Group protests climate change meeting

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Indigenous peoples from around the world picketed the United Nation's climate change conference in Bali Friday, saying they were shut out of the meetings.

Peoples from regions around the world protested by wearing gags with the lettering UNFCCC, the acronym for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Indigenous Focal Point delegation to the conference said in a release.

The organization said an indigenous peoples delegation was barred from entering a meeting, despite being invited to participate.

"There is no seat or name plate for indigenous peoples in the plenary, nor for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the highest level body in the United Nations that addresses indigenous peoples rights," said Hubertus Samangun, of the Focal Point of the Indigenous Peoples delegation to the UNFCCC and the Focal Point for English Speaking Indigenous Peoples of the Global Forest Coalition.

Indigenous peoples representatives were at the Bali conference to denounce several climate change solutions, such as carbon trading, agrofuels and avoided deforestation, which they said would ravage their lands and violate human rights.