PHM-Exch> [PHM NEWS] Declaration of Rosario - Mother Earth, One Health
Claudio Schuftan
cschuftan at phmovement.org
Thu Jun 22 20:14:09 PDT 2017
From: Kléver Calle <kcalle at gmail.com>
*Declaration of Rosario*
June 16, 2017
*Encounter Intercontinental Mother Earth, One Health*
*4th International Congress on Socio-environmental Health *
We are collectively academics, social activists, ecologists, indigenous
peoples, artists, professionals of human, animal and plant health, food
producers, scientists and researchers, creators of new economies,
communicators of good news. We come from Argentina, Australia, Bolivia,
Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, India,
Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay. We met from the 12th to the
16th of June in Rosario, Argentina to build spaces for dialog, art, science
and poetry, in the framework of ancestral and academic knowledge, to make
visible the stories of resistance needed for the defence of life.
We have come to Rosario to share the quiet urgency to unite in diversity,
to multiply the efforts to walk in harmony without waste, wear and tear.
Also to share concerns and various forms of resistance and construction in
the face of the attacks on the health of Mother Earth and her many
communities. To give ourselves hope in ways of life, inclusive and diverse,
and celebrate the harvest of the fruits we have sown. We have sought to
meet to rejoice, to dream, to fly, to wake up and resist. To be in
solidarity, to listen and learn together about the care of plants, animals,
the earth and our lives. To continue dreaming the dreams of the world
seeking "the heart of Science and Life".
We agree that when we speak of One Health, we are asserting the health for
all living organisms, not only for us as humans. We recognize that we are
only a small part of a Universe, in which everything is interconnected, a
thread in the fabric of the life on this beautiful planet, all participants
of a wonderfully complex ecological balance. We recognize that human health
is a reflection of the health of our planet. Recognizing that our Large
Home, Mother Earth or Pachamama, is a macro-ecosystem, which houses
millions of interconnected ecosystems, each with their own characteristics.
During these intense days we have shared testimonies and scientific
evidence of the devastation of the Earth and the diseases that this
destruction, motivated by the industrial system of production and
consumption and its unrestrained pursuit of profit, induces in communities,
human beings and other forms of life. We have heard also of the impact of
this destruction on the many interrelations between the health of the mind,
the body, economic structures, policies and ecosystems; and we have
exchanged experiences and evidence of living well together in society and
nature, to refresh our senses and return to the path of complementarity,
solidarity and cooperation with all beings.
We are building a platform with all this knowledge to care for seeds,
biodiversity, microbial life, our economies and cultures, to stop the
degradation of elements of life and to recover the health of Mother Earth
and our communities.
We have seen how globally the intention is to impose a model of corporate
industrial agriculture and food production that carries with it a huge
environmental devastation, linked to hunger, malnutrition and destruction
of lands of the peasants and indigenous peoples. The might of the big
corporations continues to be imposed in vast territories of transgenic
seeds, industrial monoculture plantations and massive spraying with
pesticides. Corporate power is increasing, with just a handful of
corporations controlling global seed markets, biotechnology, agrochemicals,
agricultural machinery and fertilizers, threatening to turn farmers into
mere slaves. Seed laws, sanitary and phytosanitary standards, new
technologies and the marketing of processed food are some of the tools that
capitalism is using to impose this agro-food system; a system that is
linked to a majority of the most frequent diseases of people, animals and
the planet.
Extractivism is another facet of this process of destruction and from the
specific stories shared here by our companions, farmers and indigenous
peoples, we have seen how large-scale and open-pit mining, the extraction
of hydrocarbons, the imposition of fracking and other megaprojects are
forcing entire communities out of their lands, often through violent and
criminal assault on their resistance, which is they have adopted as the
only way to survive. At the same time, mega-cities have transformed into a
space of extractivism, in the hands of real estate speculators, the
irrational occupation of urban space and the massive use of resources that
the model of consumption implies.
We have also been able to see that the so-called "health system" is in fact
a "disease system" where the focus is on the market and commodification and
where the result is a system that promotes illness and kills, controlled,
also in this case, by a handful of corporations - many of them the same
ones making agro-toxic products as is the case of Bayer, which is also in
the process of acquiring Monsanto. In this context, industrial drugs are,
together with medical technology, one of the main tools for the control of
the lives of our peoples; the system of patents, the domination of drug
discovery in a few laboratories and the abusive use of this power are all
facets of the same problem.
A special mention should be made of the indiscriminate use of antibiotics,
in both human health and their application in agriculture and animal
husbandry, that is leading to the emergence of resistant microorganisms,
that are becoming increasingly serious threats and might soon be
uncontrollable in our societies.
We have also been able to recognize one of the most serious problems
affecting our societies, namely garbage. This is a patent example of a
society that has disengaged itself from ecological life cycles, lost
control of its own metabolism to become the facilitator of its own death.
*We declare ourselves in resistance to this model of death!*
And that's why the resistance of the people who have been poisoned with
pesticides, the original peoples in their lands, the recyclers, the women,
the struggles against transgenic crops, against fracking and mining are
examples that encourage our collective solidarity.
We know where we are going and have shared an enormous amount of knowledge,
proposals, research, ideas, principles and paradigms that make up different
and complementary seeds, of the new world that is being born as we walk
together.
We have been able to reaffirm the need to consolidate the production of
healthy food for free peoples as a basis for our walk. Only agro-ecological
agriculture, small scale farmer-based, local, diverse, and in harmony with
nature, will be able to produce healthy food for our peoples as they have
been doing over the last ten thousand years. These foods are the ones that
nourish us, bind us together with others, that are nourished each day by
the culture of our ancestors, that heal us, that make community and allow
us to continue the dialog with nature and diversity.
In this context, food sovereignty is the way, the principle and the guide
to retake the road to a world free from hunger and to produce healthy food
in harmony with nature. Food sovereignty is expressed in the struggles of
all peoples that defend their lands, their natural assets, their seeds and
their ways of life. The future lies in ensuring the right of peoples to
decide what to grow and how to grow is installed as a global norm and as an
indispensable practice.
We also met in feminist struggles, in popular feminisms, in the resistance
to violence against women and in the radical questioning of the dominant
patriarchal system. This is another source of inspiration that nourishes
us, stimulates us to transformation and guides us on the path to a society
without violence. From these struggles we have learned that our bodies are
also our territories and to defend them and care for them is a fundamental
and integral component of the territories of life that we are defending and
nurturing. Diversity is the basis of all forms of life and also of
resistance. We denounce and we stand in solidarity against femicide
everywhere. We see how essential is the construction and the struggle of
women, we learn from the wisdom of indigenous and rural women, reaffirming
the need to maintain and strengthen the collective care that we all have to
exercise, of Mother Earth and all its living beings.
We understand that by repairing and healing the territories we can protect
the collective health and ensure a healthy life for our peoples. And we
find within nature itself the specific possibilities and examples of
nourishment, healing and opportunities to live fully. Here, invisible
micro-organisms play an indispensable role, being the oldest and most
numerous living organisms on our planet, in sustaining the balance of life
through promotion of diversity, tireless contribution to essential
ecological processes and even in their resistance to the toxicity of our
medicine.
Many of us are part research and education groups within universities and
have engaged in discussions on our role, our responsibility and our
challenges. From these discussions and the nourishing memories of struggles
for the Cordoba University Reform 99 years ago, we are committed to reach
100 years of that reform, assuming the current challenges and asking
ourselves:
- As raised in 1918, students should have a fundamental role in
the life of the university. Today we think that learning based and focused
on the lives of the peoples and their territories should be the axis to
flag and put into practice the next reform.
- We are committed to Dignified Science, the path of science for
life, towards a model of knowledge construction that takes into account the
diversity of knowledge that dwells in the diversity of our peoples. We make
the words of Andrés Carrasco our own: "Latin American peoples have the
inalienable right to develop a transparent, autonomous science and one that
serves their interests. To do this, that science must be undertaken with
honesty, bearing in mind that failure to do so may violate its commitment
to the truth, and thereby provide the legitimation that dominant
technological development requires as an instrument of control and
colonialism".
- We are committed to continue to investigate the signs and
symptoms of the disease that affects Mother Earth, to deepen the study of
the problems that arise locally, nationally and regionally, to generate
evidence and the elaboration of an "Interactive Planetary Therapeutic
Guide".
- We will promote local projects and actions for the repair and
healing of the wounds of Mother Earth, such as the proposal for Smart
Cities or Towns to promote the careful use of antibiotics, to take care of
life itself.
- In the face of the crisis of civilization that radically
challenges us now we believe that the University should take an active role
by listening to the people, and engaging in social and political processes
that they have put in place.
- As scientists committed to society and nature, we reaffirm our
commitment to work for a science independent of the influence of
transnational corporations, with and for the people, following the example
of Andrés Carrasco. We denounce the attempt of agribusiness to impose new,
highly risky forms of genetic engineering, now under the name of
"genomics", intended to reach the market without evaluations regarding
biosecurity. We denounce the schemes from companies and groups with
political and academic power to push false "solutions" to increase their
profits through sales and patenting, and to avoid questioning the causes of
various crises, related to food, health, environmental or climatic
conditions. We denounce the strategy of systematic elimination of activists
and defenders of our territories at the global level, but especially in
Latin America. We denounce and reject the strategies of the governments at
the service of the Corporations, that drive actions such as the Covenant
Mining (in Argentina), the so-called "Seed Laws" which are, in fact, laws
for the protection of corporations, the delivery of our territories to
economic power establishing practices, which eliminate indigenous peoples
and peasants. We reject the attempt to release genetically manipulated
mosquitoes in several countries of the continent, as well as all the
proposals to use, market and release genetically manipulated animals,
insects and microorganisms. We strongly reject the proposals for tackling
climate change that involve manipulation of the climate, through
geo-engineering. We demand that the authorities cease to impose policies
that protect the health of corporations, at the expense of the health of
the peoples and territories.
All technologies, and particularly new technologies, should be evaluated
from the perspective of society, with a multiplicity of visions and
perspectives that involve academic, scientific and other workers,
neighbourhood and collective urban dwellers and peasant farmers,
environmentalists, gender and women's movements, indigenous peoples,
collective and popular health movements and others. We welcome the
initiative of the Network of Social Evaluation of Technologies in Latin
America, that includes many of the perspectives of the previous
socio-environmental Congresses.
The road that we are traveling may not be walked without being enriched and
nourished by dialogue with art and ancestral knowledge and so it is that
the literature, music, dance, theater, existential experiences which enrich
and nourish us, are other ways to express the stories of resistance for
life; stories of love, freedom and hope that are waiting to be told.
We live in a world dominated by corporations… a world in which, however, it
is still possible to build healthy resistance, from the meetings and
dialogs that are born of respect for diversity, cooperative processes,
people’s own processes who know how to take the time necessary to care for
and to domesticate the seeds, which allow the nurture of crops vital for
the sustenance of life.
These emancipatory political plantings that enabled people to embody and
make real the dream of a sovereign future harvest for all, in territories
thriving with health…
We can take on the challenge of rebuilding our territories, recover a
praxis that recognizes the value of diversity and time as dimensions
essential for the creation of a new political order, and through the
meetings of the collective, through Cooperation, Humility, Solidarity, put
a brake on extractivism, that was imposed upon us, to give priority to the
Health of Mother Earth over that of the corporations.
During this week we have nourished experiences, affections and commitments,
projects and proposals, dreams of health and healthy food, and reaffirm our
commitment to Heal the Planet, to retrieve the flow of life and continue to
walk with the word, the action, the memory and the know-how of our peoples
and scientists, with the commitment to life and Buen Vivir, building
together a society just, supportive, healthy and hopeful.
www.madretierraunasolasalud.org
madretierraunasolasalud at gmail.com
*Declaration of Rosario in PDF*
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6BfXx3BpFgfa3FhdU9hS3FScmc/view?usp=sharing>
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