Women raise their voice against climate change in Peru

- They call for all of those committed to a better future to participate in the upcoming Peoples Climate Summit to be held in Lima, parallel to the official COP20.

Servindi, 3 July 2014.- A National Conference of Women for Climate Justice in Defense of Mother Earth signed a statement to raise struggle proposals at national and global levels.

From June 17 to 19, the conference held in in Lima brought together representatives from the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC) affiliated to the international movement Via Campesina.

National proposals are grouped into five areas: advocacy, health, education, employment and food sovereignty.

Among the global, proposals they strongly reject the "false solutions" to global warming and require governments from the South to support sustainable peasant agriculture and production towards domestic markets with energy saving policies.

They argue that peasant agriculture contributes to the carbon balance of the planet, increases biodiversity, restores soil organic matter and replaces the industrial production of meat for a diversified small-scale food production.

"Expand local markets, stop deforestation and a developing a comprehensive forest management" is the best way to fight hunger, malnutrition and the current food crisis, they say.

They also demand the right to land and recovery of the territories on a global scale, especially by women, access to water as a social good and a human right and the right to use, conserve and exchange seeds.

Given the climate crisis, this is a "strategic moment" to build a "more fair and equitable models", promoting self-determination, the Buen Vivir (Good Living) and gender equity "as the real basis for change."

Women from CLOC-Via Campesina call for all of those committed to a better future to participate in the upcoming Peoples Climate Summit, parallel to the official COP20, to "speak with a common voice in a space of collective construction and mobilization."

See the full statement (Spanish only) here: Manifiesto de las mujeres de la CLOC-Vía Campesina Perú en el marco del Primer Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres por la Justicia Climática en Defensa de la Madre Tierra, hacia la COP20.

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Traducción de Luis Claps para IWGIA y Servindi.