Submission to the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

By: Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP)

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)

Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC)

Asian Peasant Women’s Network (APWN)

Asian Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN)

People’s Action on Climate Change (PACC)

We, rural and indigenous women from Asia, the Pacific and other parts of the world, face enormous threats and damage to our lives and rights as a consequence of climate change including the unbridled manner by which measures are being proposed and undertaken to adapt to and mitigate this phenomenon and its impacts. As women farmers, fisherfolk, herders, farm workers, indigenous food producers and natural resource managers, we rely heavily on primary resources, which are being negatively affected and destroyed by climate change.

We assert our important roles in and contributions to the effective, appropriate, integrated and sustainable use of land, biodiversity and natural resources that have enabled the survival of generations of people for many millennia through our traditional knowledge.

We are concerned that rural and indigenous women are being affected more severely and are more at risk during all phases of natural disasters and extreme weather events including the post-disaster reconstruction processes mainly due to prevailing discrimination based on gender, caste and ethnic identities.