Fwd: can you help? - to protect sacred natural sites from extractive industries - and get support for IUCN motion 26

[elaine...@alumni.ubc.ca]

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

- Jimi Hendrix -

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Fiona" <fi...@gaianet.org>
To: "Info" <in...@gaianet.org>
Subject: can you help? - to protect sacred natural sites from extractive industries - and get support for IUCN motion 26

Dear friends,

This is to ask for your help - to protect sacred natural sites (and Earth's remarkable biological and cultural diversity!) from extractive industries - and get support for IUCN motion 26.

In just two weeks, IUCN members (states, government agencies, NGOs, indigenous peoples’ groups, scientific and academic institutions and businesses) will vote on motion 26, to define IUCN policy and influence the policies or actions of third parties on “Protected areas and other areas important for biodiversity in relation to environmentally damaging industrial-scale activities and infrastructure development”.

Motion 26 is the next step in a journey that started with bringing indigenous and conservation groups together to call on IUCN members “to assert No-Go Areas for mining and other extractive industries and destructive activities threatening World Heritage Sites and protected areas including ICCAs, sacred sites and other territories” (Plenary Resolution #12, 10^th World Wilderness Congress, 2013); followed by our call in the IUCN World Parks Congress Promise of Sydney to “…apply No-Go policies for priority sites from extractive industries.” 

Motion 26 reminds us that we share a universal responsibility for protecting Earth's vitality, variety and beauty; and highlights the immense scale of the impacts of human consumption patterns and industrial activity.

There will be more discussion on the content and wording of motion 26 at the World Conservation Congress in Hawai`i and voting will take place during the Members’ Assembly (8^th-10^th September). As you can imagine, there may well be efforts to block or dilute the intention of this motion - yet it is simply requesting that protected areas, indigenous sacred sites and territories, and other areas important for biodiversity, should be off limits for extractives (including open pit mining, underground mining, drilling and fracking, used to extract minerals, metals and fossil fuel). We need to stand firm on this!

We need your help!

Can you contact IUCN member groups and government agencies, and encourage them to vote YES to Motion 26?

• Check who is attending the IUCN World Conservation Congress - your government delegation, Ministries of Environment, National Park authorities, member NGOs - and find a way to alert them to the importance of adopting motion 26.  (1-page intro to motion 26 is attached).
• We will be sharing more news through social media as we get nearer the voting. Please share our social media posts and encourage journalists to pick-up on this issue (a couple of memes are attached - feel free to share them)
• Are you attending the Congress? We need a core group of members to help lead on this motion in the build-up to voting – more info on where/when we will meet, coming soon, but please let us know if you can join us.
• If you are not participating in the Members’ Assembly, please give you proxy vote to WILD Foundation or another organisation who will support motion 26 (remember you will still need to create an accreditation online for the Members’ Assembly – click here).

Can you share our workshop to your contacts and on social media?

Our workshop on Sunday, Sept. 4^th at 11am is focused on sacred natural sites, with the voices and testimonies of indigenous custodians from Hawai`i, Central Asia, Africa, USA and the Amazon. There will also be discussion on motion 26. Please join us - and do circulate the attached flier. Workshop #10217 “From Rhetoric to Reality: exploring laws, customary governance and no-go area policies for protection of sacred natural sites”.

best wishes, Fiona & the Gaia team

Fiona Wilton

Programme Coordinator

The Gaia Foundation

Resident in Piriapolis, Uruguay
E: fi...@gaianet.org |T: +598 99548567  | S: fionakaren.wilton