PLENARY - Conclusions of the parallel rooms, Science Session - CUMIPAZ 2017

Moderators of the Tables

First Table

Alejandra Calderón (Bolivia)

Indigenous scientific, technological and ancestral knowledge applied to the ecological balance of Mother Earth.

Second Table

Pedro Marques (Brazil)

Preservation of water resources through scientific and technological advances, and the vision of indigenous peoples.

 

Third Table

Manuel Díaz (Venezuela)

New proposals to curb the impact and adaptation to climate change.

 

Fourth Table

Andrea Brusco (UN)

Integral health for peace, happiness and preservation of life.

 

Fifth Table

Dr. Ángel Sánchez (Mexico)

Integral health for peace, happiness and preservation of life.

 

Sixth Table

Adriana Zacarías (Mexico - UNEP)

Quality and responsible production of food to guarantee life.

 

MODERATOR of the Plenary

Manuel Díaz

While we formally settle, we want to greet all the attendees present and the thousands of people who are watching us online.

The organizers of the CUMIPAZ want to share with all of us that in the latest social network updates, at this moment CUMIPAZ is in the Twitter trending topic. With more than 10,000 tweets to the Summit, it has positioned itself in 6th place within the trends of the day of Panama (and that was a few minutes ago, that is to say that from the 6th, we must be up to the 5th).

We are going to invite the first moderator, Alejandra Calderón, from Bolivia, to give the conclusions of Indigenous technological and ancestral scientific knowledge, applied to the ecological balance of Mother Earth. We will have about 2 minutes for a brief reflection, summary, which will allow the work commissions to finish the excellent work that each of the tables has had. So, we invite Alejandra Calderón please.

 

Table 1

Moderator Alejandra Calderón

Good afternoon. Good afternoon to the authorities, representatives from the different countries; especially director Lara for the opportunity to be here present and the opportunity of, this time, to moderate one of the tables, which I think has had a very interesting subject; that relation there is between scientific, technological knowledge, with the ancestral knowledge, with the traditional knowledge.

There were several reflections, but I allow myself to summarize what I consider most important.

The human being interconnected with the Earth makes part of biodiversity, the indigenous peoples are the richness of that biodiversity, where they emphasize life but with respect: respect for their identity, respect for traditional knowledge.

Undoubtedly, scientific knowledge plays an elementary role in the advances that are currently being made; however, there is still a long way to go and there is still a need to work on this greater recognition and greater interconnection; and it is that our work table came up with a proposal: Why don’t we form or why don’t we create a Good Citizen Manual? We would summarize many actions.

If we had a good role as people, as citizens, before our environment: how we live, how we develop our day to day, how we behave; if we had a little bit more respect for our environment and each of us had a greater value added in our life; logically our situation, our daily living, would not manifest what is currently happening.

That is how two fundamental points are proposed, as the essence of the human being is integrated in biodiversity, the essence of that ancestral knowledge that does not stop being fundamental, that does not stop being important in each one of the achievements that they have had and that continue to have.

And from now let’s begin to work on ourselves and in our environment, to improve ourselves as people; to improve ourselves so that our relationships help to improve our peace, improve our lives, improve our actions with the environment. Thank you very much.

 

MODERATOR

Excellent participation from Table number 1. Now we are going to call Pedro Márques for table number 2, which is The preservation of water resources through scientific and technological advances in the vision of indigenous peoples. Pedro Márques, from Brazil.

 

Table 2

Moderator Pedro Márques

Good afternoon. In our session we see that water is multidimensional, it is the protagonist of life and the community of life. In the indigenous worldview we must take into consideration the respect and harmony with the water and the whole environment that we are a part of; that we must practice daily with those values of respect and harmony to guarantee an ecological integrity and the integrity of life of the preservation of water; the big challenge is how to take care of it, how to handle it on a daily basis.

And we also bring the importance of scientific analysis, the value, the technical, the scientific and, most importantly, of how to integrate all these perceptions in order to create an integrated perspective that enables significant advances in favor of water and of all the community of life. Thank you very much.

 

MODERATOR

Now we are going to call the Table number 3: New proposals to stop the impact and adaptation to climate change. I had the honor of being the moderator for this Table (so, I will remain here on the podium).

 

Table 3

Moderator Manuel Díaz

Undoubtedly, it was a Table, a luxury panel, that was able to address one of the most complex issues in ecology, such as the fight against climate change and, above all, address all the issues of mitigation and adaptability, and all the alternatives, all of the the innovations that after the COP21 of the Paris Agreement, which we will go into more detail in the COP23, and that undoubtedly all the proposals that come from here must be enriched to make them reach the most important international organizations to continue addressing this fight of climate change.

That has an important vision from our inspiration, Dr. William Soto Santiago, when he included that indigenous representatives participate in all the tables; and that position of that connection is not even to be involved anymore, that participation of our indigenous representatives who are here in America, has been very pleasant because you see a work where there is representation, and that they have to be more visible at the normative level, at the level of the proposals, of their culture and to return to those origins that really are those who know how to fight, the indigenous peoples, with the issue of climate change.

And there was a fundamental issue, which is the energy issue: we declare ⏤as we know⏤ this energy transition, with all the renewable energies that have to do with solar panels, solar energy, biomass, wind energy, energy that has to do with the oceans, all the alternatives also what is presented to us, to shore up solutions of products and services; all the alternatives that are presented to us, to shore up product and service solutions; and, above all, the great challenges that lie between 2030 and 2050, to prop up an irruption that really allows a global environmental management where we fight on the climate change struggle, but that there are demonstrations of a friendly vision with all this issue of renewable energy.

There is a process of awareness of what are alternative energies, renewable energies. Undoubtedly, it is clear here that we are going to promote with criteria of financing, with criteria of projects, with criteria of the help of the regional, international and world organisms, because there are important funds for all our countries, that sometimes are lost because the projects to shore up these solutions are not elaborated.

In this way there is a clarity of research on environmental issues and technological issues, which we will undoubtedly go into more detail with the conclusions that we will turn in in its due time.

 

MODERATOR

Table 4 to continue. The 4th parallel table was extraordinary, there we participated as a listener of The integral health for peace, happiness and preservation of life, and the extraordinary representative arrived just in time from the United Nations for the region, Andrea Brusco, we give you the floor.

 

Table 4

Moderator Andrea Brusco

Thank you very much. It was an honor for me to have shared this table, where we made a very nice trip all the way from California, where we learned about scientific studies that tell us about that synchronization, the existing alignment, which is scientifically demonstrated amongst the rhythms of nature and our rhythms, of our lives; and that coherence that we mostly do not see but that is within the individual, social, and global.

We went down on this river towards the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, where Kogui the spiritual leader of the people spoke to us about the laws of nature and of life, which are not in codes nor manuals, rather are in gold, in water, in rocks, and of how our life is indissolubly linked and depends of on what surrounds us.

We ended up in Brazil, where we learned about ecopsychology and of how we can explain, from the modern way of thinking, this existing suppression of that natural bond we have with nature and of how we can be in charge of that, how we can recognize the rupture there has been between our natural mandate of being part of and being linked indissolubly to nature, and the world many of us are embarked upon, where unfortunately that relationship is not clearly seen and we pursue life models that alienates us from that natural mandate.

In that very fluid and nice journey, we could talk about transformations, we talked about reconciliations, we talked about utopias and of how the utopia allows us to continue believing in a profound change of the dominant ways of living.

Obviously what I am saying does not reflect in the slightest way the richness of what we could listen to and share at the Table, so I am sorry to the speakers and everyone who participated. I want to simply tell you we have had a wonderful evening. Thank you very much.

 

MODERATOR

In tribute to this beautiful culture I would like to ask Arregoces Coronado Zarabata to stand up to give his people and Colombia a beautiful round of applause.

Immediately, the conclusions of the 5th parallel Table: Scientific and ancestral contributions for the preservation of life of the human being, the moderator was Dr. Angel Sanchez, from Mexico.

 

Table 5

Moderator Angel Sanchez

Good evening. It is an honor for me to be here on this evening with you sharing and doing… sharing knowledge and experience. Table number 5 generated many questions, many; and when there are many questions it means there was a lot of interest. The interest is due to the topics having to do with that marvelous thing called health; because they gave fundamental aspects in order to, with the changes of life habits and change of eating habits, and some supplements, we could keep a great state of health.

We have made the medicine organic medicine for many years, and we have been dedicated -I as a doctor say it as well-, we have been dedicated to cure diseases; and the tendency that exists some years ago is to, not only cure, maybe the wisest would be what to do to not get sick; and instead of looking for how to rejuvenate, it is best to know what to do to not age so fast. And currently a lot of knowledge exists, lots of knowledge that could lead us to doing what is adequate with the change of life habits, change of eating habits, habits in general, we could make our body work perfectly good for many years, with quality of life, longevity, and perfect state of health.

Each one of the speakers participated by presenting the possibilities of making a better quality of life, make our body work optimally; and I believe, we think, that it is the future of health in the world.

Regarding the ancestral medicine, we know there is a lot of knowledge from many centuries ago, our indigenous peoples, pre hispanic peoples; and from a long time ago, many prior centuries, there was a lot of knowledge that is being lost with the passing of time and losing with passing of science.

Then another thing is that in some places the indigenous peoples when they begin to acculturate they start losing their customs, ideas; and we are also at this Table inviting the ethnic population to continue with their traditions, continue investigating, continue using their knowledge; and to medicine: that we respect the indigenous customs and that we respect alternative medicine and ancestral medicine; and still a little further: that we search for the way to make the ancestral medicine scientific.

We believe that was dealt with at this Table was a lot, very important, for health.

Thank you Dr. Soto for creating this Table, and thanks to the speakers for their participation, it was excellent! Thank you very much.

 

MODERATOR

To conclude the reports and conclusions of this Plenary, the parallel Table number 6, that addressed the topic Responsible quality and production of food to guarantee life. We invite the moderator, Adriana Zacarias, of Mexico.

 

Table 6

Moderator Adriana Zacarias

Thank you very much. It was also an honor of being able to moderate this Table, it was very interesting. We had a very diverse Table and this very important issue was seen from different perspectives; that of the indigenous (the ancestral knowledge), also the issue of a more scientific vision or of data from the vision of the United Nations, the private sector and the scientific one as well.

What is the important thing? I believe that, highlighting the food issue includes various topics; it is not only the nutrition and food but other important issues, like natural resources, territory issues and also the needed rescue of the ancestral knowledge and of the technological ones; but particularly the ancestral one, in the sense that they remind us that for our indigenous a good nutrition also requires of tranquility, and not only feeding to nurture but to prevent diseases; then it was to be seen from a more integral perspective, holistic, and also from the man with nature.

Likewise the solutions (we did not get to conclusions) are different perspectives. The interesting part was seeing different links in the food production chain.

From the environmental aspect we see the great impact there is in natural resources; the increase of population is taking to more use of water, soils, etc.; but at the same time two great iniquities exist, we saw, for example data: how 1 of 9 inhabitants of the planet suffer from malnutrition when we have 1 of 10 who have obesity, then there is a mismatch here as well, in what we eat, who eats, how the food is distributed.

Some solutions that are being given to include the issue of resource efficiency in food systems, in family farming, in the inclusion of indigenous and rural peoples in productive chains, in adding value added …

Likewise, from another perspective, the private sector presented some innovative solutions, like the urban farms and the vertical gardens, which can contribute great advantages for an urban population. It does not mean it is the solution for everything, it is for an urban population, where there is great a food demand, that can also take the pressure off about the natural resources in rural food, where 80% of water can decrease, where pesticides, agrochemicals, are not used, right?, and a lawsuit can be made.

On the other hand, it was also interesting to see another technological innovation where the issue is being viewed, for example, we see how the food packages are taking more plastic to the generation, pollutants, and seeing innovation in how to also rescue ancestral products to generate bioplastics, to give a greater opportunity to avoid the food waste, in having packaging that will help preserve the food until it reaches the supermarkets, then the food waste will decrease; and also food will be given to rural foods, they do not sell it raw, but rather there is already an added value, and also it can increase the income.

This in big conclusions, but was very good to see the different perspectives and, again, seeing there are solutions in which they have to be specially for indigenous and rural communities and others for the urban. Thank you very much.

 

MODERATOR

We also want to greet and ask for a special round of applause for Amadeo Martinez of the Indigenous Council of Central America, for Ximena Llamin of the Mapuche people in Chile, for Oscar Bastidas of the indigenous peoples in Colombia, for Florina Lopez of the indigenous people in Panama, and for all who are representing this beautiful culture and are present on this evening of closure of CUMIPAZ 2017 of the Science Session. A round of applause for each of them.

The closing remarks correspond to Gabriel Lara, who undoubtedly a motor nerve in conjunction with the entire team that has been in charge of the Session of today. I want, in a special way, recognition to Carmen Salzano and all of her team; but the director, who will have today her first session of the week, has been truly extraordinary in how she minded the details, the information, her spiritual and physical beauty; she is the managing director of the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace.

 

Gabriela Lara

Managing director of GEAP

Good evening, to the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace (GEAP), precisely, peace, is a state of convivence where the human being finds himself in harmony in an integral way and in balance with themselves first, with society and, before all, with Mother Earth. On this day, in precisely this Session, we have heard many proposals for the strengthening of the integral health of the human being and for the protection of our Mother Earth.

For Dr. William Soto Santiago, I want to read: «Peace is a path to follow, a dynamic process, of a lot of work, effort, creativity, persistence and, above all, of the commitment of each one of us who make up the society where we live in and from where we are».

We have seen today that all the speaker, the special guests, and the Activists here present have the commitment, to work in this construction of integral peace of the human being.

Thank you very much for having accompanied us in the Science Session for the Preservation of the Life of the Human Being and of Mother Earth; and we wish to continue this path together for the preservation of life.

Thank you very much and we will see each other tomorrow at the same place, in the Corporate Social Responsibility. See you tomorrow and thank you very much.