In turn, plantations are monocultures, and go against “everything culture and tradition are”, the customary knowledge of the indigenous peoples is lost, he stated later in an interview with Real World Radio.

Arias made his presentation in an activity called “Peoples sovereignty, forests and biodiversity: sustainability alternatives and threats”, which was carried out in the framework of the World Social Forum, which is taking place in Belem, Brazil. He also stated that “with tree diversity in our territory, we can continue feeding from our knowledge, but if an only type of tree is cultivated, we will lose all kinds of things, and biodiversity loss is also a biological loss”.

With reference to the policy known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), Arias pointed out that as an indigenous movement, they have been ignored and marginalized in the planning of the mechanism.

He stated that the governments “discussed and made decisions”, and especially, the “stronger countries in terms of forests” like Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia were the ones that “imposed their opinions”.

“As part of the civil society, as indigenous peoples, we are being discriminated, marginalized, we were never taken into consideration, and even now, in the final part of the decisions on REDD mechanisms, we continue to be marginalized and we haven´t stated our opinions”, said Arias to Real World Radio.

He expressed that this is why they plan to go to the 15th Conference of the Parties of the UN Climate Change Convention (COP 15), which will take place in Copenhagen, to protest, as they have done in previous editions of the Conference, demanding a respect to the indigenous peoples´ rights in the implementation of REDD.

Arias also stated that the most important thing for the indigenous peoples was the sustainable use of the resources, which they put into practice. “There has to be harmony and respect”, he stated, and made reference that food, for instance, depends on the use of forests.

“The indigenous peoples have stated that we completely reject plantations, because our production is mixed, is a type of agroforestry where all kinds of things are necessary”, he explained. Moreover he emphazised that if crop diversity wasn´t respected, native communities would be forced to leave their territories and head to the cities.

“We, the indigenous peoples, continue to resist the attacks. And now they want to blame us, saying that climate change is caused by the poor, and with this they are saying that poor people need to be eliminated to have sustainability and stop the impacts of climate change. I believe these are wrong policies by the big investors”, like the World Bank, which “offers millions of dollars to implement REDD policies”.

“To this we say that the indigenous and local communities continue to resist and fight for our rights and for the survival of our peoples, for culture, and I expect we can survive more than 500 years more”, Arias concluded.