“We do not inherit the earth from our parents. We take it on loan from our children ” .

African saying

Abstract from the Final Declaration of People Food Sovereignty Forum 2009-Rome, Italy

“Since 1996 we are reaffirming that our ecological food provision actually feeds the large majority of people all over the world in both rural and urban areas (more than 75%). Our practices focus on food for people not profit for corporations. It is healthy, diverse, localized and cools the planet. Peasant agriculture is resilient and can adapt to and mitigate climate change. We are struggling to defend and develop our agricultural, fisheries and animal biodiversity in the face of the aggressive modification of nature, food and knowledge that is being facilitated by the ‘new Green Revolutions’. We demanded gender justice, peace and respect for the rights of women, including common property rights. Our rights over seeds, productive resources, our knowledge and our contributions to enhancing resilience must be respected, valued and protected. We claimed for aquatic reforms, which should give legal recognition, protection and enforcement of the collective rights of small-scale fishing communities to access and use fishing grounds and maritime resources. Closure of pastoralists routes and expropriation of lands, natural wealth and territories from local communities through economic concessions, big plantations, industrial agriculture and aquaculture, tourism and infrastructure projects and any other means must come to an end. The rights to territory for indigenous peoples encompass nature as a living being essential to the identity and culture of particular communities or peoples. We rejected intellectual property rights over living resources including seeds, plants and animals. They will keep the seeds in their hands. We will keep freely exchanging and saving our seeds and breeds. We value our traditional knowledge as fishers, livestock keepers, Indigenous Peoples and peasants and we will further develop it to be able to feed their communities in a sustainable way”.