Friends of the Earth Colombia, Brasil and International
In Latin America, Afro-descendant communities play an important role in the conservation and
sustainable use of biological diversity. Thanks to these communities, forests and territories, cultures and knowledge have been conserved.
This recognition can be seen as an evolution that also entails the recognition, reparation, respect, implementation and defence of their rights. At first and thanks to their struggles, Indigenous Peoples have obtained a status at the international level. Peasant communities managed to obtain a declaration recognising their rights after years of intense work at the United Nations (which should also be reflected in the CBD). Afro-descendant communities have made similar achievements in some countries and their emancipatory struggles in the face of the dehumanisation of colonialism and the enslavement of the peoples of the African continent are historic in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Today in countries such as Costa Rica a day is dedicated to the celebration of their culture, in Honduras the role they play in the protection of biodiversity and in science and technology is undeniable, and Colombia and Brazil have presented a proposal to recognise them as subjects of rights within the framework of the CBD. However, beyond this legal recognition, social movements and organisations in the region, such as the Proceso de Comunidades Negras in Colombia, have historically demanded ‘the recognition of environmental damages and losses as a legacy of colonialism and enslavement’.
Such a step is sorely needed because acknowledgements at the national level are not enough. Their role, although more visible at the national level, is fundamental for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity at the global level. This recognition is fundamental for the recognition and respect of their lands and territories, their culture, their forms of organisation, their collective rights, their ways of being and existing, their memory and spirituality. This recognition is also important to safeguard them against the criminalisation they have been suffering when defending their rights and their lands, including religious racism.
Is necesary to take a further step that will benefit us as a global society. The recognition of communities that, thanks to their culture, identity and daily activities, show us once again that without them, today's biological diversity would be less. This is about justice, reparation and strengthening ancestral practices that have nurtured life.
Afro-descendant communi-ties deserve this recognition, which will help to make the human and peoples' rights approach more and more a reality.