I talked to him about why Bolivia was taking such an uncompromising stand at the global climate talks, and whether indigenous Andean thinking could inform the world and help resolve its many crises.
"Bolivia is not trying to wreck the climate talks. We are only trying to defend life, the future of new generations. We must guarantee that we are going to reduce the planet's temperature by one degree centigrade, as the scientists have said. We didn't know anything about this topic and it's been scientists who said that [temperatures have increased] 0.8C, and we are already feeling the consequences. The Europeans have said we [must hold temperatures to] 2C but with the Cancún resolutions the same scientists are saying that the planet could have 4C temperature rise with disastrous consequences for us.
"At these summits the Europeans have said that with 2C rise in temperature, planet Earth has a 50-50 chance of surviving. We said, if a person knows that a plane on take-off has only a 50-50 chance of landing at its destination, would that person let his son board that plane? He wouldn't. That's the risk.
"We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We are being fed with the milk from Mother Nature, water. All animals feed with the milk of Mother Nature … as do plants, that's the reason why we work so as not to produce imbalances, we work towards harmony between plants, people, animals, we work for the balance of the planet. We have values and principles, which have survived more than 500 years. Among these values we could mention the tama. The tama means big family, that we all belong to a big family, and there is another value, there is another principle called la tumpa. La tumpa tells us that there must be a compulsory control among all of us. Read the full report here.
Source: John Vidal, guardian.co.uk.
