This International Climate Change Solution Gathering, West of Paris at the Chateau Millemont, took place at the same time as COP21, that focused on drafting the Paris Climate Change Accord. One of many outcomes of the Millemont Gathering was the initial draft of the Preamble and Articles of the International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth.
This Treaty was signed on International Mother Earth Day, April 22, 2016, New York City, with Indigenous Leaders from the Americas, and Indonesia. This International Treaty that emerged from our Millemont Gathering was signed at the same time as the Nation States signed the Paris Change Change Accord at the UN.
The Paris Climate Change Accord focuses on only reducing carbon emissions, and does not include any formal process of the participation of Indigenous Peoples. COP23 that just concluded in Bonn, Germany., did not meaningful include Indigenous Peoples, as well.
The Paris Climate Change Accord will not stop Climate Change. The International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth has Sixteen Articles that focus on a comprehensive solution to Climate Change. Without taking these holistic actions, the suffering of our Human Family will be catastrophic, with millions more Climate Change Refugees, from everywhere on our Mother Earth.
For instance, war and the oppression of women are primary causes of climate change. These are the Sixteen Articles of the International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth. Nothing short of completely addressing each of these Articles will stop Climate Change.
Article 1 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to Protecting and Restoring the Sacred. We will remind ourselves and our Human Family, through our sacred prayers, songs, ceremony and our ancient prophecies, that Mother Earth is our holy provider of life, not a limitless dump for our waste here only to satisfy our appetite for the material dimension of life.
Restoring the Sacred includes preserving and protecting sacred sites worldwide and returning holy heirloom objects taken from their rightful owners. We will return these sacred places and objects to their original cultural and spiritual purposes.
Article 2 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to supporting the global emergence of the Seventh Generation, as promised, by fostering youth participation, leadership, and wisdom in all decision-making processes impacting all life on Mother Earth.
Article 3 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to reducing consumption: This reduction of consumption must start in the wealthy nations, among the wealthy and comfortable, to restore the values of simplicity and humility. Our Human Family can live much happier and more rewarding lives with less consumption of Mother Earth’s body and energy.
Article 4 We, the Members of the Human Family commit, to protecting women’s rights to stabilize human population: we’ve grown past Mother Earth’s capacity, and our Human Family just cannot keep growing. Our ancient relatives knew that their communities had to fit their habitat. We practiced natural patterns of creation that resulted in extended families in balance with the natural world.
Today, over a billion of our Human Family are hungry daily, and 10 million of these relatives starve to death every year. We must stabilize the population of our Human Family. It’s essential to ensure women everywhere have equal rights and respect.
Wherever women have rights over their reproduction, and where contraception is freely available, the birth rate naturally declines. Universal education, social justice, and ecological justice allow communities to limit their population growth.
Article 5 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to transitioning to sustainable and renewable energy sources. We will take every peaceful action possible to reduce and eliminate hydrocarbon energy use — coal, oil, gas — and build the renewable energy infrastructure: solar, wind, and hydropower, where it is acceptable and approved through a process of free, prior and informed consent. Conservation will be an essential part of any genuine energy transition, using power modestly and carefully, to minimize consumption, including eliminating any natural resource extraction projects like the Alberta Tar Sands.
Nation states everywhere on Mother Earth need to remove all taxes and tariffs on solar technology and other proven alternative energy sources. Also, nation-states must increase carbon taxes, eliminate subsidies to the petroleum industry, and use those revenues to subsidize renewable energy research and installation.
Article 6 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to restoring natural ecological function on a planetary scale by reversing the decline of forests, coral reefs, wetlands and other productive ecosystems. Replanting, restoring and protecting the wild forests to provide natural species diversity to grow again and to supply human communities with materials and energy for modest lives connected to productive living systems. To achieve this, we require a paradigm shift in economics, a change from growth and extraction to the preservation of the real wealth: our natural ecosystems. Rather than attempt to monetize nature, we must do the opposite and naturalize the economy.
Article 7 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to permitting only organic and traditional farming by ending the industrial farming methods that have destroyed soils and spread toxins throughout our environment. For Indigenous Peoples, organic agriculture is conventional agriculture.
Article 8 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to building a robust infrastructure for public transportation by eliminating the overuse of cars and restore efficient public transportation systems, light-rail, electric trains, and trolleys. We will rebuild our communities so people can access their needs by walking and bicycling.
Article 9 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to waging peace with the understanding that war is the highest consumer of oil and energy, the most significant contributor to ecological destruction and the most destructive force among the Human Family. War benefits only the powerful, the wealthy and the weapons industry. We will make peace a global priority, refuse to fund war machines, refuse to participate in war-making and stop glorifying war. We call to eliminate the weapons industry that lives off the misery of the victims among our relatives.
Through the full spiritual awareness of the Oneness of the Human Family, the elimination of prejudice in all forms, anything that causes a human being or society to feel superior to another, the realization of World Peace is established.
Article 10 We, the Members of the Human Family, committed to restoring, promoting and protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Industrial economies have consistently pushed Indigenous communities from their productive land. By restoring the rights of all Indigenous communities, indeed of all members of the Human Family, who know how to live in harmony with the natural world, we take an essential step forward towards healing our Mother Earth.
These Indigenous rights include the full legal implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with particular emphasis on the principle of free, prior and informed consent!
Article 11 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to cleaning up and redeveloping toxic waste sites. All Nation States and Multinational Corporations responsible for generating poisonous waste - including nuclear, petroleum, chemical, agricultural and any other toxic waste - must immediately develop and implement a global plan to eliminate those toxins from all ecosystems, air, land, and water, by 2020.
Article 12 We the Members of the Human Family commit to implementing universal gender equality by realizing that the full equality of women and men is a prerequisite of peace. The denial of such justice is an injustice against half of the world’s population and promotes harmful attitudes and habits among males, from the family to the workplace, into political life and international relations.
Ultimately, any gender discrimination, including gender violence, leads directly to a negative relationship with Mother Earth. There are no grounds — moral, practical or biological — that this can be justified. Only when women and men have a full partnership, in all fields of human endeavor, will we be able to create the moral and psychological climate to realize fully international peace.
Article 13 We, the Members of the Human Family commit, to facilitating decision-making by leaders so that decisions remain beneficial for seven generations into the future, a policy known by Indigenous people as "Seven Generations" decision-making.
In the Ihanktonwan Dakota Traditions, the thirteenth tepee pole is the women's pole, around which the hide or canvas is tightly wrapped. After erecting the first twelve poles, the thirteenth pole is put in place, and the skin of the tipi is unwrapped around the others, covering all. Without this pole, of course, there is no shelter.
Scientific evidence shows that the toxic pollution of industrial culture is poisoning the wombs of womankind, infecting our future generations, causing disease, diabetes, congenital disabilities, cancers and chemical violence. These toxins are breaking the thirteenth pole, harming our women and all women, endangering unborn children so that there may not be the seventh generation. Making decisions to generate money rather than maintaining the health of all members of our Human Family is the opposite of Seventh Generation decisions.
Article 14 We, the Members of the Human Family commit, to establishing and maintaining Bioregional Marine Sanctuaries throughout Mother Earth, as soon as possible. Bioregional Marine Sanctuaries are named areas of Earth, Water and Air where natural animal populations are protected and restored to more than 50% of historic levels as soon as possible, and water quality and forest biomass levels are preserved and restored to very high concentrations.
Bioregional Marine Sanctuary boundaries correspond to natural features such as watershed topography, vegetation types, oceanic continental shelves, and margins, including all rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds, estuaries, and aquifers.
Article 15 We, the members of the Human Family, commit to reducing the large-scale farming of animals. Despite livestock being the world’s leading emitter of methane, the role of animal agriculture in climate change has been ignored during climate conferences. Furthermore, the increased demand for raising animals for human consumption is leading to the destruction of both our rainforests and also the rural land many of our brothers and sisters call home, causing human rights abuses, poverty, and violence.
We will hold the factory farming industry and the governments who shelter them with laws accountable for these tragedies, and we will play our part in protecting Mother Earth from further destruction.
Article 16 We, the Members of the Human Family, commit to holding governments and corporations responsible for making genuine progress to solve the growing challenge of Climate Change. Historically, after 21 years of climate conferences, nation states and corporate interests have accomplished nothing to address the ever-increasing global problem of climate change and have, in fact, subsidized the petroleum energy industry that increases climate change.
While we will hold governments and corporations responsible for making genuine progress, we will not rely on them to restore the harmony and balance of life. The majority of the work to protect and restore the sacredness of life remains with each and every one of us.
We call all members of Human Family of Mother Earth, including, all levels of non-Indigenous and Indigenous governments, citizen organizations, businesses, labor unions, non-governmental organizations and third parties to recognize, support and uphold this International Treaty to Protect and Restore Mother Earth.
Signed by Indigenous Leaders from across the Americas and Indonesia.