An EU funded project has released a new language learning app IndyLan, encouraging English, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish speakers to learn endangered languages.

IndyLan offers users a platform to learn Northern Saami, Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Basque and Galician – all of which are endangered to different degrees. Funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ programme, the app was developed by five partners from the UK, Spain, Finland and Norway.

The Saami Council is one of the partners, representing the Sámi people. About 20000-25000 people speak Northern Saami in Finland, Norway and Sweden. In Finland only, it is spoken by about 2000 people. 

‘We believe that the app will be a good complement to those who want to learn the Saami language. The app is suitable for both those who do not know anything, and those who already know a little, but want to practice more,‘ said Áile Jávo, the Secretary-General at the Saami Council.

IndyLan contains around 4000 words (both terms and expressions) in around 100 different categories and includes modules for Words, Phrases, Dialogue, Grammar, Culture and tests.

Striving for language survival

The project was started in 2019, which was the Year of the Indigenous Languages. This year marks the start of the United Nations’ decade of Indigenous languages, so it is particularly fitting that the app will be launched just this year.

‘We need everyone who wants to learn Saami, whether it is at a level where they can use the language actively in everyday life or if it is just to say “Good day” in that language. Therefore, all aids that can contribute to it are important,’ Jávo said.

IndyLan’s aim is to offer a complementary solution for culture and language courses and to work as a tool for self-study: ‘Our vision is that the IndyLan app contributes to the revitalization and learning of endangered languages ​​so that these languages ​​remain alive and relevant in today’s society and economies,’ the developers said on their website.

EU initiatives to save endangered languages

The steady decline and in some cases critical loss of minority and endangered languages ​​has led to a sharpened effort to promote and revitalise them. As a result, the EU has committed itself to safeguarding the existence and future of what it calls the Endangered Languages. The European Pact for Regional or Minority Languages places particular emphasis on education and language training as key priorities, given the lack of education in minority language communities.

In Finland, the Saami language has official status but both present-day and historical challenges the Sami have experienced are under assessment. Under the Finnish Constitution, the Saami have the right to maintain and develop their language and culture. In their native region, the Saami have linguistic and cultural self-government, which allows them to access services in their native language.

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Colonisation, noun; ‘the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.’ (source)

I will start by stating, I am not anti-car. I can appreciate how cars can have great potential in the modern society. They can represent many advantages; especially for those with limited physical mobility, or those who live in remote areas. They make it possible for us to move over greater distances every day.

What bothers me is the way they have come to dominate the Western streets, often with little positive effect apart from the aforementioned mobility, and always demanding more space and money. They bear an uncanny resemblance to the ways colonisation worked, for hundreds of years. 

Our streets and outdoor spaces should be for everyone, but the car culture remains to be a realm preserved for the privileged, overwhelmingly white middle classes. Data from UK’s National Travel Survey in 2019 indicates that: ‘White people were consistently more likely to live in a household with access to a car or van than any other ethnic group [and] black people were more than twice as likely as white people to live in a household with no access to a car or van’. 

In numbers: in the 2015 to 2019 time period 40% of black people (aged over 16) had no access to a car. The number for white people is 17%. Similar trend is visible in the US, although the number has been coming down more drastically than in the UK.

Cars have been with us for 135 years now. In this time, they have taken over our streets, transforming our surroundings to multi-lane motorways, speedways, highways and tunnels. Motor vehicles make our streets polluted, crowded and in fact, unliveable and inaccessible. The common habit of pavement parking is particularly an issue for anyone with mobility limitations – for example for people with disabilities, people in  wheelchairs or the elderly. Scotland became the first UK nation to ban pavement parking in 2019. However, when walking on the streets of Glasgow, it is hard to see the ban enforced. 

On the pavements, and on the streets and roads, cars take up more space than any other road user, or any other transport method. Compared to the benefits, they cause more damage – to our health, economically, and ecologically. Yet, because car-culture and ownership supports a certain kind of ideology – that of a status culture where wealth can represent the ultimate power, they continue to suppress our ability to enjoy moving from one place to another.

But why are we allowing them to take over our world? We have no other option, you might say. Yet 135 years ago people were also fully capable of travelling. They had no airplanes, nor cars. Today, we appreciate the luxury of travelling fast and far, and not necessarily want to focus on the journey, but rather on the destination.

Not all of us have the choice. For example, people with disabilities can rely on cars as their means of transport – but it is important to acknowledge that not all of them own or drive a car either. With public transport often failing to cater anyone with a disability, some people are forced choose driving. And this is ever increasingly difficult; not only is it expensive to make the adaptations to the car, but in day-to-day life simple acts as securing a close-to-destination-parking spot can be real obstacle, as there are more and more cars taking the spaces (not always meant for them).

I’d like to encourage everyone to think about their surroundings more closely. Postcolonialism does not exist only in geopolitics or popular culture. It can express itself in many different forms in our modern society and sometimes it is insightful to recognise that it is material goods that are colonising our livelihoods, not people.

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International climate action continues to fail in representing women in equal numbers, despite them often being more vulnerable to climate change than men.

Globally, women make up the majority of the world’s economically poor, do most of the agricultural work, bear unequal responsibility for household food security, carry a disproportionate burden for harvesting water and fuel for everyday survival, and rely on threatened natural resources for their livelihoods. Yet they are often excluded from climate action and policymaking.

The UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 1 – 12 November 2021. It is an event where over 30,000 delegates gather to negotiate how to globally make progress on climate change. In November 2020, there were just 15% women on the UK COP26 Leadership Team. The numbers expose a deep need to address the composition of the delegations and set clear targets and an international standard for all future COPs, starting with COP26.

COP26 and SHEChangesClimate

In an open letter to the British Government, more than 400 women climate leaders called for greater accountability and transparency on gender equality in the COP26 leadership team, in a campaign launched in November 2020.

The campaign, organised by SHEChangesClimate, asks that COP26 Leadership team embraces women’s equal participation and supports gender equality to drive more positive outcomes. The letter points to evidence that including women in COP26 decision and negotiating roles will give it a greater chance of success and ensure a fairer decision-making process. 

In the campaign press release, Farhana Yamin, Founder Track 0, Climate Lawyer & Former Advisor to H.E. President Hilda Heine, Republic of the Marshall Islands said: ‘The struggle for climate justice is also the struggle for racial, gender, sexual and economic justice. It is sad that in 2020 women are being excluded from the vital preparations necessary for making next year’s UN Climate Summit in Glasgow a success. The gendered impacts of climate change means we must ensure an equal balance between men and women at all levels, especially within the COP26 senior management team. It is difficult to see how the current predominantly male-led COP26 team will ensure that women’s voices and needs are heard.‘

Diversity is a fact, inclusivity is a choice

Female representation is not only lacking in the highest levels of policymaking. Back in 2019 climate charity Hope for the Future organised a discussion of ‘Tackling Inequality and Diversifying the Climate Movement’. At the event Chine McDonald, PR and media lead for Christian Aid stated: ‘Diversity is a fact, inclusivity is a choice.’

Participation of women in talks that affect their livelihoods, their children, their whole life, is a necessity. Representation is only one step of this, but it needs to also be diverse and inclusive.

The world has plenty of well known climate female activists.

Most of us know who Greta Thunberg is; she is a young Swedish climate activist, included in the 100 most influential people list and named Time’s person of the year, and often the face of climate change activism. But we don’t know many other young women, who do similar work. Autumn Peltier,  Oladosu Adenike, and many others, do important work for the climate movement. Yet they are often excluded from the public conversation. Why? 

At the ‘‘Tackling Inequality and Diversifying the Climate Movement’ event,  Diana Garduno Jimenez from the Scottish Food Coalition said how we all know about Ms Thunberg because she represents ‘white, western, patriarchal, and colonial way of life.’

Women, especially young women like Peltier, Adenike or Thunberg, can influence climate action for the future, beyond decades. They can fulfil this role if they are recognised for their agency and not merely for their vulnerability.

‘Women play a critical role in key climate sectors, it’s important to consider women’s agency and not only look at women as a vulnerable group,’ said Verania Chao, Gender and Climate Change Programme Specialist at UNDP, in an event organised by the COP26 presidency in partnership with Chatham House.

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Many of the world’s indigenous peoples still struggle to maintain or gain their legal rights to the territories they live in, a UN report showcases.

The fifth edition of the UN report offers five chapters focusing on specific issues such as analysis of the legislations and agreements regarding indigenous land rights, women’s pivotal role in the traditional indigenous land relationship and finally, how these rights are reflected in the UN 2030 Agenda.

International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, a global donor affinity group dedicated to Indigenous Peoples worldwide, has reported that indigenous peoples live in areas that contain more than 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity, and contribute significantly to cultural and environmental diversity.

Anne Nuorgam, Chairperson of the The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, summarised the sources of land conflicts at the launch event: ‘The sources of conflict are many, from resource extraction, logging, land for renewable energy sources and agribusiness to conflict between indigenous pastoralists, nomadic herders and farmers over shrinking grazing lands due to war, and the effects of climate change as well as the establishment of conservation areas.’

Land is at the heart of the indigenous people’s identity, well-being, culture and preservation of the environment which can be traditional knowledge passed down for generations. This is why it is crucial for the wider society to know the importance of these rights and the indigenous knowledge that comes with them.

Legislative side: declaring or demanding rights to lands

Many states still haven’t recognised indigenous peoples in their constitutions, thus undermining their rights to land. This is the case for example in large parts of Asia and Africa – and even in states where indigenous peoples rights to land are recognised, procedures to use their land, which often is rich with natural resources, leave room for improvement.

‘In countries in which such rights are recognised, they are not fully implemented, or procedures for the implementation of those rights, such as land or resource mapping, demarcation and titling, have often not been completed, suffer significant delays or are shelved,’ the report concludes.

Cathal Doyle, one of the report’s authors, Senior Lecturer and LLM Programme Leader at Middlesex University London School of Law said: ‘Since the colonial era mining and logging have been in the centre of exploitation of the indigenous peoples rights. Brazil and Indonesia are just some examples of this. The scale is visible in numbers: for example in Indonesia, 72% of mining activities are located on indigenous peoples territories.’ 

‘Since the colonial era mining and logging have been in the centre of exploitation of the indigenous peoples rights. Brazil and Indonesia are just some examples of this. The scale is visible in numbers: for example in Indonesia, 72% of mining activities are located on indigenous peoples territories.’

Cathal Doyle

Senior Lecturer and LLM Programme Leader at Middlesex University London School of Law

The report highlights specific issues in this field, for example how the mining of lithium for batteries is expected to tenfold in the next decade.  The need for this “white gold” is triggering a wave of extractive industry encroachment into indigenous territories in South America, where over half of the world’s lithium resources are. 

Status of indigenous women and their right to land

The report’s fourth chapter focuses on the status of indigenous women and their rights to lands, territories and resources. Naomi Lanoi, Program Coordinator for Global Indigenous Grantmaking at Global Greengrants Fund and Coordinator for the East Africa Advisory Board, emphasises that indigenous women play a pivotal role as central actors in the traditional relationship indigenous peoples have with the land. 

The chapter provides an insight into the central role of indigenous women in the promotion and protection of indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, territories and resources and often the high costs faced by them. Indigenous women are the main custodians of food, water and traditional knowledge from the land, but their legal status related to land rights is often restricted by gender discrimination and poverty-related barriers. Yet simultaneously, Lanoi points out that indigenous women are often on the front lines in defending the land and environment, exposing themselves to violence, abuse and murder. 

Multiple solutions

The report presents many suggestions on how to solve the existing problems. In the launch events many of the speakers highlighted collaboration and a proactive approach in ensuring that the indigenous people give prior consent to the land use. 

‘The sources of conflict are many, from resource extraction, logging, land for renewable energy sources and agribusiness to conflict between indigenous pastoralists, nomadic herders and farmers over shrinking grazing lands due to war, and the effects of climate change as well as the establishment of conservation areas.’

Anne Nuorgam

Chairperson of the The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

The report provides a necessary insight into the current challenges that are visible in this highly politicised matter of land and resources. The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, was adopted in 2007 and it included the right to self-determination and rights to lands, territories and resources at its core. Now, a decade later this report helps to address the issue of indigenous lands. 

Furthermore, the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development offers a cross-sector approach identifying how indigenous land rights link with general land and resources management, which affects food security, environmental protection and climate change.

The post UN Report: Struggle for Indigenous Land Rights first appeared on The Postcolonial.

The deal is still waiting to be ratified and come to life. After decades long negotiations, what is hindering the trade deal’s acceptance and why is it opposed by so many? The deal between the EU and Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (Mercosur) is to be EU’s largest trade deal in history.

But it has evoked serious concerns over environmental and human rights by environmentalists, trade deal experts and political leaders.

Sustainability of the deal

Several researchers studying the deal have pointed out that it fails to fulfil the criteria of a sustainable trade deal. There are three indicators to measure this: 

1. inclusion of local communities,
2. transparency mechanisms to trace commodities and provide open-access information, and
3. enforcement to legally uphold sustainability commitments.

The EU has stated that: ‘The agreement will promote the effective implementation of several multilateral environmental agreements signed by the EU and Mercosur countries, such as the Paris Agreement.’

Whereas French president Emmanuel Macron is one of the strongest opponents of the deal, Portugal’s secretary of state for internationalisation, Eurico Brilhante Dias, is much more optimistic about its possibilities: ‘If the agreement is possible – and signed by the parties – we believe that steps forward are possible, that additional commitments, particularly on sustainability, are possible.’

Portugal currently holds the EU council presidency, and along with Spain, has vocally said they will push the deal to go forward.

Indigenous peoples’ rights

Although the EU-Mercosur deal offers considerable reductions in tariffs and opens new markets, it also has the potential to cause negative environmental and social impacts, especially on the indigenous people living in South America.

Additionally to vast amount of threatened land and forests, South America is home to over 40 million indigenous people. About half of them live in urban areas, but those in rural areas are often forced to give up their land to modern agriculture.

There are many examples of trade agreements harming their livelihoods.

Researchers who have looked into the sustainability of the EU-Mercosur deal have pointed out the following:

‘Examples of trade agreements negatively affecting native communities include the Peru-US Trade Preference Agreement, which catalyzed state attempts to re-zone Indigenous forests for agriculture, leading to violent clashes that left 33 dead and over 170 injured; and the expansion of coal mining in Colombia’s La Guajira province on the heels of agreements with the US, Canada, and the EU, which has caused the Indigenous Wayúu people to suffer displacement, water shortages, and high child mortality.’

‘If the agreement is possible – and signed by the parties – we believe that steps forward are possible, that additional commitments, particularly on sustainability, are possible’

Eurico Brilhante Dias

Portugal’s secretary of state for internationalisation

Not consulting the indigenous peoples on a historically large trade deal concerning their land effectively misses an opportunity to make indigenous-inclusive-policies more commonplace. It only adds to the questionable policies already taking place on the continent, especially in Brazil.

One recent example of this is when The Guardian reported how: ‘in April 2020, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (Funai) – whose remit is to defend Indigenous peoples – legalised the takeover of rural land in over 200 Indigenous areas. Three months later, Amazonian Indigenous communities witnessed a 76% rise in illegal fires on their lands compared to the same time in 2019. Additionally, the Indigenous rights organisation APIB says that coronavirus has been three times more lethal to Indigenous peoples than to the rest of the population.’

South American Indigenous people and their values should have been included in the process and the finished trade deal, but this fundamental right has only been fulfilled partially. Yet in the world facing climate emergency, the indigenous peoples could protect the invaluable forests from being chopped up to free land for soya.

Soya driven deforestation

The largest export from the Mercosur bloc are agricultural products, especially soy. And soy production is a contributor to large-scale deforestation of the Amazon.

Much of Europe’s resistance for the plan comes from worry that the trade deal will increase the amount of Mercosur soya and beef on the EU markets, and that these products will make it harder for the European producers to compete with the cheap South-American production. 

The two main South American exports, beef and soya, are closely interlinked and land-intensive products.

About three quarters of soy produced in the world is used as animal feed, with a lot of it exported to Europe ultimately feeding chicken and pig farms.

The true cost behind soy is often unfamiliar to the consumers and the scale of politics entwined with environmental aims is hard to untangle. However, labelling soya as an absolute evil is not straightforward.

The trade deal would not change the soya tariff, as the soya beans and meat already enjoy a zero tariff on EU markets.

The deal does not enable limitless trade, but will have quotas for products like beef.

However, meat, dairy and other agricultural products, like soya, are known to be extremely unsustainable especially in the current consumed amounts. 

Way forward

It is agreed by all sides that the EU-Mercosur trade deal is a historical agreement that has a lot of potential. However, as the researchers have pointed out, the exclusion of indigenous peoples when drafting the plan is making it look unfinished and unsustainable and at its current state unable to fulfil the rights granted to indigenous peoples by the UNDRIP. French president Emmanuel Macron has expressed ‘major concerns’ over the deal’s environmental impact.

There are examples of trade deals that have impacted the indigenous people negatively, but also deals that lay out binding environmental regulations. It remains to be seen in which form of the EU-Mercosur deal is ratified and whether it is able to avoid dire human and environmental consequences.

The post EU trading with Mercosur: a bargain or exploitation? first appeared on The Postcolonial.

The Sámi people, an indigenous group in Northern Fennoscandia, are at the forefront of witnessing the drive for green energy in Europe, often being forced to lose access to their livelihood, land and traditions.

Around the continent, wind power is presented as a solution that can pave the way for a sustainable future, with programmes such as the European Green New Deal encouraging governments to grow their renewable energy production by offering subsidies and loosening regulations.

Many of these wind power projects in Sápmi have been condemned by the UN and called to be suspended by the Sámi, national nature conservation agencies (such as WWF) and local politicians.

A bad deal for reindeers

In 2016, Øyfjellet Wind AS, which is managed by a German energy company Aquila Capital,  was granted a license to build a wind farm that consists of 72 wind turbines in an area of 40 square kilometres in Jillen-Njaarke. The indigenous Sámi have now taken legal action against the Øyfjellet wind farm, which threatens their traditional livelihood.

They never gave their consent to the project, yet the construction work of the wind farm still began in December 2019 and completion is expected towards the end of this year.

Reindeer herding remains as one of the most important trades for the Sámi, who says it would affect the migration routes of the animals and its construction is a violation of their indigenous rights. 

Øyfjellet Wind AS was supposed to reach an agreement with the indigenous people about the area before the construction of the site started, but this promise was never fulfilled.

‘This verdict shows that human rights conventions in Norwegian law do not protect us Saami’

Arvid Jama

Reindeer herder

Research has shown that wind farms drastically disrupt reindeer herding, as the animals want to avoid the noise and shape of  the wind turbines, making them graze far from these propellers. This is an additional source of distress to the Sámi herders, who are already facing the effects of the Climate Crisis harder than many other people.

Last June the Frostating Court of Appeal agreed that a third of the Sámi communities’ winter pastures will be destroyed by the construction and ordered 89 million krones ($9.4m) to be paid in compensation. This verdict showcases how increasingly difficult it is to prove that wind energy projects need to be halted to ensure the survival of the Sámi culture.

Wind power which is often seen as great, green energy without faults – but it should not be built at the cost of the Sámi rights, nature or value of landscapes.  

‘This verdict shows that human rights conventions in Norwegian law do not protect us Saami,’ Arvid Jama, a reindeer herder from the affected Sámi reindeer herding community, told Al Jazeera in August.

Continuing Green Colonialism 

Speaking at a panel on Indigenous self-governance in 2018, Aili Keskitalo, president of the Sámi Parliament said: ‘I’d like to speak about the paradox of green colonialism, when colonialism has dressed up in nice, green finery and we are told that we have to give up our territories and our livelihoods to save the world because of climate change.’

‘The Davvi wind power plant and related industrial projects would jeopardize the future of reindeer-herding, Sámi culture and Sámi language’

Aslak Holmberg

Vice President of the Sámi Council

Similarly to Øyfjellet Wind AS, there is an ongoing opposition for Davvi wind farm, built by the energy company St1, which would be located in Rastigaisa fell area in Northern Norway. Rastigaisa is one of Europe’s last unbuilt fell areas, and a wind farm would effectively destroy its nature with the wide road network, powerlines and the actual wind power plant. 

‘The Davvi wind power plant and related industrial projects would jeopardize the future of reindeer-herding, Sámi culture and Sámi language in the Rastigaisa area because the net jobs are expected to decline at the expense of existing jobs in reindeer herding,’ the Vice President of the Sámi Council Aslak Holmberg said.

The Sámi are a recognised indigenous group from Fennoscandia. Their ancestral land, known as Sápmi, stretches across parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

Historically, most Sámi people have made their livelihoods from fishing and reindeer herding. Only about one tenth of Sami in Norway are still involved in herding full-time, but the practice remains important to Sámi culture and is protected under Norwegian law.

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