The Cochabamba Protocols and El Sexto Sol

 

January 1, 2023

Advancing towards the final phase of annual the ceremonial began nine days before the Hutiziltonal (Winter Sostice) on December 21^st, 2022 today the Calpolli Nahuacalco of Izkalotlan, Huehuetlapallan sets out once again as Nican Tlacah (Indigenous Peoples) from local-regional to continental-global scales of engagement and intervention to uphold the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth. 

 

The cycle of nine-days began on December 12^th, 2022, a date that coincides with the traditional Mexican celebrations in honor and veneration of Tonantzin, Our Sacred Mother Earth.

 

Thirteen days after the Huitziltonal (Winter Solstice), in an astronomical correlation to the perhelion when the centers of Earth-Sun are closest, the orbital speed (TONATIERRA) is at its maximum.  On this day, the sun appears the largest in the sky for the entire year, gradually growing smaller through the remainder of the year. 

 

 

Accordingly, in fulfillment of the planetary mandate as Indigenous Peoples to take decisive action in affirmation of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth, the Calpolli Nahuacalo is calling upon all Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples to regenerate the commitments made under the principles of the Cochabamba Protocols which emerged from the World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth realized in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010. The conference was attended by some 30,000 people from over 100 countries.

After Cochabamba, the conceptual and political disconnect between the rhetoric of the “progressive” and “ecologically sustainable” discourse at the international levels collapsed of its own weight.  It became evident, not for the first time, but in today’s time that there was an urgent need to intentionally shift the paradigm of context of the global climate debate beyond the limiting and controlling agendas of the “sovereign state” Westphalian system (AKA the UN system) and move strategically into regeneration of a global set of relationships of INTERDEPENDENCE as Nations of Peoples of Mother Earth.

In Cochabamba at the World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, these principles were hailed as the Cochabamba Protocols, but when Bolivia dropped the ball and abandoned leadership of the initiative, all of the global movements of social justice who saw the Climate Chaos crisis as the common field of struggle were left in the lurch.

 

The Cochabamba Protocols

Respect

Inclusion

Complementarity

Self Determination and Interdependence

 

Today in 2023, in the wake of the recent failures of the UN systems at the highest levels to competently address the climate crisis impacting the planet and all humanity, the call is now for the invocation of the defense of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth as a fundamental and complementary principle and strategic framework in order to interconnect, interrelate and move forward outside of the fractured and competing agendas of the states, and the economic interests of supra-national corporate dominion and exploitation that control and define the terms of the climate change crisis in terms of “development”.

In alignment with the Cochabamba Protocols, the call today is to advance in affirmation of the Spirit of Life as communicated by the Sacred Waters of Life, Chalchitlicue Coautlaxope, in defense of the watersheds and sacred sites within each ancestral Indigenous Territory from local to regional, continental to global scales of engagement and intervention.

The goal is the decolonization of Mother Earth.

 

 

Local - Regional

Consequently, being that some 90% of the present state of Arizona lies within the watershed of the Colorado River basin, the priority call by the Calpolli Nahuacalco is to stop further contamination of the watershed and degradation of the ecology of local communities.

Specifically, the priority today the call is to stop any further uranium mining in the traditional territories of the Havasupai Tribe, traditional guardians of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River.

 

The expansion of the Pinyon Plain Uranium Mine, AKA Canyon Mine, owned by the Canadian corporation Energy Fuels, Inc. is a considered a dangerous threat to the health and well-being not only of the Havasupai but all who depend on the Colorado River across the state of Arizona and into Mexico, where the Colorado River eventually enters the sea. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality must reject the permit for this project, as a blatant violation of the ancestral human rights of the Havasupai who have never consented to uranium mining on their traditional territories.

Locally, call is to demand that the Maricopa County Air Quality Department review and cancel the plan to issue an air quality permit for the Agua Fria Generating Station that would let Salt River Project Utility Company add two more gas turbines to Agua Fria Generating Station in the West Valley community of Glendale, Arizona.

At the municipal level of Phoenix, Arizona the call is for the City of Phoenix to adhere to the Principles of Environmental Justice and accountability to address the systematic annihilation of the Chicano Mexicano Barrios and Communities under the “market driven” regimes of corporate development as exemplified by the removal of the Nuestro Barrio to make way for the Sky Harbor Airport Expansion and subsequent commercial development projects imposed in discrimination against the consent of the Indigenous Peoples.

 

In order to advance in this permanent campaign in defense of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth and in accord with the Cochabamba Protocols, TONATIERRA as a grass roots organization of Indigenous Peoples based in Phoenix, has called for a regional hearing to evaluate the impact of colonization on the Original Nations and territories of Huehuetlapallan, a traditional nahuatlaca term for the Colorado River watershed.

 

As Secretariat of the Continental Commission Abya Yala, TONATIERRA is planning to conduct the first session of the regional hearing on the impact of colonization on the ecosystems of the Colorado River watershed in February of 2023.  The methodology of the Vilcanota Valley Sub Regional Assessment conducted by the United Nations sponsored Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, launched by then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001 will serve as methodology for the regional hearing.

 TONATIERRA