Shall we pretend that science is true? Indigenous perspective and reflections on the future

Shall we pretend that science is true? Indigenous perspective and reflections on the future

The bad news, therefore, is that we have less than 6 years of life remaining. The good news is that we have them, less than 6 years. We all believe in science, but no one behaves accordingly. What if we changed?

20 marzo 2024

Claudia Laricchia

How many times have we asked ourselves: if I had 6 months to live, what would I do? In a world where we coexist with flat-earthers and in the digital web, trapped between opinions and fake news, how many times do we wonder: what is the truth? What are the scientific data to defend it?

My name is Claudia Laricchia, and I am the first non-indigenous person to lead indigenous populations in the Climate Justice Forum. This appointment was given to me by the legendary Forest Man of India, a farmer who has been planting at least one tree every day for 40 years.

And so, in the northeast of India, in Assam, he has restored biodiversity, nature, and wildlife by planting the Molai forest, which today is as large as 13 football fields.

My indigenous perspective within non-indigenous eyes sees a complex humanity in enormous difficulty. A humanity that, as science itself states, has only 5 years and 140 days left before the point of no return, as indicated by the climate clock. Shall we pretend that science is true?

If it were true, we should know that by continuing to live with an extractive mindset, exploiting natural resources as if they were infinite; cutting down trees to make bobsled runs; releasing plastic into the sky to celebrate our children, who already find that plastic in their breast milk; then in 5 years and 140 days, the increase in Earth’s temperature will be above the safety threshold for our lives. Not for the planet’s. The planet is fine, thank you. Humanity is already sick.

So the bad news is that we have less than 6 years left to live. The good news is that we have less than 6 years left.

We all believe in science, but no one behaves accordingly.

What if we changed?

This is my testimony.

I took a sabbatical year. I founded with the Forest Man of India; with the head of Al Gore‘s network – Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Vice President of the United States – for biodiversity, in India; with two young people under 25, a new indigenous program. It’s a program that pretends to believe in science and behaves accordingly. Radical. An impact accelerator. It’s called the Smily Academy.

Smily stands for Sustainable Mindset and Inner Level for Youth. It means sustainable mindset (against the extractive one) and inner dimension for young people. Where The Forest Man of India planted a forest, now with Smily, he is planting a new inner consciousness and a new eco-entrepreneurial culture.

Smily is the program of The Forest Man’s NGO, which represents up to 400 million people in 90 countries, of which 20 million are in Assam, where there is now an entire forest planted by a man in 40 years. We train innovative sustainable youth enterprises.

Indigenous populations make up 5% of the world’s population and protect 85% of the world’s biodiversity. Anyone talking about sustainability today must deal with those who take care of forests, nature, and biodiversity instead of sending emails and holding events where everyone talks to agree with each other. Changing each of us to continue living as humanity.

Indigenous people live on $5 a day and change: now they are doing business with and for the new generations, together with non-indigenous populations.

From March 20th to 26th, Smily will bring a delegation of 30 people from 4 continents (Africa; Europe; Asia and the United States) to Assam. Each of us is working on a project to transform into an innovative eco-enterprise.

The G7 Engagement Group on Gender Equality, Women 7, has adopted, with GammaDonna, the project that supports women’s cooperatives in Kaziranga National Park, one of the top 10 in the world for biodiversity. Sumus Italia has adopted projects on transforming food waste into fertilizers. Dot Academy is working to connect indigenous people worldwide. The World Food Markets Coalition from the FAO is coming to the Molai forest to change everything and in Assam supports the planting of 5 million trees with Al Gore’s network, along with the company Fiordelisi.

There are 30 non-indigenous partners who, in 2 months, from the launch of the program to COP28 in Dubai, have adopted our seeds of eco-entrepreneurship, to plant them together with those who are cultivating ethical technology: the Institute of Innovation and Transformative Research of the University of Pavia; Rural Hack; Edible Issues; ANGI; Edible Planet Ventures.

It’s a planetary collective intelligence experiment. Isn’t this how we honor the sacredness of life together? How we behave, listening to science, which is the only certainty we have now?

25-03-2024

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