Author: Ahmad Almakky

Since the start of my career, I had been coming across and thinking about the obstacles and problems that local communities and local non-profits face in the developing world. Throughout this time, I had been striving to develop solutions, but to little avail. I like to think that my perspectives grew more nuanced and more informed but was only a deeper look into ‘the problem’. Currently, I define this ‘problem’ as a state of incongruence between local and foreign ways of being, that I view mostly through the lens of modernity and neo-colonialism. As my understand changes and becomes increasingly complex and abstract, navigating between my biases, countless false and potentially one true scenario, I have felt a strong need to ground this understanding in some practical goal.

The COP offered me the opportunity to very seriously consider adopting a medium-term objective to work towards over the next few years.

On my first day at the COP, a colleague and I went to the indigenous people’s caucus, which was a meeting taking place on a daily basis amongst representatives of indigenous groups. It was in this meeting that a representative from Tibet raised a point about how troublesome the conflation of the two terms, ‘indigenous peoples’ and ‘local communities’ is, with regards to the formation and operation of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples’ Platform (LCIPP) and its Facilitative Working Group (FWG).

Before this point, I was making the mistake that the representative from Tibet brought up. I was using and thinking about both indigenous peoples and local communities interchangeably. Only after spending much of the following week at the Indigenous Peoples’ pavilion did I begin to define the problem I wanted to address and articulate a potential approach to potentially addressing that problem.

First of all, indigenous peoples self-identify as such and enjoy protection and recognition through the UN Charter of Human Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A local community, on the other hand, could essentially be any group of people and there is no specific definition or recognition of local communities to any meaningful extent. Therefore, what the indigenous peoples that have taken on the intergenerational battle for inclusion are forced to share their victory (and all future support that the LCIPP receives) with an undefined set of communities that could potentially have very different priorities from the indigenous peoples.

On the other hand, this all gets far more complicated when I think about the Pakistani context in which I was working. Several of the communities I work with in Pakistan meet all the criteria for being indigenous but do not know that there is an advantage to the title nor that being recognized as indigenous is even an option. Additionally, the indigenous peoples that make up the LCIPP or that were present at the pavilion all seemed to come from cultures that were aesthetically distinct from the predominant cultures of their respective countries; whereby, for many of the Pakistani communities I was thinking about, it would be difficult for an outsider to distinguish between specific local cultures and the predominant set of ideals that make up the country (not that there is a single set of beliefs or ideologies that do so in Pakistan).

Also, several of these communities, such as those in Kashmir, want greater inclusion within Pakistan as a state (for example, they cannot vote in the national elections and their democracy is limited to state governance). In the pursuit of this greater inclusion, fueled by a need for support, these communities work to showcase their ‘Pakistani-ness’; however, it may be useful to think about how they might benefit from being informed of the potential to receive support and be recognized and acknowledged for what makes them distinct from the rest of the country.

Now, I am faced with two options for addressing this issue. Either I can work towards helping local communities in Pakistan navigate the complicated space of self-identifying as and then being recognized as ‘indigenous peoples’ OR I could work towards having more specific definitions produced for ‘local communities’ and then working towards fighting for the rights and inclusion of ‘local communities’ within international law. I expect that the ‘right’ answer for each community will be different. I strongly believe in creating opportunity for communities to decide amongst themselves how they want to approach the challenges they are facing. Yet, I am terrified of the prospect of communities making decisions on the basis of incomplete information or on the basis of ideas that are not holistic or that do not account for the varying epistemologies and philosophies which communities adhere to.

I have worked for several years in community-based conservation and environmental projects in Pakistan; most recently on snow leopard conservation in remote communities in the extreme north of the country. In working with local communities and thinking about how we can improve our interactions with the most marginalized social groups, I have come across complex conflicts amongst all stakeholders, most clearly understood as a conflict between Western philosophical ideals and local outlooks. In my view, these conflicts arise from the variations in epistemological lenses being used to rationalize the problems being addressed and to theorize their potential solutions.

In Glasgow, I witnessed this state of conflict on a massive scale and highly concentrated within the exhibition center. Of course, with divisions and distributions of power and the restrictions within which individuals and parties operate, this conflict may have not been consistently apparent but was present and could be recognized. There are two important components of the aforementioned Western lens that give rise to conflict. Firstly, it propagates a single conceptualization of nature that accompanies how humankind should interact with nature. Secondly, it leaves little room for the adequate acknowledgement of important ethical concerns relating to climate change and its impacts on people.

With regards to the singular conceptualization of nature; at the COP, I often heard people talking about how human beings have caused and continue to cause unjustifiable amounts of damage to the planet. Though this idea seems to be largely accepted as an unquestionable truth in spaces like the COP, it is accompanied by three major assumptions. Firstly, that all human beings have a destructive relationship with nature. Secondly, that human beings can only have a destructive relationship with nature. Lastly, that in order to protect nature it must be separated from human beings.

Here, it is important to acknowledge that not all human beings are equally responsible for climate change – an idea several of the island nations brought up in the plenaries. Secondly, that though the contemporary, globalized world via the spread of certain capitalistic ideals and other ideologies, has brought insurmountable damage, there are and have been peoples that have maintained (and some that continue to maintain) constructive and mutually beneficial relationships with nature. Lastly, in light of this, there must be a counter-argument to the immediate assumption that in order to protect nature, nature must be separated and protected from human beings.

This idea is consistent with Francis Fukuyama’s pretty troublesome ideas in his book, ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ that essentially argues that the future of humanity is the global adoption of liberal capitalism and if history is a collection of political and philosophical conflicts, we will face the end of history as a consequence of the end of the conflict of political ideas. Needless to say, this book has been simultaneously heavily criticized and critically acclaimed, depending on the school of thought the critic adhered to. I would argue, that we need space to argue that the richness of variety of cultures and conceptualizations of nature could provide solutions for how human beings, in the globalized world, could change and adopt their behaviors and attitudes so that their relationship with nature becomes more constructive and mutually beneficial.

Similarly, several other ideas seem to not be adequately acknowledged in spaces like the COP and it is my understanding that this results in the sorts of challenges I have experienced in my own work with local communities in Pakistan. Firstly, it was deeply comforting and inspiring to see the island nations argue the point that ‘climate change is not their fault’ and that the blame largely lies on the developed world. I look forward to this being factored into future decision-making processes, but it was nice to see it, at least, acknowledged in forums such as the COP. Secondly, I look forward to ideas like those promoted by Scotland’s First Minister about reparations owed to the Global South being taken further to account, not only for the damage imposed via climate change but to factor in the generational suffering and immeasurable theft from the Global South via colonialism and its complex contemporary iterations. Decisions about support in the form of the transfer of finance or technology from the developed to the developing world are seen as acts of charity or aid that are independent of responsibility and liability.

The foundations of this problem stem, in my view, from the dominant Western lens being used at these forums. Though scientific and economic thinking, founded in post-enlightenment rationality, are extraordinarily useful in determining how projects and programs should be organized and carried out, they are particularly poorly suited in addressing the moral concerns associated with climate change. Additionally, as the Western lens largely formed the foundations of conversation at the COP, there was little space to discuss moral concerns in a manner that would result in positive action. That being said, it was deeply comforting to see conversations relating to these topics were taking place in several places within the exhibition center, and simultaneously a little heartbreaking to see that those having these conversations and making these observations were not those that held the power to influence change.