2.2 TERRITORIES AND NATURAL RESOURCES- TNR

The territorial security, as an indispensable base for our continuance as peoples that we are and that the use of natural resources be destined for our welfare.

2.2.1 Our Viewpoint on Territory

Before we begin, it is important to point out the ways in which we understand the term “territory” and the formulation of policies on territorial rights. It is from this understanding that one can observe the progress, limitations and challenges that we have to confront to, to defend our territory and the resources existing in it. Territory is understood by us as the space that we share with other living beings, a direct relationship to guarantee mutual sustainability, it is the unconditional freedom to manifest our spirituality, culture and ancestry.

In other words, when we speak of our territorial rights and not only about land, we talk about exerting a power, such as a public entity does, a municipality for example, exerts within the limits of its jurisdiction and its competent, without attempting national State sovereignty. It means, the right to exert influence and control over what occurs on those spaces, as well as how they are used and disposed of. It is the right that we have to participate as a collectivity in the decisions that affect those territories and the resources found within them. It is the right to apply within our territories our own rules, customs and traditions. The right to regulate ourselves the social organization and representation mechanisms, the right to guide and manage our economy and the use of the wealth and the existing natural resources and to precaution the ecological equilibrium and avoid environmental degradation (15).

In the elaboration of the right to territory, there is a trilogy that must be emphasized in a comprehensive manner: territory, indigenous peoples, and self-determination. The self-development of the peoples is based on the recognition and respect to its territorial base, of the vital space in which they will develop and where they will exert their collective rights, autonomies and their authorities. A right to procure freely their economic, social and cultural sustainability. This, in other words, implies the exertion of cultural, linguistic, spiritual, territorial and political autonomy.