Declaration by the Movement of Victims and those Affected by Climate Change (MOVIAC) in Guatemala


Climate March in Guatemala

Iximulew, Guatemala

We are men and women, campesinos and Indigenous peoples, originating from different regions of the country who make up the Movement of Victims and those Affected by Climate Change (MOVIAC). To the government representatives at the negotiations on Climate Change (COP21) taking place in Paris, France, we deliver the following message.

Considering:

  • That the current crisis in not only related to global warming, it is also a socio–economic, cultural and ethical crisis. It is a crisis that has its origins in a neo-liberal capitalist system that is based on an extractivist model of production and consumption, predatory of natural resources through large multilateral corporations.
  • That it generates discrimination and violence in peoples, especially against women, sovereignty, natural heritage as well as making it impossible to pursue existence as communities and Indigenous peoples and to live in harmony with Mother Earth.
  • The impacts of this climate crisis are evident and are felt through landslides, floods, droughts, threats to food sovereignty among other manifestations. To address this crisis, we believe that a system change is necessary that radically changes our patterns of production and consumption, and has as its central objective the protection of the environment as a way of making possible the sustainability of life.

We declare that:

  • We continue to be the principle victims of this model of development that is imposed by international organizations, transnational companies and the most destructive and polluting countries on the planet that have historically not respected our ancestral way of life that is based on harmony with Mother Earth.
  • This model of development has changed our planet and is proposing false solutions based on the commodification of Mother Earth, through programs such as: REDD, which is a form of privatizing and commodifying our forests, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which prioritizes hydro-electric projects in the territories of our communities and the expansion of monoculture, resulting in a loss of biodiversity. All this is promoted by the World Bank.
  • This strategy of the exploitation of nature uses free trade agreements as a tool to impose policies which are devastating to the sustainability of life.

For all the above reasons we denounce:

  • The displacement from our ancestral lands, the criminalization of our leaders who are persecuted by national security forces who act in the interest of private companies as a strategy of destabilizing popular resistance against land grabbing and exploitation.

And therefore we demand from the governments and their representatives at the Climate Change negotiations in Paris:

  • That they put the interests of Indigenous peoples before the interest of capital,
  • That they do not privatize nor commodify our forests to justify the contamination by the countries responsible for the climate crisis,
  • That they respect and apply the decisions of community consultations,
  • That they build and strengthen the campesino economy that values the ancestral wisdom of Indigenous peoples.
  • That the management and care of the forests remains in the hands of the communities.
  • Freedom for political prisoners in Guatemala.
  • For the defense of our territories

Don’t change the climate, change the system

Movement of Victims and those Affected by Climate Change (MOVIAC)


Filed in: Ecological Justice

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