Amazonians in New York

Abstract

This article is the product of ongoing collaborative work over three years between indigenous intellectuals and western scholars with the aim of creating a new vision of New York as a centre of first-nation environmental and climate activism. It examines efforts of governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental communities and social movements from across the Americas as they came together in New York City to challenge consumer capitalism and the fossil fuel industry—powerful forces that drive the destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems. The article amplifies the voices of the first nation peoples of the Amazon basin, from Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, who spoke up during Climate Week in New York in September 2019 to defend their land rights, the Amazon rainforest and the Rights of Nature. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have taken a leading position in lobbying corporations—and the governments who support them—to rethink their ongoing extractive operations that are devastating national parks and protected areas across the continent. From a postdevelopment perspective, quoting directly from the voices of indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples in their engagement with the modernity of the city, the authors reveal the narrative fusion of the global and the local, the postmodern and the pre-modern. The article challenges binary divisions between the urban and the rural, the material and the spiritual—in an analysis of the confluence of Amazonians’ cosmovision of sumac kawsay/buen vivir, ‘life in plenitude’, and the environmental demands of climate activists and scholars of the Global North. This comes at a time when the ancestral peoples of Turtle Island (North America) and Abya Yala (South America) are joining together with the support of colonisers to reclaim the continent for themselves and for nature.

Keywords:

• indigenous peoples
• global governance of the environment
• environmental movements
• buen vivir
• rights of nature
• United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to the following for their collaboration and support: the Gualinga family; Alicia Cahuiya; Gloria Ushigua; Alberto Acosta; Mario Melo Cevallos; Leila Salazar López and Atossa Soltani of Amazonwatch; Lindsay Ofrias; Casey Box and Baily Jones of Land is Life; Clément Guerra and Scott Nylund.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linda Etchart

Linda Etchart is a Lecturer in Human Geography at Kingston University. She is a contributing author of Voices of Latin America: Social Movements and the New Activism. London: Practical Action/Latin American Bureau (2019) edited by Tom Gatehouse. [email protected]

Leo Cerda

Leo Cerda My name is Leo Cerda from the Kichwa community of Serena in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I consider myself to be a climate activist and indigenous rights defender focusing on efforts to build a more just and sustainable society. Like many indigenous people at a young age I had no choice but to learn about the struggles of my people, so I started working with local grassroots organisations to create awareness about the environmental and cultural impacts caused by the oil industry. I am the Founder of the HAKHU Project, a young organisation that supports community-based economic initiatives as a way to fight against exploitative oil and mining development in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I currently serve and work with many organisations locally and internationally bridging indigenous community initiatives and international support.