Skrivelse till CBD’s sekretariat i Montreol angående att Sverige inte lever upp till sitt åtagande om biologisk mångfald och kulturers bevarande.  Endast på engelska.

2016-01-04

The Härjedalen Party Härjedalspartiet
Olle Larsson, chairman Ränningsvallen 305 S-840 94 Tännäs Sweden Olle.Larsson@telia.com www.harjedalspartiet.org + 46 706 92 22 64

”Härjedalspartiet” is a local political party founded in 2014 and in the communal election of the same year received three seats in the council of the municipality of Härjedalen, county of Jämtland. Some of our main political issues is to make difference and support sustainable development, traditional use of natural resources and to safeguard culture heritage and conditions and limits for small scale entrepreneurs, not least within traditional means of livelihood for the originally locals in the southern part of the Scandinavian Mountains and the primal cultures, e.g. mountain farming, extensive animal husbandry at summer pastures, hunting and fishing, as well as other gathering and collecting.

During some years we have paid attention to the work at Swedish Biodiversity Centre (CBM) focusing on implementation on the CBD article 8(j) and 10(c), and later on the Aichi Biodiversity Target 18. On this basis we consider ourselves initially as an other relevant organization. Please allow us to express the desire to give our reflections to the notification (ntf 2015-132).

Concerning the implementation of the programme of work on article 8(j) and related provisions and mechanisms to promote the effective participation of indigenous and local communities in the work of the convention:

www.harjedalspartiet.se www.facebook.se/harjedalspartiet

Ref: SCBD/NP/VN/JS/DM/85188 (2015-132) Dr Braulio Ferrerira de Souza Dias secretariat@cbd.int

In our opinion Sweden does not at all work seriously to fulfill the commitments. Besides the almost total focus on the reindeer herding within the Sami culture other relevant local communities in Sweden is neglected and is not taken into account as culture and traditional livelihood of relevance of CBD article 8(j). This entail serious problems, marginalization and obstacles for among other mountain farmers, summer pasture farmers, traditional extensive mountain grazing and other groups of customary users and traditional practitioners in hunting, fishing, gathering and collecting. In particular we state this is a concern to the southern part of the Scandinavian mountains.

Concerning the article 10(c) as a major part of the programme of work:
As a basic question of nature resource management we have suggested a grazing production stocktaking. The lack of relevant knowledge about grazing assets is devastating for proper grazing management and, for example, planning of repatriation of traditional knowledge within traditional mountain grazing regimes, e.g. summer pastures. This is yet not carried out in Sweden, neither on a national level nor in the mountain region.

Concerning to the question of national focal points:
As CBM former hosted a focal point, although unofficial, for article 8(j) we now notice the unacceptable total absence of a focal point, beyond the Sami Parliament concerning sami-related issues. This situation emphasizes the problems described above with consequences to other local communities as well in the mountain area as obviously in the rest of Sweden.

We call for attention to the need of objective lighting on the full implementation of CBD article 8(j), 10(c) and Aichi Biodiversity Target 18 in Sweden and particularly in the Mountain region.

With kind regards,
Olle Larsson
Chairman, Härjedalspartiet