11 February saw events focus on environmental exploitation and degradation, with UNPO Members around the world marking the day with actions relevant to their own unique environmental challenges. The Day marks the beginning of a year UNPO hopes will see a renewed and more inclusive focus on the local costs of failing to protect our natural surroundings.

This year, on 11 February, the date of the founding of UNPO sixteen years ago, marked the observance of the UNPO International Day of Action, a date upon which UNPO Members around the world now mark their joint commitment to overcoming those obstacles they have in common.

At its First Session, from 1 to 3 February 2007 at the European Parliament in Brussels, the UNPO Presidency resolved to focus this year’s actions and commemorations on the environment, an issue central to almost all Members of UNPO. Recognising however the complexity of this theme, as well as the variety of ways in which environmental damage manifests itself as a challenge to Members, each was encouraged to mark the day locally and in a manner that drew attention to their own unique concerns. This local approach hoped to refocus attention on the real human costs of failing to preserve the environments which sustain communities everywhere.

The UNPO Secretariat is functioning as a focal point of UNPO Member grass-roots activities, receiving and distributing reports on events taking place around the world. The response by affected local communities detailing their manifestations of the UNPO Day, stretching from Tibet in South Asia, Ahwazis in the Middle-East, the Southern Cameroons in Africa and to indigenous peoples in the Americas, confirm the truly global nature of environmental challenges.

UNPO President Ledum Mitee is well aware of the challenges faced by African Members, himself an outspoken critic against the damage caused to Ogoni land and communities by the growing regional oil industry and the related crisis over environmental pollution and economic marginalization. The Ogoni leader has expressed particular acknowledgment of the environment as a key issue for 2007, starting with the marking of 11 February. These are concerns also familiar to the Mapuche in South America, and the Buffalo River Dene Nation and newly admitted Tsimshian Nation in North America, all of whom continue to experience the difficulties of retaining effective control over ancestral lands once resources of value are discovered. Mining and deforestation in pursuit of minerals and lumber are also among the complaints of Asian UNPO Members, in particular following a decade of increased activity in West Papua, Bougainville, and Cordillera.

In Tibet, the Tesi Environmental Awareness Movement (TEAM) chose to focus on the effects poaching and development projects are having on the countless endangered species that have found their final refuge in the Tibetan Plateau. The effects of species extinction have already been felt in this fragile and deeply interdependent ecosystem, but a poster campaign launched on the UNPO International Day of Action aims to educate and inform local communities of the urgent need to protect some of their most threatened species.

Upon unveiling the posters, TEAM's Head, Tsering Yangkey, said "Tibet is one of the founding members of UNPO and we are delighted that environment is this year's theme.  Whatever political or geographical lines we may draw on the globe, the fact is that we all share the same blue planet. The responsibility towards environmental protection lies with each of us. As a Tibetan organisation we believe that our role in biodiversity conservation is a symbol of Tibetan people' strength and commitment in protecting Mother Nature."

These were sentiments no doubt shared by the people of Southern Cameroons, who greeted the focus on the environment with equal enthusiasm. Following the hoisting of the UNPO flag, activists from the Southern Cameroons Nation Council (SCNC) joined their local communities to plant trees. Each tree planted represents a small step towards reversing the rapid deforestation that has followed a renewed commercial interest in the timber of Southern Cameroons.

Celebrations in Southern Cameroons were however overshadowed by the continued detention of SCNC Vice-Chairman Nfor Ngala Nfor, arrested nearly a month ago along with a number of other senior SCNC activists during a peaceful press conference in Bamenda, Southern Cameroons. Determined as ever, SCNC activists continued however their celebrations of the International Day of Action with a march of solidarity, appealing for the immediate release of all their imprisoned leaders and colleagues.

[More on the detention of Mr. Nfor]

In a unique demonstration of solidarity, other UNPO Members decided to incorporate this appeal also into their own celebrations of the Day of Action. Numerous letters were signed and sent to the Office of the President of the Republic of Cameroon, urging an end to the ongoing suppression those engaged in non-violent expressions of political opposition in Southern Cameroons, as well as the unconditional release of their fellow UNPO Member Representative.  

UNPO Members decided also to express their solidarity with the Ahwazi Arabs of Iran, a community devastated by the wilful destruction of their environment for the benefit of dominant communities elsewhere. The diversion of the Karoon and Karkhe rivers has alone transformed once fertile agricultural land into a dry desert landscape, putting an end also to the once widespread rearing of water buffalo. Peaceful opposition to these oppressive conditions has however met with tragic consequences, as Iranian authorities have continued to execute Ahwazi activists.

[More on the execution of Ahwazi activists]

The International Day of Action saw UNPO Members join the growing international condemnation of these executions by urging the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to advocate international efforts to bring an end to this wave of repression. Their appeals were accompanied also by a further commitment to the ongoing campaign to bring about an end to all executions through a universal moratorium on the death penalty, with countless UNPO Members signing their support for the campaign led by the Non-violent Radical Party.  

[More on the campaign for a moratorium on executions]

This UNPO International Day of Action has undoubtedly confirmed that problems associated with the environment remains high on the agenda of UNPO. The environment clearly represents a special challenge to UNPO Members, as environmental degradation and exploitation is often most severe in communities which suffer the additional costs of marginalisation and discrimination. Despite this fact, most remain excluded from those domestic and international bodies mandated to protect and preserve their resources and natural surroundings.

UNPO hopes therefore the UNPO International Day of Action 2007 will mark the beginning of a renewed and more inclusive focus on the countless issues relating to our environment, and hopes, in line with the Declaration issued by UNPO General Secretary Mr. Marino Busdachin, that;

“2007 is a year in which unrepresented nations and peoples everywhere are promoted to full and equal partners in any discussions relevant to their environment”

[Read the Full Declaration]