Podcast: Hindou Ibrahim, Founder and President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad

Interview Transcript
Transcribed by Otter AI

Kimberly White
Hello and welcome to Common Home Conversations. Today we are joined by Hindou Ibrahim, Founder and President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad. Hindou is also the Co-Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change and a UN SDG Advocate. Thank you for joining us today!

Hindou Ibrahim
It’s a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.

Kimberly White
You have been a steadfast champion for human rights and sustainable development. What was the inspiration behind your lifelong dedication to bettering our planet?

Hindou Ibrahim
Yeah, I mean, I’m so excited to be championing the Sustainable Development Goals because, for me, they are talking about our life. So when we talk from the objective one who is fighting poverty, or to five with the gender, or 13 with climate change, all the 17 of them take us in the partnership. They’re talking about how we can improve our life, how we can improve our society, and how we can make it better than now by respecting people in climate. So for me, it is obvious because, from the communities that I come from, we always take all the problems and all the crises together to resolve all of them. So that’s why I am so excited to be championing the sustainable development goals for my peoples and for all Indigenous peoples, and at the end of the day, for the planet in general.

Kimberly White
That’s wonderful. So we’re seeing how climate change is impacting every corner of our planet in many ways. Can you share with us how climate change is affecting your country and your region?

Hindou Ibrahim
So I am coming from the Sahel regions and coming from Chad, who has a very different landscape. We have a hundred percent desert in the north. And we have savannah in the Sahel in the middle. And then we have the tropical forests in the Congo basin in the south. So when you live in the three different ecosystems in a landlock and when your life depends on the ecosystem, you know exactly the impact of climate change. You do not read it in the book or watch it on the TV; you live it. I give you an example of how we are really impacted. We got the research from my organization from 1999 to now, and the chart is already on plus 1.5-degree increase. And why we see that every day, our dry season becomes much longer. With a very, very long sun and heavy sun that’s coming up to 50 degrees Celsius. When you go to the desert, it’s about 54 degrees Celsius. And that impacts our environment and impacts the rain because the rain season also changed, it’s become much shorter and coming with the heavy rain that can flood all the places. For example, this year, where we have all the Sahel under flood. You have even in the townspeople take the canoe to go from one neighborhood to another one. And four months before it was the heat, and the very dry heat where the crops cannot grow. And it will end up with food insecurity because when you don’t have regular rain, it cannot penetrate the soil, it cannot leave the vegetation to regenerate. And that impacts the food insecurity of the communities. And at the end of the day, the environmental impact, it’s going to change the social life of the people. It creates conflict among the communities that are fighting to get access to the shrinking resources. And one of the examples I give it’s around Lake Chad. Lake Chad is the fifth biggest freshwater that we have. Around this lake in 1960, it was 25000 kilometers square of this freshwater shared between Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, and the Central African Republic. Now the lake is shrinking to 2000 kilometers square of freshwater. So you have 90% of the water just evaporated because of the heat. And suddenly, there are more than 50 million people whose living is dependent on this fragile ecosystem. They are farmers, they are fishermen and pastoralists from my community. So what do those people have to do? Because they depend on the end of the month’s salaries, they depend on the rain. They depend on the ecosystem of this area of lake. So they just fight among themselves to get access to those resources. Some of them become internally displaced; others become refugees. And most of them, especially the youth, become a migrant, cross-border, and then maybe cross the oceans. So the climate is impacting all the single steps of our life in development.

Kimberly White
One of the most powerful change agents overlooked throughout society is women. Studies have shown that women are disproportionately impacted by climate change. According to the United Nations, 21.5 million people are displaced annually by weather hazards worsened by climate change. Out of those displaced, women account for 80%. How are women critical in the fight against the climate crisis?

Hindou Ibrahim
Sure, I mean women are at the front line of the climate change impact. Because when the weather changes, maybe it is just the weather for ordinary people, but for the people who depend on these resources, it is for them, life changing. And especially the woman, because in our communities, women are the ones who are responsible for feeding the communities. So they are the ones who, of course, collect the water, the food, but also traditional medicine. So during the rainy season, we collect all the fruits and all the vegetables that we do have, then dry them up to use them during the dry season, for the entire season. But there is not enough for everyone. So they found themselves fighting just to get access to those resources, who call it food, it is the livelihood for us.

On the other hand, when there is a dry season, and there are not enough resources, the man responds by going away. So when they leave the places, they leave the woman and the children behind who have to fight for the daily best in order to cope and adapt to find the food for their families. So they are really the most vulnerable. And of course, they cannot maybe migrate a long path. And when there is a crisis that comes, like around Lake Chad, when there is the shrinking of the resources, it’s also helping the terrorist groups settle there like Boko Haram. And then the violence starts in those places. And the women and children have to take their children and leave the place. In the end, they become internally displaced or a migrant in their own homeland from one region to another one, and then they become the most vulnerable again. It is not the issue that they are climate refugees or whatever. But they are really internal migrants, they are internal refugees in their own home countries, not because of the economic reason, but because of the environment that’s degraded and they cannot get any access as they used to, to get food and medicine for their children and ensure the generations.

Kimberly White
That really shows how interconnected everything is- the environment, social issues, and security.

Hindou Ibrahim
Yes, of course, I mean, that’s why for us, we cannot talk on all this crisis in silo. Because when we talk about insecurity, talk about the rebellion groups or terrorist groups that take the opportunity. They take the opportunity because they found the people who are already poor. And then they increase this poverty everyday with climate change, and they take the opportunities to distill what they have done. And if a person does not have dignity in these communities, they are ready to do everything in it, or they are forced to make one of two choices. They join them, or they become a migrant running from this place to go to another place. And when they go to another place, there is not enough work for everyone, and they become again the most vulnerable. So insecurity, climate change, poverty, lack of development, all those issues are interlinkages. We cannot respond to the insecurity as just giving a gun and having soldiers around if we do not work around the development of the communities. And we cannot also wait until the crisis comes and respond as humanitarian, giving the food aid and that’s it. So it is not also a sustainable way. The three pillars work together. They are the security issues, the development issues, and then the humanitarian issues. All those need to be at the same level in order to help the people go out from the impact of insecurity that they have. Then, at the top, we have to all fight climate change in order to give the future to those communities.

Kimberly White
You make an excellent point- globally, we’ve discussed many of these issues in their respective silos. However, as we can see throughout the world, and in your region, these issues are all interconnected- so it is imperative that we take this into account when developing plans of action and solutions. Can you discuss the importance of preserving and sharing traditional knowledge and its role in helping current science and technology provide solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises?

Hindou Ibrahim
So while Indigenous communities, in many Indigenous communities are, or I can say, all Indigenous communities that depend on nature. And I give you the example of my own people, that we depend on the rainfall. We live from one place to another one to find water in pastures. And that’s given us the unique opportunity to live in harmony with our ecosystem.

To understand nature, to live with this nature, for centuries and thousands of years. So we learn from each species of nature, from the clouds, from the wind, from all the insects, flowers, plants, our own cattles, who give us a lot of information. And from all those, we build our traditional knowledge, we build our wisdom, and that helps us to build our resilience. But traditional knowledge is also ecosystem-based. I give you the examples like when we come to the west or like they say oh, in the Sahel, you have like three seasons, one rain season, dry season, and then maybe a cold season that is disappearing because of climate change. But in our communities, like the people who are living between the Sahara and the savannas, there are six seasons. Those who are living between savannas and tropical forests, there are seven seasons. All those seasons are based on each ecosystem we have and it’s helped us to develop a unique traditional knowledge to adapt and build our resilience to all the climate change. Because they are very old knowledge, they are centuries of knowledge. And then we can use them if we respect them, we understand them, and we give them the same level of recognition as science knowledge. We cannot have the science who can confirm the traditional knowledge. It cannot work like that. Science cannot confirm it because Indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge are since thousands of years, and science knowledge was discovered after that. So there is no way that they confirm because they just don’t know how to write it, how to read it. And they do not know how to read our languages or, or how to write our languages. And our language plays a big role in our knowledge. So that’s why it is important to work hand in hand with science knowledge and traditional knowledge in order to empower each other and then to get support to build the resilience for the people, not to make a report, but to build resilience for the peoples.

Kimberly White
I recently saw a quote about how we look at nature-based solutions now like they’re this new thing, but Indigenous communities had the original nature-based solutions. They’ve been saying these things for centuries.

Hindou Ibrahim
Exactly. I mean, when the people discover the new word, that’s also what I’m saying all the climate change movement, they love a new word. Each year, there is a new word. So it is not having a sexy word that can resolve the climate issues. It is understanding what is happening that can help us resolve it. When they say, oh nature-based solution, can add 30% of the solution to climate change. We are like, well, that’s what we are trying to tell you for many years. We are trying to tell you that our nature plays a big role in restoring all the ecosystems and having a solution to climate change. And the nature-based solution they’re calling it, for us, it’s our way of life. It’s our way of living. And when like my community, as nomadic, they live from one place to another one all the time.

Our cows helped to fertilize the land, and when we came back, we found the water in the pastures. So this is the nature-based solution because it’s created in a natural way in this circular way that we respect our environment and the environment gives us in return also what we need: food, medicine, and all the necessities for our survival. The sad part of it, they wanted to put a price on nature-based solutions. Nature is not a business. We cannot put a price on nature. If we ask someone how much you cost yourself, they’re like, why are we putting a price on the people? So okay, nature also has rights. We cannot put a price as money, as cash in nature. We have to put our wisdom, we have to know how we can live in harmony with this nature. And that is also called a nature-based solution. So they need to understand the wisdom of living in harmony with nature in order to give this nature a break to build resilience for all of us and take all the planet to the level that we want on 1.5 degrees.

Kimberly White
Absolutely. Our lives and our livelihoods depend on nature; it’s the most valuable thing that we have. And that’s why it’s so important that we work towards these goals together. Now, you’re the founder of AFPAT. Can you tell us more about this and how the coalition is working to empower Indigenous communities?

Hindou Ibrahim
Yes, I founded the AFPAT, which is the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad, when I was very young. I founded it when I finished primary school. And then it gets official authorization when I get 15 years old. And the reason that for me, it’s how I can fight for the rights of the girls who have my age at that time, and who do not have all the rights that they deserve. And I understood that I cannot talk about human rights without talking about environmental rights because in my community, all is the same. Human rights and environmental rights are the same. If you violate the right of the environment, you are violating the rights of the human being that lives there. And that has been our two objectives; protection and promotion of human rights in Indigenous people’s rights and protection of the environment through the treaty of conventions on climate change, biodiversity, and desertification. So when we have this objective for us, it is how we can make a concrete action to the communities; how we can empower women and girls; and how we can work with the communities to make them understand what is happening at the international level. And also take the needs of the communities to the international level in order to make the right decision. So how can we build all this bridge between the two different worlds?

We did many activities. So empowering women is one of them. So giving the woman the revenue, for example, we did an activity that helped the woman to transform the product that they have in their hands. Some of them have only the small meals they planted by hand, that transform it by hand. There was nothing in all this process that supported them; everything was done by hands. And then that takes them a lot of time, especially during this climate change impact, because they do not have any time for themselves to manage between not having water or having food or going to transform the meals that they feed their families. So they are the ones who will be waking up very early in the morning and sleeping the last. So for us, it is very important to help them develop the activities that help them to mitigate all the suffering that they do have.

So we gave them some training and some machines that helped them to transform these meals. And when they did that, they own a lot of revenue, they own time, and it helped them to use the revenue that they have even to put their children in school. It was a dream for so many years. So it’s helping them adapt to climate change, helping them build resilience with all the projects we are giving them. On the other hand, we work with all the community on land rights because it is very important that we talk about nature-based solutions, talk about climate change, and environmental degradation and all, but we do not talk about land. Because if you don’t have land, you have nothing. And that sent me to the point where there is like a World Bank who elaborates the level of poverty. They say if your living is below $5 a day, you are poor. I say no. When you come to my community, you can have your $5; if you have nothing to buy with it, you are called poor. But if you have land, you are not poor, because the land can produce something for you. So that’s helped us to work on land rights. And we create a 3D participatory mapping, which is a model that helps the communities who didn’t go to school to come together with the science knowledge. Build the map, figure out the traditional knowledge, help to map where are the corridors, where are the water points, and how they can better manage the natural resources that they have, for the long way and how they can also mitigate the conflict that they have with the communities.

And this 3D participatory mapping in a pastoral land in then in a very big area, it’s just like the first one we did. It’s really worked well. It gives the government the chance to say, “Oh if there is an organization like AFPAT who did this mapping. So as a government, we can do more.” It’s helped them to make a decision to reopen 60,000 kilometers of corridors. They start doing it better. The project that was funded by the African Development Bank. So it’s ending up like a good advocacy for us. So we also did like, education is very important for us, but education that can respect the needs of the communities who cannot just come and dictate what the peoples can do, like Eastern France, or the US or whatever. But who can help how communities can better manage the resources and how they can just like integrate themselves in the new development pathway that we are having.

So this project also has been very important for us in helping the women and girls to think about the school is not only for the boys, but it is very important for all the people equally, including the young woman. So I mean, we have a lot of projects we have going on, we work on the COVID, of course, because it is the time that it’s happening, and we cannot leave our communities behind. So we start seeing how we can design a better model for them to help them understand what is happening. Because COVID is not a thing that everyone knows, it is a new thing with a lot of barriers that come from languages like- you need to wash your hands. People who do not have clean water to drink, they cannot wash their hands; they cannot get this access. So we try to help with how they can get the access at least to protect themselves and how we can also build our own governance system to reinforce our knowledge, our elders to protect them from all that is happening. And from this one, we work at the international level where we do advocacy on climate change, biodiversity, desertification convention, and on human rights to help the decision making not leave behind the voice of our communities. So we show them the evidence of the project that we do on the ground. And then we refuse that they take the decision that is crude or harm our peoples back home. But it is not an easy task because they are not listening always.

Kimberly White
I can’t even begin to fathom how difficult it has been with COVID-19 for these communities. It has been difficult here in the United States and the people here have more access to things like clean water and PPE. As far as governments not always listening, I think that’s something that a lot of people can relate to around the world- especially when it comes to climate change. We’re seeing climate denial here in the U.S., Australia, Brazil. What you’re doing at AFPAT is amazing. A great example of embracing sustainable development. Speaking of- you were named a UN SDG Advocate. Can you tell us a little bit more your role and what you’ve been doing with that?

Hindou Ibrahim
Yeah, I’m so proud and happy to be among the 17 SDG Advocates. So the Sustainable Development Goals design the life of all of us in some way. It’s adopted by all the UN countries, and why I accept to be an advocate is to give access to those who are left behind, because one thing about SDGs is leaving no one behind. And if we don’t want to leave anyone behind, we have to include the people left behind to be at the tables of decision making, and then say, if the things are not working, and then to say how they think that the things should work. So that’s why I am an SDG advocate. I’m carrying the voice for my people of all the other Indigenous peoples around the world. How we are seeing the development, how we are seeing the sustainability, and how it should work. It gives me the opportunity to talk with the heads of state with many people that are decision-makers and telling them that you cannot make the decision anymore without including our peoples; without including our voices, it has to be us. And another thing for me about SDGs is how we can localize the SDGs. We cannot only talk about them at the international level and ask the government to go and report back and monitor and say we did that. We are at this level. So it has to be localized, it has to be inclusive, it has to be the SDGs talking about people, about the planet. And that is what I’m fighting for all my life. We cannot talk about people without planet; we cannot talk about climate without people. How can we make it a people’s center of all the decision making? So that’s why I like being an SDG Advocate. It gives me the opportunity to defend and then gives ideas of how as Indigenous peoples, we think that the SDGs can be implemented and how it can be fair in leaving no one behind, include everyone in it. And now we have only ten years. So this decade, we have to work very hard, all of us, to make the SDGs realized. And I think there is an opportunity around the world when we start including all peoples, and then we can make the SDGs localized, and we can make them happen.

Kimberly White
Absolutely. It is a make it or break it moment for sure with climate change. We need all hands on deck, from the individual to the Indignous communities, to the business to the local government to the national government. We need everyone because this is truly a problem that affects everyone. So it’s essential that everyone’s included in that discussion. So during these unprecedented times with COVID-19, the biodiversity crisis, and the climate crisis, do you believe change at the global level is possible and what should be the role of a new global pact for the environment?

Hindou Ibrahim
The change is possible. The change is possible because the world showed us overnight how COVID-19 came and changed life in general. So if we all agree that we can fight the COVID together, not in silo, we do have the hope to fight all the rest of the crises. So when COVID came, you know, all the countries agreed to lockdown together. They agree to put the measures to protect the people first, but one thing they all agree on is the food shipping. So all of them open the borders to have the food. So they understand they are not auto sufficient. They are not sovereign in the foods. So they need each other in order to succeed. And then it also helped people to understand that living in solidarity is very important. So then they start to understand that our community is very important for all of us to act together. So that gives me the hope that we can act globally when we talk all on the same level. So it’s coming to the same global action we are calling for, for all because health is part of the SDGs. And when we talk about the green recovery, it means that the climate, the biodiversity, the oceans, the water, all have to be in the center. It comes back to the SDGs. So all those moments, gives me more hope that the world may be finally can open the eyes and focus on the most urgent needs of our time, focusing on peoples and planet, focusing on rebuilding the relationship with nature, focusing on restoring and living in harmony with nature and learning from Indigenous People’s way of life on how we are doing it for centuries of life, centuries of years. So I think the hope is there.

What is missing is a political will. What is missing is the action-oriented. So we need the direct action to the communities, to those who are the most vulnerable, most impacted by all the crises, when it comes to climate or biodiversity or COVID, those who are the most vulnerable, Indigenous peoples, women, children, are always the front lines. People with disabilities, of course, are always on the front lines. So when we take action-oriented to those communities to not leave them behind, I think we can resolve all those global problems together. And we need also to do it by the political will. If the politicians are still thinking about how they can recover their economy, they forget that we cannot have a sustainable economy without a green planet or without respecting the rights of each of us without justice, inclusiveness, and no marginalization. So they cannot make it. So the political will need to be there to fight inequality, to fight injustice, to make the improvements a reality, and then we can do it all together. And to fund this, they talk a lot about a lot of billions that they wanted to inject into the economy. But all what they are talking- they are making the same mistake. They want to inject that money into the big industry that exists already. Because for them, it is easy to monitor because they exist already. They have all the portfolios to welcome the billions that they wanted to give them and inject again, and they make the rich again much richer. They are creating a gap. So this political leadership needs to change, to turn all those billions to give to those most vulnerable, and to build their capacity to have the equity.

We all saw the last report of Oxfam on inequality. This report shows that the more rich are rich again two times than before. Because all the political leadership is giving them again, more power, again, more money, creating the gap between those who are the most vulnerable with those who are already rich, so this one needs to be torn down. It needs to be based on equity and justice. So those two things are really missing. If we have them, we can tackle all the global crises that we have.

Kimberly White
You’re absolutely right. So how would recognizing our global commons help boost the much-needed change we need to combat the climate crisis and the other crisis we’re facing?

Hindou Ibrahim
So how we can give rights in an equal way to the oceans to the water to the trees and to the human being and how we can respect each other. Our global common also is how we can share in an equitable way the resources that we have, how we can sustain them, and how we can call it the global commons because we all depend on it. I am coming from a landlocked country, but I am advocating also for the oceans. I am passionate about oceans. I want to see this ecosystem that we are impacting and try my best to protect this ecosystem. So this one I’m calling it our global common not only because you live on it directly, or you depend on it directly, that you have to protect it, but you need to protect it because it’s creating in one or another way, your life better. And as well as the glaciers are only talking about my Indigenous brothers and sisters from the Arctic, and I went to the glaciers, I saw the glacier with my own eyes, just to witness it. And then to say there is no way that we destroyed this ecosystem because it’s playing a big role in all our life. Even though I’m not coming from the Arctic. So the global commons needs to be understood by all the humanity that it is for all of us. If we destroy one of them, we destroy tropical forests, our life going to be destroyed, we destroy the ocean, our life will be destroyed, if we destroy the savannas, the glaciers, our life is going to be destroyed. It is our global common and we have all the duty to protect it, whether we come from it, or we do not come from it, we have the duty to protect it and to respect it. So that’s how I’m seeing we can all come together and promote it and respect it.

Kimberly White
I have lived in Alaska, and I’ve seen the glaciers melting, and it’s happening at a much faster rate than science initially anticipated. Seeing all of these ecosystem changes, you know, we’re seeing how people are impacted and how the wildlife is impacted. It’s just, it’s crazy to see, and it’s very sad to see. So how do you think that proposal from the Common Home of Humanity, this global legal framework, will help initiatives like the Paris Agreement, like a global deal for nature and provide that foundation and create a system of accountancy?

Hindou Ibrahim
Yes, I mean, actually, the Paris agreements, or the SDGs. So we decided together and in countries come together and decided and endorsed it. They sign it, but they need to implement it. So the time of advocating on doing it, it’s finished. So they need to implement it. And to implement it, we need also another global framework to match. If you destroy nature, you will be judged for this, this treatment, and then you have to be accountable for it. What will happen if you destroy it, will like a country or a nation take the responsibility? What will happen? So the people need to act if the government cannot act, so people must act to protect the rest of us. So it has to be a people movement who can accompany all the implementation of the global agreement that we do have.

Kimberly White
All right, and there you have it. We cannot talk about people without the planet, and we cannot talk about climate without people. It is time to open our eyes and focus on the most urgent needs of our time, focus on people, and the planet. It is our duty to protect and respect our global commons. The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting green recovery efforts have shown us that change is possible. The legal framework proposed by the Common Home of Humanity would provide us with a way to recognize our global commons and create a system of accountancy, helping us to achieve the ambitious goals and targets needed to combat the climate crisis. That is all for today, and thank you for joining us for this episode of Common Home Conversations Beyond UN75. Please subscribe, share, and be sure to tune in next week to continue the conversation with our special guest, Prue Taylor, Deputy Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law. And visit us at www.ThePlanetaryPress.com for more episodes and the latest news in sustainability, climate change, and the environment.

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