Los Derechos de la Pachamama (The Rights of Mother Earth)

What do we understand about our Pachamama Pachamama is our mother The rights of Mother Earth What can be given to a mother? Affection, of course, respect! Only respect. What is our Kawsay (life)? Our Kawsay is all that we have here in the universe. Our plants, our trees, our water, our birds, animals the sun the moon and the stars. That depends on each person's faith. Some say "don't listen to that" "There is no Mother Earth" "the moon and the sun are not alive" it would be good that we have a declaration of rights to protect the Mother Earth Who is Mother Earth? Rivers live and everything lives it's just that they can't speak or sometimes we don't understand them However if you listen, you could hear the river as if they were chanting In the cultivating months, rivers play the flute At carnaval, rivers play canaval music At Easter they play mandoline and guitar Sometimes, that happens behind my house Nowadays no one's paying attention to the rivers they are getting sad and hungry Just as we sometimes walk around hungry, with no one to offer us anything They are hungry too, that is why they go out of their way, looking for food provoking landslide crushing and eating people for ignoring them That's why Mother Earth is always conscious, because she is alive Mother Earth stays healthy when we carry out our duty towards Her So we'll also be fine if we carry out our duty If we revere Her our food will be secure That's why we must remember Mother Earth at all the time for she has great power Wherever we are, Earth is our mother Glaciars are our fathers. They give us life We say Papacha to our Mountain spirit Huaytapallana we ask him to protect us all Firstly, in order to ask for anything we must eat and share our meal with Him How have we lost our connection with Mother Earth? In old times, our ancestors had a beautiful connection with mother Earth They lived constantly offering Her coca leaves Now, we yougsters, don't remember this affection toward Her anymore We don't even know how to perform the rituals In the old days, Mother Earth was deeply respected at many activities Nowadays, this respect has decreased Why has it decreased? Because the advances of science and technology are taking its place Our Mother Earth is really passed off with us For not remembering Her and not making offerings to Her. That's why she is angry and mad at us That's also why we have so many landslides and heavy rains In other countries people are sad and live un pleasantly. For they have forgotten the rituals to the mother earth For us what are Mother Earth rights? 1st right: Right to be respected The first right should be Respect for Mother Earth In the present day, we don't lack such a declaration For example, there are Human Rights, Children's right. Those come with the constitution According to these, It is prohibited to ill treat children and they can sue their parents So, right now who's gonna stand up for Mother Earth Mother Earth has Her rights too. She deserves respect But multinational corporations mining companies have no respect. They contaminate Her Who's gonna protest for Her. Only us, the peasant community will defend her For we will claim that Mother Earth has Her rights and she must be respected 2nd right: Mother Earth shall not be contamined Mother Earth is sad these days Up in the sky, planes pollute with their smoke trails This also contaminates everything Just as the smoke from cars and burning tyres and plastic All those fumes from gasoline oil and all the bad odours hurt the sun damage the ozone and damage us as well Now the sun burns too hot as if wanted to burn us 3rd right: Agricultural activities should be done at the correct times respecting the rythms of the moon and the stars Her right is that we sow on the proper day Here we are watching the consequences of not sowing in the right way and at the right time of not understanding and respecting the rights of Mother Earth Last time I sowed without the moon that's why we have no potatoes on this field This is my punishment from Mother Earth 4th Right: We should not use fertilisers nor pesticides to agriculture Because of this we are killing ourselves and destroying Mother Earth no one's listens anymore Mother Earth still provides us with food but in the end we're eating poison, we're being intoxicated We have gastritis, we are being poisoned These things didn't happen before, people were healthy, strong and able to do many things. It would be good if we all agree to grow food in the natural way as we used to do before In old times, we needed no chemicals, no pesticides only natural fertilizers Now, the more we treat the plants, the more we spoil the soil We wish from our hearts that these rights we are proposing will be added to and that people across the world recover their harony with our Mother Earth Today my village Karhui is very beautyful We don't throw plastic out anymore We collect the platics and waste products little by little into one single spot In this way, we are taking care of Mother Earth and our crops grow fine. Plagues and diseases don't get into our fiels and Mother Earth is nurturing us We must live in harmony like brothers and sisters without resentment Sometimeswhen we fight each other, bad things can happen Like landslides, heavy rains and earthquakes it is time to live well and in harmony One day I am going to come with all my people. I have cleaned some garbage from you I'm happy I could make it up here, to be close to your heart Thank you for life you give me breath maybe I can live a little longer I want you to look after me, my father. and when people come to you, talk to them in their dream so they clean a little too So that they all come to care for your beautiful heart This video was made through a participatory process with the following communities: