Disasters and native rights
We wish to convey our condolences and sympathy to the victims of Typhoon Morakot, especially to our indigenous brothers and sisters who lost their loved ones and had homes, land and property destroyed. The same typhoon, named “Kiko,” hit us in the Philippines, killing dozens of people including indigenous peoples and small-scale miners, leaving more than 1,000 families homeless and affecting more than 28,000 people.
The Taiwanese government’s post-typhoon reconstruction legislation fails to consider the participation of local communities in rebuilding homes and regions. If anyone is concerned about rehabilitation and reconstruction after this tragic event, it is these communities and indigenous peoples themselves. Their survival is at great risk.
They should be part of every step of the decision-making process on matters that concern them.
The framework of rehabilitation and reconstruction covering indigenous territories should reflect respect and recognition of the inherent individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples over ancestral lands, resources and territories, as enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Taiwanese government should also review and reverse its policies and projects that contribute to and worsen environmental crises and climate change.
Government policy should not provide for the eviction of indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories through the declaration of danger zones in the guise of rehabilitating communities. If leaving an area is the only option because of the risks in staying behind, the communities must be involved in the decision and their consent must still be secured.
The government must first ensure that indigenous peoples hit by Morakot are safe and have access to essential services, while refraining from passing legislation that further marginalizes these oppressed peoples. Any legislative attempt to take advantage of this tragic situation to pave the way for more state land grabs and to locate government and capitalist projects in indigenous territories must be opposed and condemned. Reconstruction efforts must not sacrifice Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.
Typhoons, floods, droughts, extreme cold and dry spells, rising sea levels and the like clearly indicate that we have entered a global environmental crisis of catastrophic proportions. The global economic order and “free-market globalization” driven by imperialists and their transnational corporations is the root cause of over-exploitation and depletion of resources, environmental destruction and excessive release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, resulting in climate change and global warming.
Climate change is not merely an environmental issue but a question of social justice, national sovereignty and public control over resources, sustainable growth and human development. Mother Nature is now seeking redress for the plunder and destruction that humanity has exacted upon her.
Unfortunately, it’s not the monopoly capitalists and the ruling elite who bear the brunt of these disasters, but poor people — including indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples all over the world contribute the least to climate change given their sustainable natural resource management, their world view and a mode of existence that is dependent on and intertwined with nature.
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