being round about June/July this year... you noticed it appearing in many places where you stopped to talk to people and it was ‘the business' for Africa. It seemed to be prompted more by the big businesses who want to do business with Africa . And that actually became a very concerning area because Africa has very big problems. There's millions of people starving in sub-Saharan Africa at the moment, and you have these big businesses — European businesses and others — that say ‘it is for Africa' and they're trying to do big deals with the resources in Africa like oil, mining and all that sort of thing. And it didn't seem to be for the ordinary people at the grass roots.
In fact, walking amongst some oldie people on the streets and talking to them, one of the things they pointed out to me was ‘see all those beautiful buses there' — I said ‘yes, well you must have worked hard to get them all' -‘Oh no, they were brought in from Brazil'. And there were dozens of these big flash buses and they said ‘oh no, the government wasn't worried about them; the big companies in Brazil got the contract to supply the buses'. There [in Africa ] we've got these millions of unemployed people, they've got all the resources in the country to put these buses together. And it was the same with the cars — you saw dozens of cars running round, they were Mercedes Benz cars, but they were supplied by the German company. So, it just sort of didn't sound right and the local people at the grass roots, they were saying ‘You're talking about sustainable development — what is sustainable? Is it not trying to do something for yourself in your own country? Or is it making sure that the world multi-nationals continue to get their cut out of what they're doing? It doesn't bring a basic dollar for us to go and buy our food or give us a job to give us some pride.'
HOW DID YOU FIT IN WITH THE AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND DELEGATION?
I was not part of the government delegation. Maori have actually made it quite clear they do not want to be part. At three meetings about two years ago around the country - chaired by Sir Paul Reeves - they had said ‘we don't want to be part of a government delegation to give a brown colour to the government delegation'. Maori will find their own way to go over there and the reality of how indigenous people see things is different to what you see from a government perspective. And this is why I am very grateful for the support of Caritas, Rae Julian, the Life Bridge Foundation in New York , and the Disarmament and Security Centre in Christchurch and lots of other people who gave koha to get me over there.
WHAT WAS THE STORY BEHIND THE BILLBOARDS?
Well, it was an invitation from the United Nations group from New York to be one of the billboard people - they chose six of us from round the world to highlight our work. And when asked why? They said ‘Oh, we've seen you around for years, and what you've done in all forums, not just the fishing people'. My life has been the preservation of our kai moana , and also not only of ours but internationally. We've seen the encroachment of the multi-national fishing boats into places like Senegal, which we [Aotearoa NZ] are participant in destroying - factory ships fishing there and displacing small fisher people. Senegal . Namibia and other areas of the world - where we are in partnerships fishing out these waters, and traditional fishing and fisher people are being destroyed. Also the building of huge hotels on prime beach areas, where they cut off people from access to the sea and traditional fishing grounds. Like Hai Jai — where gas lines and oil lines will be set up, and people who live by going out to the two-mile limit, three-mile limit will not be able to fish any more. Of course, you destroy a whole community by taking away their prime food base, as well as their base that they use to exchange with others for vegetables and fruit in their local markets. We see this destruction. And also having been involved with these issues over time—the last 15 to l8 years.
So that was one of the reasons that the six of us were privileged enough to have a world interview, an interview with the press under the auspices of the United Nations. That's how we came to be there. And it gave us a little bit of extra access into things that we wouldn't normally have had. In all there were around 27 television interviews. My last interview went out to over 160 million people. And there were over 30 newspaper and magazine interviews/articles.
(The UN press release on the people featured on the billboards is at www.un.org/events/wssd/pressconf/020828conf6.htm )
HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THE WHOLE PROCESS?
Well, for me, every time I get on a plane, I think ‘Why am I doing this because I'm also part of destroying the ozone layer; and how do I reconcile that with the destruction of climate change?'. My answer to myself is that if we don't go and sit on the tail of the world leaders and the world trade organisation and businesses, and all those other people, then they will just carry on regardless. And this was what I found at this conference in South Africa , is that we have to be there to try and keep the world's concerns and poverty issues and lack of water/sanitation in their focus. Because I really don't believe that a government can go to do something overseas if they have not got the support of the people at home. One would question our own government process — how many people in Aotearoa knew anything more than the basics of WSSD conference! I've asked a lot of people and they've said ‘Oh, we don't really know much about it. The only thing we knew is we read in the newspaper you were going over because you were splashed in two of the big papers, and that's how we knew that it was on'.
ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC OR PESSIMISTIC ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED AND WHETHER ANYTHING TANGIBLE WILL COME OUT OF IT?
Well I'm always optimistic otherwise life wouldn't be worth living. But my optimism is cautioned about who makes the policy changes and for what reason are these policy changes being made. Because if you're a poor constituent and don't understand what's going on, then they can do whatever they like and say this is what's best for you and your country. This is where my concern is.
For instance the World Bank has changed its face to the public but it still goes merrily along its way and does what it wants to do. Even in Sandton where they had their big office, where they had all these posters about poverty and about climate change and everything else, but every day you saw truck loads of food going in there — beautiful food — while outside people were starving. Now, how do you change a basic conflict like that? You go into a country which is poor, has thousands of people homeless, no jobs; you say you're alongside the poverty and yet you turn up and you have truck loads of food going in every day when people are out on the street. And it's who gets within the confines of the conference. For instance they had the NGO Conference at Nasrec which was an hour away. Now, that is a very important way of keeping ordinary people away from getting at the governments making decisions. And whilst you do that, you cannot to me, say it's open. It's very secretive. We spent a lot of time helping people arriving there without registration but wanting to try and get in to tell the world their stories. We got in a few people, managed to get them registered even though they weren't officially registered, so that they could get in, because some of the terrible things that are happening in their own homelands are not seen up front in the world and need telling. We have a responsibility if we talk about a Word Summit on Sustainability — what I saw was a world summit on sustainable greed. People were looking forward to having their share. I mean, we talked about energy and how we're going to handle energy. Well, when we talk about energy it means the sovereignty of a nation to the development of the local and national capacity — you have to have a process of how you're going to deal with the energy in your own country. That's the way I think it's supposed to be working, but unfortunately we don't see that — it's processed by powers outside your country. That's where I admired the comment the other day saying “No, we're not going to set another hydroelectric dam in our West Coast”. We need to look at another way of sustainable management for power.
SO, WHERE TO FROM HERE?
Well, it's an important event that happened and it's important that grass roots people attend those events without being tarnished by having to be obligated to any government structure, so that they can actually publicise the ongoing destruction of peoples. I'll give you examples, just off hand. Round about 20 years ago in India the Bhopal disaster happened, the chemical gas spill — that hasn't been addressed and it has been covered up. We've also got the big dams, which have cracked, and they said years ago ‘you shouldn't build those dams'. And then the World Bank went in and started in 1993 the Narmada Dam Project and then they suddenly pulled out when they realised that it was going to displace so many thousands and thousands of people. That's one of the big things round the world – there are between 40 and 80 million people being displaced by dams for hydro. We've had the displacement in our own country down in the South Island of two or three villages because of the dams. Now, how far am I my brother's keeper? But if we are not there to support others they're destroyed. Who speaks out? It's the same with genetic engineering. We can talk about genetic engineering from our own view and what we see. People are now saying ‘Ah but we've always had genetic engineering' and I think, hang on we're manipulating words now. We had selective breeding — it's different to genetic engineering, and yet we're being conned to think that genetic engineering is great. And have we the right to impose and manipulate the words from selective breeding which is part of nature, as opposed to genetic modification or genetic engineering which is a science imposed on our children of the future, without knowing what the outcome is going to be? And that's where we should really sit up and take notice — what is our responsibility to each other?
It was very enlightening to attend a play on HIV/AIDS where young people aged 12 to l4 years talked about this. One became very much aware that this is a problem of the world but sounds worse because of the high African population of millions against the numbers of people in other counties — these young people also projected their concern of the misuse of women - the passing on of HIV by men who often travel and live in foreign countries. Sad to say many of these young people have lost parents or are carriers of HIV.
FINAL THOUGHTS?
The friendliness of the young Africans, the delight in being invited to Kalahari to witness the signing over of land back to the Kalahari people, the challenging meeting of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples and many friendships made - these are the memories one will have for the years to come.
Copies of the Kimberley Declaration, the Indigenous Peoples' Plan of Implementation on Sustainable Development and the Statement by the Indigenous Caucus are available on www.arcticpeoples.org (The Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples Secretariat) and www.tebtebba.org (Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education).