Memorandum for the Petitioners | 109
for Indigenous Peoples. As traditional livelihoods become less sustainable,
traditional culture will be lost. Climate change-related displacement and
migration will also threaten the right to culture, since communities may be
split apart and forced to relocate; thus, disturbing cultural practices and
breaking social cohesion.*!°
8.111.1.
Notably, displaced people are particularly
vulnerable to certain human rights abuses. Climate change will
cause these numbers to go up; therefore, those abuses will go up
as well.>!!
8.112.Community witnesses Ms. Cahilig>"? of the Aeta-Ambala tribe
and Mr.
Buucan
Hangdaan,°"
Ms.
Dalia Nalliw,°!4 and Mr.
William
Mamanglo°'* of Ifugao showed us the grim reality on how climate change
affected
cultural
rights
for Indigenous
Peoples.
For
Ms.
Cahilig,
she
described how the tradition of “pagdadanso”>"® has been almost entirely
abandoned due to extreme heat and the depletion of food and water sources
from the mountains and rivers where they get their food. Mr. Hangdaan, Ms.
Nailiw, and Mr. Mamanglo, Indigenous Peoples of the Cordillera
Administrative Region, have expressed the same concerns.
8.113. These community witnesses emphasized on the importance of
these cultural practices, which now threatened with extinction.
The loss of
natural resources due to climate change is a loss of their heritage*!”— a loss
that will affect their children and the next generations to come.
12.
The
rights
generations
of children
and
future
8.114.Children and future generations will be disproportionately
affected by climate change as harmful impacts become more severe over
time.>'§ Given the nature of the climate threat, children and their caregivers
*! Lofts, K., supra note 375, p. 12, citing UNEP, Climate Change and Human Rights (Nairobi: UNEP,
2015), p. 8.
*' Testimony of John Knox, TSN dated 27-28 September 2018, p. 107, available at http://chr.gov.ph/wpcontent/uploads/20 19/04/NICC-TSN-September-27-to-28-New-Y ork-United-States.pdf (last accessed on
12 September 2019).
5? Cahilig, R. supra note 8 and TSN 27-28 March 2018, pp. 13-28, supra note 458.
513 Hangdaan, B., supra note 463.
514 Nalliw, D., supra note 464.
515 Mamanglo, W., supra note 465.
*16 This involves native Aeta-Ambala going to the mountains, bringing with them salt and rice grains in the
mountain, and then staying there for one to two weeks. The nature is meant to provide all the food they
need and in normal conditions, before extreme heat hit their area, they would find it in abundance.
517 Since these Indigenous Peoples mostly rely on them not only as sources of food, but also part and parcel
of their practice of ancestral traditions.
518 United Nations General Assembly, Analytical study on the relationship between climate change and the
full and effective enjoyment of the rights of the child, Report of the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, A/HRC/35/13 (May 4, 2017). See also Center for International
Environmental Law and Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, States’ Obligations
Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in the context of climate change (Jan 2018), available at
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