1

We, the indigenous people of the planet, havefelt and always practiced great respect to MotherEarth. For us, Mother Earth is Life itself, andfor that reason we have lived during thousandsand thousands of years in harmony with nature.

Today our Mother Earth is seriously ill. PlanetEarth has fever. We have never seen before howsnowed-capped peaks and glaciers disappear.We have never seen before how thousands ofanimal species and plants disappear. We havenever witnessed before so many social andenvironmental disasters, each time much strongerand more frequent.

We are in a moment of history in which we mustmake decisions, before nature makes them forus. If the temperature of the planet continuesrising and we don´t do something about it, theimpact of climate change may have fatalconsequences for the planet, humankind and life.

We don´t have much time. We must act quickly.This millennium that has just begun must be theMillennium of Life, the Millennium of Hope,the Millennium of Harmony between humanbeings and nature.

For that reason I propose these 10Commandments to save the planet, humankindand life.

1To end withCapitalism

There are no doubts that climate change is theresult of human activity. Thousands of scientistsworldwide have spoken. There are no doubtsabout the terrible effects that an increase in theglobal temperature can cause in the next decades.

2

We already know that if global temperatureincreases between one and six degrees Celsiusin the next 100 years, it would cause thedisappearance of between one-fifth and one-thirdof all the species of flora and fauna in the world.In addition, the temperature increase would causethe flood of islands and coasts shores on whichmillions of people live2.

Global warmingprojections1

Predictions based on different models about the increase on global averagetemperature with respect to its value in the year 2000.

1 The model data used above was taken from the IPCC-DDC, and the models are as follows:CCSR/NIES: Center for Climate System Research & National Institute for Environmental Studies,CCSR/NIES AGCM + CCSR OGCM Models 1890-2100CCCma: Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and Analysis , CGCm2 Model 1900-2100CSIRO: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO-Mk2 model 1961-2100Hadley Centre: Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, HADCM3 model 1950-2099GFDL: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, R30 Model 1961-2100MPI-M: Max Planck Institute für Meteorologie , ECHAM4/OPYC coupled model 1990-2100NCAR PCM: National Center for Atmospheric Research, PCM model 1980-2099NCAR CSM: National Center for Atmospheric Research, CSM Model 2000-2099

2 IPCC was created in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programm (UNEP) y the WorldMeteorological Organization. Climate Change Report 2007: Impacts, adaptation, vulnerability 2007.

Predictions on the globalfor regions3

Now we all know that the global warming of theearth is an effect of carbon dioxide emission.Thus, we all know that the carbon dioxideemission is principally a result of the excessiveuse of oil and other fossil energies. Therefore,throughout the world campaigns are held toconsume less oil in order to reduce carbonemissions, to recycle waste and to protect theenvironment.

3 Hadley Centre HadCM3 climate model.

3

Relation between carbon dioxideconcentration in the atmosphere andglobal average temperature in the

last 1000 years4

4 Graph drawn by Hanno using data from different sources. For the temperature data, see Globaltemperature 1ka.png. CO2 levels are based on historical carbon dioxide records from ice coresdrilled at the Law Dome in Antarctica, published on the web by D.M. Etheridge, L.P. Steele,R.L. Langenfelds & R.J. Francey (1998) as "Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08,DE08-2, and DSS ice cores". In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. CarbonDioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department ofEnergy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.

Nevertheless, scientists are saying that thosecampaigns have not succeeded in restrainingglobal warming on planet earth.

We, the indigenous people, know that thosecampaigns do not confront the structural causes

that have caused the most serious of all thediseases that Mother Earth suffers. We know thatin order to cure Mother Earth, it is necessary tobe conscientious that this disease has a name:the global capitalist system.

It is not sufficient, nor fair, to say that the climatechange is just the result of the activity of humanbeings on the planet. It is necessary to say thatit is a system, a way of thinking and feeling, away of producing wealth and poverty, a patternof “development” that is taking us to the edge ofan abyss.

It is the logic of the capitalist system that isdestroying the planet, the pursuit of profit, thedesire for more and more profit above all else.It is the logic of the transnational companieswhose sole interest resides in increasing profitsand lowering costs. It is the endless logic ofconsumption, of using war as an instrument toobtain markets and appropriate markets andnatural resources. In order to gain more marketsand major profits, it doesn´t matter if forests aredestroyed, workers abused and fired, and essentialservices for human life are privatized.

It is in competition and profit, the engine of thecapitalist system, where we must find the origin,the causes and explanations of the climate crisis.

In Capitalism there are no objects sacred orworthy of respect. Under the hands of Capitalismanything becomes merchandise: water, growingfields, human genome, ancestral cultures, justice,ethics, and death… life itself. Everything,absolutely everything, is sold and bought under

Blue: carbon dioxide concentration in global atmosphereRed: global average temperature

4

2Renouncewar

Capitalism. Thus, it is possible for climate changeto end up becoming merchandise.

We must not fall into deception and deceit. Aslong as Capitalism subsists, its effects on climatechange will persist; as long as Capitalism exists,carbon emissions will continue increasing, theagricultural frontier will keep on expanding andtrash will continue flooding the planet. Let´s notdeceive ourselves: the ideals of a free and worthylife are incompatible with the way of life underCapitalism.

If we want to start a serious and sincere discussionon climate change we should know that it isabout the struggle between two ways of living,between two cultures: the culture of trash anddeath, versus the culture of life and peace. Thisis the core of the discussion on climate change.

In order to preserve the planet, life and the humanspecies, we must end Capitalism.

There is no worse aggression against MotherEarth and her children than war. War destroyslife. Nothing and nobody can escape war. Thosethat fight suffer as much as those that remainwithout food just to feed the war. Land andbiodiversity suffer. Thus, the environment willnever be the same after a war.

Wars are the greatest waste of life and naturalresources. We Bolivians know what a war means.After the Pacific War, in the XVIII century, welost our access to the sea. It was a war sponsoredby English companies established in Chile thatwanted the control of guano, saltpeter and copper.During the Chaco War, between 1932 and 1936,Bolivia and Paraguay lost more than 90 thousandlives. It was a war caused by the ambition of twogreat oil transnational companies: Standard Oiland Shell. We also lost the Bolivian Acre becauseit was a region rich in gum and rubber.

Those are the historical reasons that have forcedus to include an article in our new Constitutionof the State project that specifically states:

“Bolivia is a pacifist State, whichpromotes the culture of peace and theright to peace, as well as cooperationbetween the people in the region andthe world, in order to contribute to

5

War in Iraqand Global Warming5

• The total expenditure of the U.S.A.in the war of Iraq could have coveredthe totality of funds necessary tofinance all the investments world-wide on renewable energies until2030, in order to reduce the globalwarming tendency.

• The war in Iraq has been responsiblefor at least 141 metric tons of CO2dioxide equivalent from March 2003.This emitted amount of CO2 isequivalent to the emissions of 25million cars.

• If the emissions of the war werecounted as if they were those of acountry, it would represent more CO2annually emitted than the one emittedby 139 countries in a year.

• The presidential candidate BarackObama has promised to invest“150,000 million dollars in the next10 years for the next generation intechnology and infrastructure of greenenergy”. The U.S.A. spends almostthat amount in 10 months in Iraq.

5 “A Climate of War. The War in Iraq and global warming”, Nikki Reisch and SteveKretzmann.

mutual knowledge, equitabledevelopment and the promotion ofinterculturality, under total respect tothe sovereignty of the states. Boliviarejects all war of aggression as meansof a solution to the disagreements andconflicts between states…” (Art. 10).

Now, in the heat of the 21st century, wars aremore sophisticated, but the reasons that leadto them continue being the same. Today,nevertheless, we, the people of the world, havethe information necessary to denounce thewastefulness of resources destined for war.

6

The military budget of all the countries in theworld surpasses 1,100 billion dollars eachyear6. The United States is responsible foralmost half of this budget; Japan, Great Britain,France and China are responsible for 17 percentof that budget. Several studies show that justwith 24 billions of dollars per year (2.6 percentof the budget dedicated to war) the population

that suffers from hunger in the planet couldbe reduced to a half. Another fact: with just12 billion dollar (1.3 percent of the world´sbudget for war), reproductive health could beguaranteed to all the women of the world.

On the basis of those numbers, we, the peopleof the world, have the right to ask: how it ispossible to understand that with one handhundreds of millions of dollars are collectedto mitigate climate change, while with theother hand millions of dollars are spent inbudgets of death and destruction?

There is a single answer to that question: thereis no Capitalism without war; war is one ofthe great industries of Capitalism, the secondlargest industry worldwide.

Once again, we cannot fall in a trap of deceit.If we want to save the planet we must end theindustry of death and destruction; we mustadopt a culture of peace and life as the guideto solving the problems and conflicts of theworld; we must stop the arms race and initiatedisarmament to guarantee the preservation oflife in the planet.

We, the indigenous people of the planet, mustsay to the world that we believe that thesemillions and millions of dollars that arecurrently oriented to the industry of death,must be reoriented to a big common fund tosave the planet, humankind and life.

6 SIPRI Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World and regional militaryexpenditure estimates 1988 – 2006.

7

The capitalist system contains in its entrailsimperialism and colonialism. The dominationof others, and the control and subordinationof others are the ways of “living” under this“development” model based on competitioninstead of complementariness.

We, the indigenous people of the world, arethose that we have suffered the most from theconsequences of colonialism and imperialism.Not only have they taken away from us ourterritories in the name of the “civilization”,but they have also tried to take away ouridentity. They have wanted “to civilize us” asif we were animals without a soul.

Colonialism and imperialism start from thepremise that there is a world to discover, aworld to conquer, a world to dominate.

Over centuries, imperialists and colonialistshave wanted to impose on us the idea that theNorth is the one who must teach, and the Southhas to learn.

Colonialism and imperialism conceive adivided and fragmented world. They are onone side and we -- the rest of the world -- are

3A world withoutimperialismor colonialism

on the other. Over centuries, they have dividedthe world in two: a world of prosperity andprogress, and a world of delay and negligence,a “developed” world and an “underdeveloped”world.

Yet now appears that, faced with theenvironmental tragedy that affects the planet,we are “all” people responsible, the“developed” and the “underdeveloped”. Thisis not true; this is a fraud.

From 1860, Europe and North America havecontributed 70 percent of the carbon dioxideemissions that are causing the greenhouse

8

effect which is overheating the planet; the mainones responsible for the over-exploitation ofthe forests, the flora, the fauna, the water, theminerals and petroleum is the “developed”North. It is the “developed” North that hasbased its economic growth on the extensiveuse of the world resources and on the sackingof the countries on the South.

We are not going to step into the trap: it is the“developed” North that has an immense

ecological debt with the South and the entireworld!

In the world of the “capitalist development”and in the forum that gathers all the countries,the United Nations, not all countries are equal.

In the UN there are first class countries andsecond class countries. First class countriesare the countries that have the right to a veto.Of the 189 countries in the UN, a handful offive countries, in the so called Security Council,have the power for life to prevent anyagreement with a single vote, their own vote.

This is another example of imperialism andcolonialism in the heat of the 21st century.We, the indigenous people of the world, believethat it is necessary to indeed democratize theSecurity Council of the United Nations. Nolonger should there be members for life withthe right to veto. We all should have the samerights.

A world of nations with the same rights shouldbe a world where the differences and theasymmetries between countries are addressed,a world where inequalities between regionsand countries are taken into account, a worldwhere a differentiated and more favorabletreatment is granted to the smaller economies.

It is impossible to compete under equalconditions in an unequal world. Instead ofcompetition there must be complementarity.We must consider the characteristics, thedifferences, the strengths and weaknesses ofeach country and each region. We need to

9

4Water as aright for allliving beings

Without water there is no life. The fresh waterstock is falling worldwide. One out of fivehumans no longer has access to potable water7.Almost one out of three doesn´t haveappropriate means of basic sanitation. Of allthe social and natural crises that we face ashuman beings, water is the one that affectsmost our survival and that of the planet.

It is expected that in next the 20 years theglobal average of water supply per capita willfall by a third. There are three causes for this

7 BBC World. Global Water Crisis. “Planet under pressure” is a series of research articles onsome of the most important environmental issues in the 21 century, 2004.

8 World Water Development Report (WWDR) U.N.O., Water for people Water for life, 2003.

complement each other instead of onlycompeting with each other.

A multi-polar world is a world with neitherimperialism nor colonialism, a balanced world,without hegemonic centers of power, a diverseand complementary world.

disaster: population growth, increasingpollution and climate change8 .

According to a United Nations report, by themiddle of this century, and in the best scenery,two billions of people in 48 countries willsuffer due to water shortage.

Not everybody has the same access to water.Children born in “developed” countries

10

9 Idem 5.

consume between 30 and 40 times more waterthan the ones born in “developing” countries.The most affected are always are the poorest,since 50 percent of the population in“developing” countries are exposed to thedanger of contaminated water sources. By themiddle of this century the planet will have lost18,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water, anamount nine times larger than what is used forirrigation every year9 .

Acco rd ing t o t he r epo r t o f t heIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) organized by the United Nations, bythe year 2020, up to 250 million people in sub-

Saharan Africa will face water shortages, andin some countries food production will havebeen reduced by half.

Some regions in Asia will be in danger becauseof melting glaciers in mountainous regionslike the Himalayas. In Bolivia the great snowedpeaks are losing their white “ponchos” (capes).The Economic Commission for Latin Americaand the Caribbean has estimated the lossessuffered by the recent floods undergone by“La Niña” phenomena at 517 million dollars,around 5.4% of Bolivia´s GDP,

In order to face this global crisis of the waterwe must begin to declare that access to wateris a human right and, therefore, a public servicethat cannot be privatized. If water is privatizedand commodified, we will not be able toguarantee water for all. It is essential to considerwater as a human right.

We, the indigenous people of the planet, shoutto the world: water, as a right for all livingbeings and Mother Earth, must be preservedand protected from the free market and freetrade agreements; water, as a right for all, mustbe excluded from the World TradeOrganization; water and drinking waterprovision, as a people´s right, must be left outof the market and laws of profitmaking.

We, the indigenous people, are organizing andpromoting an International Convention onWater, in order to declare water as a humanright, protect the water sources and avoid itsprivatization and monopolization by a few.

11

An urgent task to save the planet, humankindand life is to guarantee water as a human rightand a right for all living beings.

5Clean andenvironmentallyfriendly sourcesof energy

Some data lets us understand what is happeningin the world with the use of energy and itsrelation with nature.

It is estimated that in year 1751 the carbondioxide emissions originated from fossil fuelburning fires was about 3 million tons. Duringthe year 2006, around 8,379 million tons ofcarbon dioxide was emitted to the atmosphere.

Nowadays there is more carbon dioxide in theatmosphere than at any time in the previous650,000 years. In 2007, carbon dioxideatmospheric concentration was 37% higherthan at the beginning of the industrialrevolution.

Global Carbon Dioxide Emission fromFossil Fuel Burning, 1751-2001

Source: CDIAC, BP

12

In just two centuries, a large portion of thefossil fuels created over millions of years hasbeen consumed. Since the beginning of the21st century we have lived the hottest yearsin the last 1,000 years.

The IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change,organized by the UN, hasadvised that carbonemissions be reduced by60 percent. GovernmentAdministrations such asthe one led by PresidentGeorge W. Bush refusesto hear that advice. Evenworse, that Governmentrefuses to implement the

Kyoto Convention that established thereduction of carbon emissions of just 8 percent!

And what can be said about oil? We are livingthe beginning of the end of the oil age. At thepresent rate of the petroleum production, if nonew reserves are found, the present globalreserves would last no more than 50 years.The only global oil reserves that are growingare those in Arab countries; however it isestimated that they will begin to fall by theyear 2010. An energy crisis of the industrializedworld seems to be approaching as never seenbefore.

As we all know, the price of oil has beenincreasing steadily in the last two decades,rising from 18 dollars per barrel in 1988 to

Atmospheric Concentration of Carbon Dioxide.1000 - 2007

Source: NOAA, Scripps, CDIAC y Worldwatch

13

124 dollars per barrel in 200810. In spite of theprice of oil been multiplied by six, carbondioxide emissions have not decreased.Everything indicates that this situation willforce the countries in North America to returnto coal production. In fact, the production ofenergy generation plants fed by coal in theUnited States has grown remarkably in the lastyears. By February 2004, more than 36 Stateshad planned at least 100 hundred new plantsfor electrical generation fed by coal. If halfthese plants start operations, we will have anew factor of increase in carbon emissions.

To this scenario we must add the productionof the so called bio-energy, which is not asolution to the problem of climate change;instead it might even worse things.

A report from the UN Food and AgricultureOrganization11 indicates that food availabilitycan be threatened by the production of bio-fuel, as agricultural land, water and otherresources are no longer destined to theproduction of food. This phenomenon isalready happening in Bolivia.

As all we know, the demand for corn andsoybean has increased very rapidly in the lastyears, since the possibility of bio-fuel beganshortly after the year 2000. From that date,the prices of those two products have increasedand, therefore, more and more hectares of landare oriented to produce them and less and forthe production of wheat, to cite one example.This has produced, as expected, an increase

10 AFP. Oil 2008.11 Report from the UN-Energy --group in cooperation with the UN FAO.

14

in the price of wheat and, therefore, in theprices flour and bread. The increase in theprice of soybeans has affected the price ofother vegetable oils. Poultry, cattle meat anddairy products prices increased also, since allthese animals are high consumers of corn andsoybean. In Bolivia, we are suffering the effectsof this chain of negative effects in thehousehold economy.

Today, even the World Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund, say that thepresent global increase in food prices is in partdue to the production of bio-fuels.

Thus, even a well-known newspaper from theUnited States, The New York Times, says thatthe “developed” world is generating negativeeffects, contributing to the economic crisis“through its’ support to bio-fuels" production.

It is necessary to add that a report prepared bya group of scientists close to the Nobel Prizewinner in Chemistry, Paul Crutzen, indicatesthat the application of fertilizers on the landdestined to bio-fuels produces great amountsof nitrous oxide, one of the gases that causethe "greenhouse effect".

From all these data, we were not mistakenwhen we said that feeding cars on gasoline isjust like taking away food from human beings.

Planet earth needs control of the excessiveconsumption of energy and the developmentof alternative sources of energy. Solar energy,geothermal energy, wind energy, hydroelectricenergy in small and medium scale are alloptions that we must promote.

The development of clean and environmentallyfriendly energy sources is one of the essentialtasks to save planet, humankind and life.

15

6 Respectfor MotherEarth

The land cannot be considered just a naturalresource. The truth is that behind the climatechange crisis and the energy crisis is the conflictbetween two different ways of conceiving theworld: one that considers land as a commodity,and another, the one we stand for, theindigenous people of the planet, that says thatthe land is the home of all living beings. Theland is life itself.

Today, our Mother Earth is sick, sick ofCapitalism. And like any sick mother, MotherEarth can barely provide shelter to herchildren12. Different research work shows thatof the 40 thousand animal species that existon the planet, more than 12 thousand are indanger of extinction. One out of eight birdscan disappear forever. One out of fourmammals is threatened. Three out of fourinsects are in risk of disappearing forever.

It is incredible to realize that we are living themost serious crisis of extinction of the livingspecies in the history of life on planet Earth.The rate of extinction of living species is atthe present time 100 times faster than in thetimes when there were no humans in the Earth.

It is incredible to realize that today there isthree times more fresh water in dams than inthe rivers of planet Earth.

We cannot keep on contaminating our MotherEarth. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean,research indicates, there are three kilogramsof plastic for each half kilogram of plankton,the fish’s food.

We cannot accept that the capitalist systemreduces the land to a simple commodity. Theland and biodiversity can´t become goods thatcan be sold and monopolized under the lawsof the market. We, the indigenous people andfarmers from Bolivia, suffer today, in oure x p e r i e n c e , t h e d a n g e r o f l a n dcommodification. We know that landconcentration in a few hands is the source of12 International Union for Conservation of Nature. Official Catalog of the World Union. Res List.

2003

16

all the social injustices and the greatest abuseagainst the land itself. To speculate with theland, overexploit the land and to accumulateearth can only take us to a bigger social andenvironmental imbalance.

The Earth should be handled undercommunitarian criteria with complementarityand respect. It is the society as a whole thatshould manage in a responsible and harmonicway the Earth and all the resources that sheprovides.

The respect of Mother Earth and itscommunitarian management is essential toheal the planet and save the life.

We, the indigenous people of the planet,proclaim that the basic services of education,health, water, communication, transport andaccess to computer science are a human right.They are a human right because they areessential services for life in society. For thatreason, since they are an essential human right,these services cannot become a privatebusiness, instead they should constitute thebasis of public services.

What is the world´s situation today in termsof knowledge? What we see, in countries and

7Basic servicesas ahuman right

1985

2002

17

regions, are small oases of knowledge in themiddle of great deserts of delay andmarginality. This has been, to a great extent,the result of the privatization of the educationsystems in the last decades. The quality ofpublic education, with a few exceptions in theworld, has been deteriorating. States have beenreducing their budgets for education and theyare concentrating in basic education andtraining skills oriented to production.Education, generally, and the right to writeand read, has become the asset of the richerand an almost unreachable hope for the poorest,to the majority of the population in the planet.

If we think about who manages science andtechnology on the planet, once again we findsmall privatized islands in the middle ofimmense oceans of exclusion, marginality anddelay. It is the large transnational companies,through a complex system of intellectualproperty, that pay and maintain the costs ofscience and technology in the planet.Education and knowledge in private hands hasone objective: to perpetuate and to reproducethe capitalist system that is killing the planet.In order to break the monopoly of knowledgeand put into the service of humankind it isfundamental to guarantee education as a humanright, and therefore, as a public service,accessible to society and guaranteeing thedemocratization of the access to knowledge.

Scientific research cannot be privatized. Itshould be developed by States, promoting freeaccess to its achievements, through free and

open licenses that have proven their scientificand economic effectiveness.

The human right to health under the capitalistsystem is becoming a dead letter. In the greatmajority of the countries public health is totallydeficient and covers a small share of thepopulation. Only those who have money canaccess to health services. Health is becomingmore and more a business instead of a serviceto all human beings. Big insurance agenciesand private health systems treat people likeconsumers, like buyers of some merchandise,and that merchandise is nothing less than theright to life. The situation worsens by theincreasing monopoly of drug licenses in thehands of a group of big pharmaceuticalcompanies. The financing for the research onnew medicines is not focused on the vastdiseases that affect humankind, but on thosethat are more profitable.

18

8Consume justwhat is necessaryand prioritize theconsumption oflocal production

Health is a human right and cannot be treatedlike a private business; it should remain andbe strengthened as a quality universal publicservice for all.

To d a y ’s w o r l d i s t h e w o r l d o ftelecommunications, transportation and accessto computer science. These services cannot beconsidered business opportunities, because apopulation without the ability to communicatewith each other will end up isolated andmarginalized. Today, in spite of the importanceof these services, the statistics indicate thatinvestments are concentrated especially inthose sectors that can pay for these servicesand generate substantial profit. The right tocommunication is a human right that must notbe controlled by big transnational companies.Society as a whole must take back theseservices to turn them into universal publicservices, accessible to all the population.

In order to save the planet, it is essential toguarantee these human rights to all thepopulation. A population without rights is apopulation incapable of protecting our MotherEarth. Therefore, our task is to guarantee thatthese services become human rights throughefficient public and social management.

19

13 Jean Ziegler, UNO The Right to Food.14 World Vision. Global Crisis: The hunger problem in the world. FAO, the state

of foods safety in the world, 2006.15 Considering a normal intake of 2700 calories per individual adult on a day.16 Statistics from the UN FAO. Economics, april 19th, 2008.

There is hunger in a world of abundance andwaste. Every day, 100,000 human beings dieof hunger13. The hunger in “underdeveloped”countries is the cause of 95 percent of deaths.Every five seconds, a child under ten yearsdies of hunger. Every four minutes, somebodyloses their eyesight due to the lack of VitaminA. There are 854 million human beingsseriously undernourished, mutilated bypermanent hunger14.

FAO studies indicate that current agriculturalproduction capacity could feed 12,000 millionhuman beings, almost double the current worldpopulation15. Nevertheless, we are notproducing what is necessary to feed the world,but instead just what the market and increasinganxiety for profit demand.

We must end consumerism, waste and luxury.In the poorest regions of the planet, millionsof humans die of hunger every year; at thesame time, in the richest region of the planet,millions of dollars are spent to reduce obesity.We consume in excess, waste natural resources

and produce the waste that contaminatesMother Earth.

To the climate change crisis and the energycrisis, the growing food crisis is added, whichis tied to the other two crises. Food prices havegrown 45 percent in the last nine months16.

Cereals prices have risen 41 percent; vegetableoils have risen 60 percent, and dairy products83 percent. The ECLAC estimates that anincrease of 15 percent in the price of foodincreases the incidence of the poverty by almostthree points, from 12.7 percent to 15.9 percent.The rise in the price of a barrel of oil hasincreased the production and transport costsof the agricultural products. It is necessary to

20

17 BBC World. Bio-fuels versus Food. LIDEMA, 2008.

add the effect of the natural disasters causedby climate change in several agriculturalregions of the planet. The production of bio-fuels also contributes to the increase in foodprices.

This food crisis is going to be deepened byanother factor: the free market. In 2006, foodexports increased eight percent compared tothe previous years. Nevertheless, per capitafood production just grew 1.1 percent in nineyears17. Food distribution is carried out moreand more according to the pressures of themarket instead of the needs of the population.

Big agricultural exporting countries havepopulations with chronic hunger. Theproduction and commercialization of foodshould be socially regulated; it cannot be leftto the forces of the free market.

Countries must prioritize the consumption oflocal production. A product that crosses halfof the world to arrive at its destiny cannot becheaper than that one produced domestically.If we consider the environmental costsinvolved in transporting this merchandise, theenergy consumed and the amount of carbonemissions that generates, we arrive at theconclusion that it is healthier for the planetand humankind to prioritize the consumptionof local production. The neoliberal modelprioritized agro-export commercial agriculture.Today we must reverse that tendency andpromote the development of productiontowards domestic consumption, especially asregards food and basic products. Internationaltrade must be a complement to local

21

production. In no way can we can privilegethe international market at the expense ofnational production. A report of the UNconsiders that the global market for basic food,such as wheat, is very sensitive to unexpectedprice variations. Therefore, the countries thatimport most of their food consumption aremore exposed to extreme hungers.

We cannot allow, for the sake of increasingproductivity, to generalize the use genetically

modified organisms. Nature cannot besubjected to the whims of a laboratory withoutsuffering the consequences of transgenicproducts in the future.

To consume what is necessary and prioritizethe consumption of local production is apriority to save the planet, humankind and lifeitself.

22

9Respect forcultural andeconomicdiversity

Capitalism has tried to homogenize us all intobecoming simply consumers. For the North,there is a single model of development – theirs.The neoliberal prescriptions from the WorldBank and the International Monetary Fundhave led to a crisis in the majority of countries.Nevertheless, the World Trade Organizationinsists on a unique prescription for all countries.The unique models at the economic level implygeneralized acculturation processes to imposeus a single culture, a single fashion, a singleway of thinking and seeing the world: thecapitalist view. Capitalist globalization thuscomes to destroy the wealth of life, its diversity.

We, the indigenous people of the planet, donot believe in a single solution for everybody.Human beings are diverse. We live incommunities with their own identity, withcultural characteristics. To destroy a culture,an attack on the identity of a community, isthe most serious damage than be done tohumankind. We, the indigenous people of theplanet, think that there has not been nor willthere be a unique model of life that can savethe world. We are conscious that we live andact in a plural world, and a plural world mustrespect diversity, which is another name forlife.

Respect and peaceful and harmoniccomplementariness between the diversecultures and economies are essential to savethe planet, humankind and life.

23

10 To live well

We want to build communitarian socialism inharmony with Mother Earth. This is our wayto live in the world. Our vision of harmonywith nature and between human beings isopposed to the egoistic, individualistic andaccumulation-based vision of the capitalistmodel.

We, the indigenous people of the planet, wantto contribute to the creation of a fair, diverse,inclusive, balanced world in harmony withnature in order to live well with all the people.

We decided to live well because we do notaspire to live better than each other. We do notcreate in the linear and accumulation-basedconception of progress, or unlimiteddevelopment of some at the expense of othersand nature. We should complement instead ofcompeting amongst ourselves. We should sharewith, instead of taking advantage of, ourneighbor. To live well is to think not only interms of per capita income, but in terms ofcultural identity, community, harmony betweenoursevles and with our Mother Earth.

We, the indigenous people ofthe planet , bel ieve incommunitarian socialism inharmony wi th na tu re .Socialism based on the people,the communities instead ofpublic sector bureaucracy thatputs its privileges before thoseof the whole society. In ourindigenous practice theauthorities are communityservants instead of people whobenefit from the community.Communitarian socialismprioritizes the interests of thecommunity instead of theprivileges of a few powerfulo n e s . C o m m u n i t a r i a nsocialism stands up for the

24

common welfare before the individual benefit.Communitarian socialism fights for humanrights, economic, social and cultural rights.

But the communitarian socialism that weproclaim, unlike other models that failed inthe past, not only considers the person , butalso nature and diversity. It is not aboutfollowing a unique development model ofindustrialization at all costs. We do not believein unlimited progress but in the balance andthe complementarity between human beings,and fundamentally with the Mother Earth.

We do not have many alternatives. Either wefollow the way of capitalism and death, or wetake the path of harmony with nature and life.We will continue speak out until real changesis achieved. Our voice comes from far backand across great distance. Our voice is thevoice of the snowed capped-peaks that arelosing their white “ponchos”.

Change is not easy since those that have alwaysbeen powerful must renounce their privilegesand profits. We do not have many alternatives.Either the privileges of those powerful onesremain untouched, or we guarantee the survivalof life on Earth. This what I say comes frommy own experience. Today, in my country, wemust choose between those privileges, or wellliving.

I know that this change in the world is muchmore difficult than change just in my country,but I have complete confidence in humanbeings, their consciousness, and their capacityto reason and learn from their mistakes. Ibelieve that we human beings can recover ourroots. I believe that human beings can builda more equitable world, a diverse, inclusiveand balanced world, a world that lives inharmony with nature, with Mother Earth.