Sheila Babauta
FORMER Rep. Sheila Babauta and 13 environmental justice advocates from Native American territories, Puerto Rico, and the states will meet on Saipan this week, ahead of their scheduled participation at a climate summit on Guam.
Babauta told Variety that the visiting environmental advocates are her fellows in the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School in New York, and include The New School staff.
According to the Tishman Environment and Design Center website, its mission is to integrate “bold design, policy and social justice approaches to tackle the climate crisis and advance environmental justice.”
Three of the advocates who will visit Saipan serve on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, Babauta said.
She said the visiting advocates will spend time among local community and cultural leaders, and will likewise immerse themselves in the environment on Saipan.
Babauta said the advocates will visit the traditional carvers at the Guma Higai in Susupe, and sail with 500 Sails. They are also scheduled to meet with the Talaya Club and students of Northern Marianas College.
On Friday, Oct. 20, Babauta and the other Tishman Center fellows and advocates will travel to Guam to participate in “Making Waves: For Peace and Climate Justice Summit.”
According to a release, the summit is a meeting of “local and global indigenous and environmental justice movement leaders.”
The event is organized by the Micronesia Climate Change Alliance and Our Common Wealth 670 in partnership with the Tishman Center.
The release stated that the “Pacific region has been gravely affected by multiple climate disasters, including…Typhoon Mawar” while the U.S. military continues to increase its footprint in the region. Conference organizers are calling on leaders from Micronesia, the Philippines, Hawaii, and the South Pacific to attend the summit.
Babauta said the goal of the summit is to develop a “Declaration of Peace and Unity for the Pacific,” which will be delivered to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties 28 in November this year.
She said the conference is part of a fight for sovereign rights.
“Chamorro indigenous women from Saipan and Guam, leading the coordination of the summit, feel the urgency more than ever to unite the Mariana Islands for transnational, intergenerational healing and strengthen our collective fight as indigenous peoples for our rights to sovereignty,” Babauta said. “We need peace and climate solutions that work and don’t harm our people, the lands and water. It is time to heal in the Pacific.”
Babauta was a participant in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties 26. Earlier this month she was the recipient of the Marianas Islands Nature Alliance Environmental Champion Award.
