Press Conference: Will Nature Markets and monetizing charismatic species bridge the biodiversity financing gap?, UN Convention on Biodiversity - COP 17

Thank you. And another important note, since we are at the UN CBD COP 17, the first formal stocktake on where we're at with the coming Montreal Biodiversity Framework, the Biodiversity Framework. There was a paper that was released, Marco, last week, an information paper, study on the alignment of the state of nature indicators metrics with the monitoring framework of the GBF. Could you say a couple of words just to that? Because it joins the dots between this important set of indicator metrics and the GBF.

Thank you, thank you, Gemma. So you see here on the press conference organization facing the business. because the business is where the footprint, the negative impacts on nature are, is coming from, and, uh, therefore, the, the whole exercise of the State of Nature metrics were really, uh, uh, developed with business front and center to support, uh, those transitions. positive transitions in, in, uh, in business, in all business sectors and financial solutions, but of course, uh, we also develop the metrics with in mind, uh, the opportunity for business to contribute to the GBF and to be able to actually begin to report their contribution to the GBF. And that was clear from the beginning because increasingly the gap between what governments report and what business reports need to be bridged. And we believe that this set of indicators and metrics will help with that. They've been aligned to key targets and goals of the GPF. There's been a study, as Gemma said, done by an independent scientist that has looked at the GPF indicators and targets and compared it with the state of nature metrics we just launched and made sure that the integration element is strong. So we believe that this is also an extra service for business in terms of allowing them using the metrics to demonstrate their contribution to the GBA.

Thanks, Marco. Do we have a last question?

By the way, the study, if you're interested, quite technical, but is on the website of Nature Positive Initiative.

Thank you. Indeed, if you go to naturepositive.org/news, you will find there a web story about this information paper as well as the launch statement of the indicators and metrics and the joint press release that we put out on the same day with TNFD and SBTN on the integration with those frameworks. Any last questions? Oh, yes, please, in our last minute.

Yeah, thank you. My name is Adrian Matei and I work for RGI in Berlin, Renewables Grid Initiative. One of the things that I'm currently working on is on the use of certain metrics based on the MPI, of course, and specifically on trying to identify which metrics could we use to capture people impact. And this is a really complex, I am figuring out, and I'm wondering if you are if you have that in mind or you're looking for any, if you have this plan ahead with the MPI, if you ever are focusing in this.

Thank you for the question. I'm going to combine brief answers with last words, if I may, from our panelists. I'm going to start with you, Ross, if that's okay. Any last reflections on the topic and also on next steps in reaction to the question? Then to Tanya, and then last to Marco. Thank you.

Thanks, Jo. I'll leave your question to Marco to discuss plans for MPI coming up in terms of the people point that you raised. But I guess last reflections is we've spent a lot of time the last two years identifying these metrics and developing the initial measurement It's time now for businesses to actually take action. The pilot study has demonstrated that it is feasible to start measuring these metrics. You might not be able to do location, ground-based, ground truthing right from the start, but the framework is set up in a way that takes that into account with different granularity levels. So businesses of any size, any capability can get started now. That's a call to action from the people in the room.

Thank you.

We hear a lot that nature is complex. Well, yes, nature is complex, that's its strength and that's its beauty. Our mission has been to make nature less complicated for business and finance to engage with as a sustainability topic. And I think we're, as I said before, seeing thousands of companies now embracing this agenda. They're doing the work. They're finding it easier. The more you it, like anything in life, the more you practice, the easier it gets. And I think to this point, it's not about trying to do everything all at once. It's about focusing, prioritizing, and starting to build the data sets and the experience of understanding these issues. And the confidence will grow over time. But we shouldn't let the perfect get in the way of-- be the enemy of the good. We have more than enough metrics now. And there is a huge amount of data that business can use to get started. And of course, that will improve over time as well.

Thank you, Tony. And last word to you, Marco.

Thank you. Thank you. Now, just maybe final two, two final, uh, um, comments. The first one is, um, all this is coming hand in hand with evolution of how business and financial institutions have been approaching nature. I've been living all this during my life, you know, from. public relations, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, to now, finally, more and more businesses understanding the materiality of nature to their business, to their resilience, to their profitability. And that is a major paradigm shift in terms of how the business relate to nature, which leads to the need for tools like this to allow business to engage in that agenda and deal with dependencies, impacts, opportunities, risks. Uh, the second thing to say is that the nature positive journey started by defining the ambition, uh, uh, embedding the ambition in a multilateral agreement like the GBF, now providing the tools to monitor and drive progress towards that ambition. And the next step, uh, immediately that we'll start, uh, um, from after COP 30, so COP 17, is actually begin to also provide clarity and guidance on how companies in particular, but any actor can communicate their work and their progress on nature positive. Because this is another issue. We hear sometimes the term nature positive is used too lightly, sometimes even abused in terms of how organizations communicate about their nature positive actions. Now that we have the metrics, we can actually put in place clear guidance, clear safeguards, and support companies in saying the right things without the risk of being accused of greenwashing or without the risk of being exaggerating their outcomes. This area of communication will come next, which I think is important to complete the picture. Finally, we launch with this organization, with UNFV and other organizations, the idea of going towards a nature measurement protocol idea, which is equivalent of the GSG, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol for climate, that will provide even more clarity and guidance to business and and financial solutions on how to measure those metrics that we just launched last week.

Thank you very much, Marco. Thanks, Tony. Thanks, Ross. And thank you all for joining. You can find out more on our website, agepositive.org, and keep in touch on social media as well. And see you soon. Thank you.

My check.

I will. Check, check. Testing.

When it's red, it's on.

Can you hear him? Can you hear him?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So the thing about these mics is that you still need to project. They're recording, they're on TV, it's big time. Okay? No. Omar, Amy, and Amy, sorry, Amy. Yeah, it's tight, so Valentin, can you get the e-mail from the head interpreter so Andine can send her statement, please? Open your e-mail, please. And, we're gonna probably start one or two minutes just to anything after this, so we might go over a few minutes. Creo que no hay otra conferencia después de nosotros.

Creo que no, mejor esperemos porque a las 3:35 han de llegar a ti también.

Ellos también tienen evento.

No sé, pienso que van a venir aquí. Si iniciamos antes, no alcanzan a llegar. He says a few from Friends.

Of the Earth, this is most.

But I've got 3 minutes, so it's good.

Maybe do the group photo at the end, please, thank you. And I will look at you and if you're going over,. Good afternoon and welcome. We will be starting momentarily. Please make sure you do have the translation equipment because this will be a bilingual or multilingual panel. one of our panelists will be presenting in Spanish. English is on channel one and Spanish is on channel three. Buenas tardes y muy bienvenidos. Vamos a comenzar en unos minutos, so in un minuto. There's also a translation into Armenian and French. We take advantage of this moment to thank the interpreters and the technical crew and Franco and Domenico for all the support and expertise that they are offering to make this a success. Without further ado, welcome to our press conference, which is officially entitled, "Will nature markets and monetizing charismatic species bridge the biodiversity financing gap?" That is a mouthful. The real question is, will putting Indigenous peoples' sacred animal relatives and territories in the carbon and biodiversity markets stop the sixth extinction and solve the climate crisis? The answer is a resounding no. Carbon and biodiversity markets are scientifically unfounded. They accelerate destruction destruction of life, they accelerate global warming, they greenwash big oil and extractive industries, and they constitute green colonialism. But let me introduce myself and together with our distinguished panel of indigenous peoples and civil society experts, explain why this is the case. My name is Cassandra Smithies and I am a researcher with Global Justice Ecology Project. Please feel free to download my free new book entitled Climate Opium: How We Are Overdosing on False Solutions to the Climate Emergency. So, as you may know, here at the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Mechanism for Biodiversity Finance set the goal of closing the $700 billion annual biodiversity funding gap as one of its targets for 2050. Money is not necessarily the key to saving the world, and it can't buy you love, but There are some obvious ways to raise this kind of money, such as changing paradigms to put people over profit, making peace, and redirecting the world's annual military budget of $2.8 trillion. Unfortunately, instead of stopping wars and phasing out fossil fuels immediately, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, governments and big conservation NGOs argue that commodifying indigenous people's territories and charismatic species is the way to raise the needed funding, the way to give capitalism a shot in the arm, and the way to save the environment and the climate. Given this scenario, one might well wonder if the Convention on Biological Diversity will become the Convention on Selling Biological Diversity. Putting a price on nature will not save nature. It will destroy nature. Nonetheless, based on REDD+, wildlife is being turned into permits to destroy our world. For example, we have a very succinct fact sheet that you can pick up in the back of the room as you leave that highlights emblematic cases of how offset projects with Indigenous peoples' sacred animals is greenwash for extractivism. For example, the prototype for jaguar offsets is the Jaguar Amazon REDD project, which logs the rainforest where the jaguars live. The project even has a sawmill operating in the project Jaguars, as you know, spend a lot of time in trees, so cutting down trees certainly is not a way to protect jaguars. Similarly, lion offsets are bought by oil giants like British Petroleum and Eni, and there is a mega lion carbon project in southern Africa in four countries that spans 10 million hectares of forest. in case you thought this might protect lions, well, the bad news is that a large scale open pit copper mine was approved in the project area. And obviously mining is not good for lions at all. Megafauna is particularly targeted for carbon and biodiversity offsets and so-called nature-based solutions. A prototype whale offset project in the Arctic The Whale Carbon Plus project has amongst its partners the Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation, which also uses the credits to greenwash the expansion of its iron ore mine in Indigenous peoples' territory, despite their opposition. So clearly, carbon biodiversity credits kill sacred animals because they allow pollution and destruction of life to continue, which drives the extinctions of the very animals that they purport to protect. It is now my great honor to give the floor to other experts of civil society and indigenous peoples who have ancestral relationships with their territories and sacred animals slated or already used for nature markets. We are blessed to have with us today Wilmar Lucitan de Criollo, who is a member of the Aiko Foundation of the Ecuadorian Amazon. He received his BA in Community Business Administration and is a community leader and defender of his territory. He currently coordinates the community environmental monitoring program of the union of communities impacted by Texaco's oil operations known as UDEAPT, as well as the forest and biodiversity program of Friends of the Earth of Latin America and the Caribbean. Wilmar, what do you think about Jaguar offsets? You have the floor.

Yes, I am Wilmer Lucitante. I come from the Ecuadorian Amazon. I come from a culture... ...where the ancestors lived in an original way. The territories where our ancestors have walked along and currently our future generation will have to tread. host the jaguar, the panther, about whom we are speaking right now. It's a very important animal and a sacred animal for us. It's a species which was cherished and adored by our ancestors. They were protecting it. And they had a very clear connection spiritually with the jaguar and other species as well that are in our rainforest. The jaguar is not an independent species in its own right. It's not a species that exists on its own. It needs to freely roam in large territories. It needs will be under constant care and attention, including the villages and territories where it cohabitates with humans, indigenous people. We take care of our territories. We protect jaguars and other species in the rainforest. The rainforest is under our care and protection. We will provide the jaguar to enjoy a healthy life together with us. These territories that our forefathers have been taking care of will be taken care of by us and hopefully hereafter by our next generations. The knowledge we have accumulated and the one that was transferred from our ancestors should be transferred to our next generations and we should not monetize it. We do not see any meaningful efforts as a community That is, we undermine our own roots. The biodiversity is suffering and is eroding. That is the root of the problem. They say that the jaguar is facing extinction. We have to start countering this trend. the consequences of actions by mining companies continue multiplying. They started in Ecuador in the 60s and have redoubled in volume since to this day. We do not see, we do see this as a major issue in our lands. For 33 years we have been consistently Opposing multinational companies that cause diseases among our people that harm and destroy the. Nature there is no justice. There is no fairness. There is no public oversight. In reality, there is a complete lack of respect towards our. villages, our settlements, no respect towards nature to speak of. We all should all take care of nature because it's not only our immediate environment or our work as indigenous people. Right now, we need to roll our sleeves and address these issues globally. What matters most is for us to restore the damage incurred to this point, and that is necessary for our land, our traditional knowledge, to enjoy due respect and all the damage to be reversed and restored. If we look at the 50 years horizon, had there not been Indigenous peoples, there would be far less care and the planet would have been far worse off, which is why we need this care to expand and multiply. We need urgently to take action to hold mining that exploits our land and our territories. That is the key message. The interventions in our territories cannot be underestimated or overlooked, which is why we have to prefer local action in the global context. We need to reverse this harm that's caused to our nature.

So important to hear the voices of indigenous peoples of the Amazon themselves. These people who have such a sacred and intimate relationship with jaguars and who have been struggling against oil companies and extractivism with such courage for so long. It is now an honor for me to introduce Amy Roberson, who is Choctaw and Chickasaw. She serves as executive director of Cultural Survival, which is a US-based nonprofit organization working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples globally in support of their self-determination, cultural revitalization and political resilience. Rooted in cultural values and traditional ecological knowledge, she is a lifelong student of Mother Earth's wisdom. and holds a bachelor's degree in geology and a master's degree in conservation biology. Amy, we would love to know what your take is on this avalanche of privatization of life.

Thank you, Cassandra. Hello, and good afternoon, everyone. As a conservation biologist, I have been concerned about biodiversity for more than 30 years. Even as a youth, I could see that a large portion of humanity was on a path of overconsumption, destruction, and desecration, with little regard for the full diversity of life on Mother Earth, nor the integrity of the ecosystems all life depends on. This trajectory, driven by the ideologies of extractivism and supremacy, is being enacted by colonial cultures and people who have long forgotten their own indigenous roots and values. This observation is what led me to work in the field of conservation biology. And after decades dedicated to conserving biodiversity, it became increasingly clear that to be truly successful, conservation must fully center Indigenous peoples as the most effective caretakers of biodiversity. Biodiversity thrives in forests, rivers, mountains, and seas that Indigenous peoples have stewarded across generations. For us, caring for biodiversity is not a policy choice, nor dependent on a market mechanism. It is who we are. Thus, protecting biodiversity is inseparable from protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples. Our cosmovisions, lifeways, and cultures emerge from reciprocal relationships with Mother Earth and a deep sense of responsibility to care for the ecosystems we all depend on. Yet our ability to steward ecosystems depends on maintaining our lifeways, ceremonies, customary laws, traditional governance, and tenure systems, along with the inherent rights that allow us to do so. Indigenous lifeways and cultures are place-based and diverse, reflecting the diversity of life in our territories, yet built on core values that most Indigenous people share, including respect, reverence, relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution. Our values are embodied through our cosmovisions and enacted through our governance and knowledge systems, always guiding us to seek balance with the diversity of beings, flows, and entities that we live with and interact with. Indigenous peoples know that as humans, we are in no way separate from nature. Rather, we are nature. We are children of Mother Earth, along with our sacred, more-than-human relatives that make up the full diversity of life. We hold all life forms as sacred beings with important roles to play in the ecosystems we all depend on. Of course, the sciences of ecology and conservation biology also show us the importance of each form of life to the integrity of ecosystems and our own well-being as humans. From megafauna such as whales, elephants, lions, and jaguars to the life forms hidden in the waters and soils of Mother Earth, all life is sacred and important to our collective well-being. Therefore, if we truly care about conserving biodiversity, we should not be tempted to monetize our relatives, nor ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, because they all have inherent value that cannot be reduced to a dollar amount. These market-based schemes are false solutions that in reality exacerbate the crises we are facing. Not only are these schemes sacrilegious, but they also lead to a net loss of biodiversity, to ecocide, and to degradation of the very systems that support life on Mother Earth, including all of us. If we are honest with ourselves and look at the evidence, whether through Indigenous knowledge systems or other kinds of science, we know that there can be no sacrifice zones, no trade-offs, no offsets if we want to ensure mutual flourishing or even if we want life on Mother Earth to survive for generations to come. Life on Mother Earth is already at the precipice of several tipping points related to climate, biodiversity, and the integrity of our ecosystems. And this is driven by human schemes to push forward with markets and lifestyles that are fundamentally unsustainable. We are all interconnected, and so are the global polycrises we are facing. All of these crises are driven by extractive and supremacy ideologies that put profit over people, biodiversity, and the health of Mother Earth. We cannot expect market so-called solutions to solve the problems that markets created in the first place, because the people, corporations, industries, and states that benefit the most from them will continue to put profit over all else unless they are required to do otherwise. We need regulation, strong legal frameworks, and reporting mechanisms that recognize the inherent sovereignty and rights of Indigenous peoples. And we need to look to the leadership of Indigenous peoples for real and sustainable solutions and the values of indigeneity that can sustain humanity and biodiversity as we co-create a future of mutual flourishing for all. Thank you. Ya ko ki.

Thank you, Amy. That was just such stellar clarity. I mean, really, we're talking about sacrilegious initiatives that humanity as a whole must not tolerate. And as you say, they make the multiple, the poly crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change worse. So they are by no means a solution. And that's precisely why we call them false solutions. All over the world, extractive industries and in particular mining companies, including here in Armenia, use biodiversity credits for greenwash. We're very fortunate this afternoon to have with us Andine Fakhira Loubis, who is going to share with us the struggle against a gold mining company in Indonesia that is trying to greenwash its destruction by pretending that it is protecting orangutans. Please, you have the floor.

Thank you, Cassandra. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Andin from the North Sumatra office of Friends of the Earth Indonesia. Today, we are bringing a case of biodiversity offsetting in North Sumatra to highlight the struggles of indigenous people and local communities affected by these themes. The gold mine in the Batang Toru ecosystem, owned by Jardine Matheson through its 51% stake in Astra International, is using a biodiversity offset scheme to justify operations. By 2034, the mines projected footprint will overlap 341 hectares of key biodiversity areas, the habitat of critically endangered species like the Tapanuli orangutan, the Sumatran tiger, and pangolin. The offset practice is deeply problematic. It is not transparent about how non-net loss and additionality are measured, and it has triggered serious conflict between indigenous people and local communities in the offset area. We interviewed residents in several villages in Padang Mandeling, Garugur, South Tapanuli, a local NGO that was tasked to facilitate this purchase, approached residents to buy 150 hectares of their customary land, primary forest that is Tapanuli orangutan habitat. The land was consolidated in the names of 54 households and bought for around 20 to 25 million per household. Some residents refused from the start and others eventually gave in. There was no proper free, prior and informed consent. Residents were told only that the purchase was for the good of the ecosystem. They did not know where the money came from or that their land would be used to justify a gold mine. The community held no legal document for its land, while the buyers offered legal certainty and upfront payment. Their consent was a decision made under pressure, not a choice freely made. A year later, residents voiced disappointment and some regret giving up the land. As one resident put it, the team goes straight to the forest without engaging the community. In other village like Huta Hopong in North Tapanuli, the land purchase triggered open conflict among indigenous residents. The local NGO brought in 1.4 billion in a five-year land lease scheme when the proposed distribution was presented, neighbors, it was rejected as unfair and the meeting ended without agreement. Neighbors now distrust one another. A community that had stood together to fight for legal recognition of its land is now divided and that collective process has stalled amid fears of a larger social conflict. Their land is also a part of a government proposal for preservation area drawn up without consultation, which Huta Hopong representative have strongly rejected. All of this is being done to justify destruction by the same corporation that the Indonesian government held liable for worsening the last year's Sumatra floods and landslide, which has resulted in this kind of destruction. This disaster killed 1,119 people across three provinces and a recent study estimated it also wiped out about 50 Tapanuli orangutans, roughly 7% of the species. The Ministry of Environment of Indonesia sued the company and the case was settled with 12 million USD in compensation for environmental degradation. And now the same company wants to justify its destruction through offset somewhere else. This is unacceptable and that is why we call for the mine to stop. We call for an end to offset schemes that compensate for nothing and only create conflict among indigenous and local communities. And we call to stop the false solution and truly address the elephant in the room on what truly drives biodiversity loss. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And I did want to note that I do believe that Indigenous peoples are also affected by that mine and these greenwash tactics. Well, it is now a pleasure to introduce Tom Goldtooth, who is Dine and Dakota. He is the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. Tom has received multiple prestigious awards for his 40 years as a change maker with environmental, economic, energy, and climate justice movements. He has been at the forefront of key and pivotal moments in fighting for systemic change. So, Tom, will turning nature into natural capital save nature? And what do you think about buffalo being used for biodiversity and carbon credits? You have the floor, please.

Yeah, thank you, Cassandra. How My name is Tom Goldtooth. is my Dakota name. It's good to speak about these important issues and concerns because in my travels throughout the world, Talking to communities on the front line of resistance to these false solutions has really woken me up on how this is a violation of the sacred. It's a violation of many of the Indigenous peoples' values, teachings. But in my travels, I find that even though there are many environmental and conservation NGO groups that are promoting this, because there's a lot of money to be made, they predict the trillion dollar industry. That's why they're always trying to make improvements to the market of trading. But I find in my travels that as I follow up, whether it's in the Amazon or whether it's in Africa, Southeast Asia, where these NGOs have come to give training on what is reducing emissions from deforestation and other ecological services, payment for services, carbon offsets, the list goes on. That despite the training, I have asked communities who have gone through training, where does the money come from? And they say the World Bank, for an example, or the government. And I said, no. In the Amazon, for an example, I have some friends I call relatives, the Seriaco. A training, an NGO came through there, and they did not have an answer to this. And I said, it's Chevron. It's Chevron, it's Shell. It's this polluting industry that is, you can say, buying the trees or leasing the trees. So it's their trees legally within colonial structures of property rights. So I want to lay some of that foundation in what I'm talking about in some of your questions, Cassandra, in my role As executive director of an indigenous organization, many indigenous peoples depend on us to give answers that are honest and truthful. And that means that we have to establish a network of experts. Some of the experts that I consult with are spiritual authorities, not only back home in North America, but spiritual authorities in the South, such as Chief Ninawa Hunukwe from Acre, Brazil. And he's resisting these issues. And I say this about this issue because it involves a passion of our people where I go. They want to have dignity. in protecting the territorial integrity of Mother Earth, but Father Sky as well. Because as that world out there, that's not part of our world, they starting to not only continue to expand, bringing in the forest, the trees, the grasslands, the marshes, the wetlands, but now blue carbon in the oceans. But it was Cassandra gave me a call one time. She says, I got to tell you, there's some information that they're starting to look at whales, whales as a carbon offset, as a carbon sponge. And I could not comprehend a world that is eventually on a quest to own all of the waters as well as the land. Because in order to trade this carbon, they got to bring it into a market system. And before you treat carbon as a commodity and the trees, the air, They have to determine whose property right that is. Then who owns that carbon? It's Shell Oil Company carbon. It's Chevron. It's the polluting industry. But it just doesn't stop there now. In Cali at COP16 of the CBD, there was a lot of literature and posters and of NGOs and governments and financial institutions pushing biodiversity credits and offsets. It's not carbon offsets, but it allows still a market system that allows the extractive industry, the mining corporations, to offset their destruction in one area, they can destroy the Mother Earth but to look good in their PR, public relation campaigns. This system allows them to restore another land way over here that they were involved with. So they offset the damage here. We have that in the United States as well. They're doing that same thing, like I mentioned, with force. They can destroy the forest here and they say, we are capturing the carbon and we're starting to take that carbon like a straw and they blow it into the mother earth to sequester. And they say they're offsetting their pollution, net zero, they use terminology. So we bring up the issue of impact. There's African American, there's Native American, Chinese American, Latino people, and poor white people that live in Richmond, California, right next to the Chevron city of oil refineries. You look at those lights at night, there's so many lights, it's like a city of oil, refining oil, combustion and burning of oil. And a lot of the people that live in that area, they have respiratory illnesses, lung disease. And so we say, what are you doing about that? And what are you doing about the climate? They say, you don't understand. We're offsetting our pollution. We're offsetting it like a pendulum, like a weight. And how are you doing that? Well, we're buying the carbon. We're protecting the trees in the Amazon and the tropical forests. So when I heard about this concern about life of the trees and to see that they're expanding that to these charismatic species, you can look that up in your Google search, charismatic species. the population of the world said, "Wow, the jaguar is a beautiful creature. The whales are beautiful, the bison, the buffalo." And so these charismatic species are living throughout the world and they're starting to be used as a carbon sink, a carbon sponge. But it's not just that Like where I come from, they are starting to research and utilize our buffalo, the buffalo with our Dakota people, Lakota and Nakota people. Tatanka Oyate is our word for the buffalo. We come from the buffalo. That's part of our genesis. The settlers who came here have no understanding and cannot comprehend What do you mean you come from the buffalo? We come from the buffalo. They were under the ground and we were under the ground. We come from the same energy, that same genesis. So we have something in common and to feel that they're starting to come after a relative and use a relative as a carbon sponge, but also their habitat. They're linking this with conservation organization on a perception of a win-win. And they call this use of charismatic species re-wilding, like wild, and you re-wild, re-wild. rewilding. You can look up that word too, rewilding. There are large NGOs and societies, they make money from this because there's money to be made. And they say, well, don't you want to restore the soil? And don't you want to restore the grasslands and the habitat? or the buffalo range, because we are also inventorying the carbon in the soil and the grass that breathes in carbon. We know, our spiritual leaders know of the science. Trees breathe the air. We know that. They're the lungs, and they bring in the carbon. So we know about the life and the life cycles. That language is sacred language to us. In many of my travels, it's the spiritual authorities that have this. So as I looked at this, the market logic to nature, the market logic to the cycle of life, and that it doesn't add up. I see more reports around other carbon systems and regimes. There's reports coming out every year that there's scams. There's scams. And I mentioned a lot of these NGOs, maybe you're sitting, listening to me, the Nature Conservancy, WWF, Environmental Defense Fund, Norway, is the country, you know, is invested in fossil fuels. So they have a lot of money that they give to our indigenous peoples in the Amazon to believe in this as a form of mitigation. But to see that this mitigation now is going into our animals, to our relatives, and I don't know where things are going to go right now to use these charismatic species as a carbon cycling machine, turning property that can be bought and traded and sold on a global stock exchange. Capitalism, climate capitalism, how are we as a society at this point in our life allowing this to happen? Where is the ethics of climate change? Where is the ethics of maintaining the conservation and protection of endangered species? They're probably going to go after anything that has a value of carbon and other biological issues. That's why biosafety and genetics is very important to us. My final words, you know, is that we have to say no, no to offsets. Offsets pollute, offsets destroy the sacredness of our Mother Earth. So we have to stand together and we got to wake up the decision makers about this issue and stop selling Mother Earth. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Tom. I think we do need to conclude, but before we do, I just wanted to share with you some graphics. These are from the International Monetary Fund, and you can see that for them, whales are dollar signs and elephants as well. It is no coincidence that the International Monetary Fund, the global loan shark responsible for foreign debt colonialism, is taking the lead on putting indigenous people's sacred relatives, so-called charismatic species into carbon and biodiversity markets because they know that it's going to be a big multi-billion dollar business to commodify all of life. But we're not going to stand for it. So we thank you for attending and we say no false solutions, no REDD, no nature-based solutions and no offsets by any name. You know, offsets and credits are the same. Let's not split hairs. Let's not rebrand terms. Let's call it what it is and speak truth to power for Mother Earth and Father Sky. Phase out fossil fuels now. Let's make peace and above all, brothers and sisters, We must defend the sacred. Thank you very much. So if there's media that would like to follow up with us, with questions or interviews, we're happy to do that unilaterally now or anon. Thanks again. And please feel free to take the free information, which is in the back of the room. We have some case studies and links, QR codes to more information of all of this. Thanks again.