Fuck the COP15! Let's organize and fight
From December 7 to 19, 2022, the 15th COP on Biodiversity will be held at the Palais des Congrès in Montréal. This gathering of the world's state and corporate powers to discuss biodiversity should comfort no one. These agents of capital and colonialism have, in 14 similar conferences over 3 decades, proposed no real solutions for the collapse of biodiversity. Capitalist states and their corporate masters are responsible for this collapse-- it is disturbing to then see them meeting to sign a treaty on biodiversity. Far from seeking real solutions, the COP parties are seeking two things: to increase the involvement of private interests in the management of biodiversity, and to maximize profits from the patenting of genetic material. The latter, governed by the Nagoya Protocol, dispossesses the majority of humanity of its fundamental right to knowledge derived from living matter (knowledge developed primarily by Indigenous peoples) by seeking to place this knowledge under corporate and state control. This protocol could lead to the imprisonment of those seeking to make medicines and other information from nature available to all. How can we justify restricting the research and development of medicines and natural materials in the context of a global pandemic that proves once again the necessity of sharing knowledge across borders?
Exploiters, polluters, imperialists and other crooks have the nerve to gather in downtown Montréal to put a green veil over what is ultimately a repeat of the neoliberal summits of the turn of the millennium. As in Quebec City in 2001 and Seattle before, it is up to all of us to show our opposition to this consolidation of power. Capitalism will not save us from the crisis it has itself caused. The solution will not come from the pursuit of profit. To save ourselves, we must turn to one another and fight to get out from under the control of the powerful. The large-scale environmental protests and consultations that have taken place in recent years have been insufficient. It's time to confront power directly!
Faced with the call to mobilize against this summit, we are a group of anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist activists, mostly veterans of the ecological struggles of the last few years, who have come together independently to create the Revolutionary Action Committee for Biodiversity to contribute to the struggle. We share the call to all other groups, networks, committees, and leagues to join us and the Anti-Capitalist and Ecological Coalition Against COP15 in this struggle, to begin to lay the groundwork, and to prepare resistance to the COP15.
Land, air, and seas need revolutionaries!