 This is the words before all else are thanks given address. I will call in the elements to join us in these very important days. I call upon all of you, the people, to sit with us, to walk with us, to breathe with us as these days are so important. And then I acknowledge our Yukit'n'estan Huja, our Mother Earth, the very element upon which we sustain ourselves and nurture ourselves and see the beauty of all that she has to give and she is our happiness. And then I go to the waters, how fortunate it is to live in a world that still has fresh, clean water to drink and to soothe us. And then I also acknowledge all the fish life within the waters, how lucky we are that they still exist and they're our food and our medicine. I call them all in to be with us. And then I also acknowledge all the things that grow upon our Mother Earth, our berries, our medicines, our root life, our plant life, our three sisters, our corn, our beans, and our squash. And then I go to the place of the four legged, the animals, the bug life, how fortunate we are that they still exist. And I call them all in from the tiniest bug to the biggest bird and to our sacred deer as our leaders in the Haudenosaunee where upon their brow the emblem of their leadership are the deer antlers. So I call them all in to join us in this very important day of the year. Then I go to the tree life, to the maple tree, how lucky we are to be in the season of the maple tree. Come join us trees, be with us today. Let's travel these days together and let's call forward the peace. And then I go to the on high, the eagle. As we can see, we have brought our feathers and today is the meeting of the eagle and the condor as we come from many lands that has birds. And we convene here for a great day, two days, and we acknowledge how important it is that they be with us, travel with us. Then I go to the place, and then I go to the place of the grandfather, the winds. They come from the east, they come from the west, they come from the north, and they come from the south. We acknowledge them that they still bring us breath and how powerful they are and how humble we need to be before them. Then I acknowledge our grandfather, the thunders, the thunderbeans. I call them in, be with us today. Let us bring forward the great peace once again as we knew it before. Let our children suffer no more. Be with us. Yeti sa to gua, la diwea las. Togit nitu ha kni guat ni gula. Then I go to that place as the creator had made that there be two orbs in the sky. They just had a family reunion on Monday and how lucky we are to ride the solar maxima and the energy then, the power of that that we bring forward. It is a powerful time. We are living in powerful times. So I acknowledge our brother, the son, Chidawahchia Gyokinika Galakwa and our grandmother, Moon, for all that she gives us and that she lights the night and she pulls forward from the earth all our plant life and she controls the migration of our animals and that she brings forward the babies, our babies, and that the women cycle with her. Togit nitu ha kni guat ni gula. Then I look to the stars, how lucky we are to still see beautiful skies in that they twinkle at night and they're still by which we navigate ourselves so we don't get lost. I call in those stars to be with us so that we can be so powerful as we move forward with the days in that we leave a path of goodness and kindness and love and peace for our children to follow. Let them navigate us to that good thinking. Togit nitu ha kni guat ni gula. Then I go to that place of our four sacred beings who were positioned here on the earth by our crater to watch over us and our children, how lucky we are that they still exist there and look upon us and take pity upon us. Togit nitu ha kni guat ni gula. Then I acknowledge our sacred sky woman, Ujit Jizo, for it is her who fell from the sky world and created the earth and gave birth to a daughter who gave birth to the twin brothers that created all that is here on earth, how lucky we are that we still know her name, we know her story, and she re-enacts and relives herself in the fertility of our young women, how lucky we are that we have that continuity to our first geneticist, our sacred sky woman, Togit nitu ha kni guat ni gula. Then I go to that place, there they call the edge of the sky, Ujit Ujit, yes there her grandson lives and we call him our creator. He is the architect of all that we know that is here on earth and we turn to him with good mind, with powerful thoughts and gratitude and we say nya weha, nya weha for all that you have given us and we acknowledge that you still love your people here and that we acknowledge and so when the sun and moon reunited on Monday, we burned our fires and we sent up one column of smoke and as you entered our territory and we're on the horizon, you knew that we didn't forget who we are and we spoke in our language and we sang our songs and we put up our great feather dance and we acknowledge this huge family reunion and we say to you, our great orbs in the sky and our creator, we're going to do better, we're going to do better. And to acknowledge that and to cap it off, I wrap our minds all together as one, that's Scott Nygulla and I say to you, these are powerful days and we're all born to be in this moment and we're all born with a great purpose, bigger, small, we all have something to contribute. So I acknowledge the company we are in and I take it seriously and from the words of Mama Bear, I've done my best to bring this, words before all else, this acknowledgement, this address of creation and they sit here with us, they sit here with us and they'll walk with us through these days how powerful we are and I acknowledge all of you and I bring our young women and our elders with us to open up this convening of powerful people and of indigenous people and it is that place, it is that place that we must acknowledge and we have to undo the harm that has been done by the big colonial machine and we have to return to that place of originality, of indigeneity, we have to indigeneize our process. It took it in your talk, Nygulla Nygulla. I'm going to share with you a song called Gaeli Niu Nguedige and we acknowledge the four sacred beings from all directions and in this song we're asking that they look over you and their family while you're away from home and while you're on your journey and so I just wanted to, like many others, share some medicine with you today so that we can make better decisions and I just wanted to maybe remind myself and everybody in the room to make sure you represent the love that you come from and that's family and community. That's what I try to represent because I had people that have shown me how to love. We were established by the United States Congress in 1984. The elected representatives of the American people decided it was high time to have a public institution that was solely dedicated to helping prevent and mitigate and resolve violent conflict abroad. We were established by the United States Congress in 1984. The elected representatives of the American people decided it was high time to have a public institution that was solely dedicated to helping prevent and mitigate and resolve violent conflict abroad. Republican funded. We don't take money from the private sector. We don't take it from outside sources. We take it because the American people have an enduring long lasting commitment to peace. Those of us who work at the institute feel deeply the mandate that Congress entrusted to us and all of us who work here every day do our very best to live up to that mandate. It's an honor, really truly a great honor to welcome everyone for the first summit of indigenous peace builders in America's national capital. Leaders from nearly every social, cultural region of the world are with us today from Africa, the Arctic, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, Central Asia, Transcaucasia, North America and the Pacific. Please allow us to extend a most special welcome to our friends for whom this is their first visit to the United States. We hope you come back and that you come often. I have the privilege of welcoming to our summit the United States Secretary of the Interior, Madam Deborah Holland. Secretary Holland is an American champion and heroine. The Secretary is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico where I live. The Secretary made history when she became the first Native American to serve as a Secretary Cabinet in the United States government. She was elected as the first Native American woman to serve in Congress, first Native American woman to lead a state political party in the country. Secretary Holland has broken barriers and opened doors of opportunity for future generations. She is a mentor and an extraordinary leader. We are very pleased also to extend a special welcome to Michael Arona, a special advisor for global strategy and international indigenous issues. Very special welcome to Chief Wilton Littlechild, Vice President of the Indigenous Parliament of the Americas and North American Representative to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Welcome to USIP. I would like to take a personal moment and acknowledge the leader within the institute who has brought us all together. I first met Bina Negum many years ago in Manipur, her home region in India. I knew then that she was a visionary, committed to peace with every part of her soul and mind. It has been her efforts and her leadership that has made this summit possible. Bina. At USIP we know how hard it is to make peace. We also know that indigenous peace builders are the most determined and some of the most successful in the entire world, drawing on traditions, culture, religious practices to resist violence and to build peace in the face of all odds. We celebrate and re-venerate all of you and welcome the opportunity during the next days to deepen our knowledge of each other, to share our experiences, to develop recommendations to advance the inclusion of indigenous people in peace processes and most of all to work together to build a global network of indigenous peace builders who can coordinate across borders to prevent and mitigate and resolve violent conflict abroad. Madam Secretary. Good morning everyone. So happy to see you all. Thank you for having me. Represent the love that you come from that is profound and incredibly important. If we don't take anything else away from today that statement is one for the ages. Thank you for saying that and I'm happy to be in your presence. My name is Deb Haaland. I'm from the turquoise clan from Laguna Pueblo and I'm honored to serve as the United States Secretary of the Interior. Thank you so much for that very warm welcome and for your dedication to building a more just world for everyone. I'm grateful to join a group like this because it means I'm surrounded by folks who care about the state of our world and the neighbors they share it with just as much as I do. In what is now called the United States, Indian tribes have championed peaceful conflict resolution and democratic governance for thousands of years. I think we can all agree this model is worth replicating. The U.S. government's own constitution is modeled after that of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy who built peaceful decision making and respect for one another into their everyday lives through their own constitution the great law of peace. We know that if we are to build a world that truly serves everyone we must prioritize indigenous peoples and their values into our decision making. This is something the Biden-Harris administration has taken to heart. I'm proud that as we implement President Biden's investing in America agenda the Department of the Interior is ensuring tribes have a direct say in how these resources are spent. This includes the work we have undertaken to rethink what tribal cost stewardship shared decision making over federal lands and waters can truly mean and accomplish and we're putting our words into action. Since the start of our administration we have signed over 200 cost stewardship agreements with tribes to ensure their role in managing their ancestral homelands. Our prioritization of indigenous knowledge and its scientific integrity along cost stewardship also extends to our management of vast landscapes that desperately need our help as extreme drought, wildland fires, and other climate-fueled threats jeopardize entire ways of life. With $2 billion from President Biden's investing in America agenda our department is using a restoration and resilience framework to restore lands and waters that hold precious cultural resources from the powerful bison that support the vital prairie grassland ecosystem to Alaska streams and rivers that are home to the irreplaceable salmon runs. These changes are substantive. They're resilient to whatever the future might hold because they cement the role of tribal influence and how it plays in to how our government operates. Crucial to this legacy is advancing efforts that heal our people from generations of neglect and harm. It's a commitment I made when I first stepped into this role to rebuild what assimilation policies attempted to break. When I announced the federal Indian boarding school initiative I didn't realize that it would become a core legacy issue for our department. Our goal was noble and mighty to unravel the intergenerational trauma that has plagued our communities since the start of this horrific era. An era that saw indigenous children including my grandparents torn from their families and stripped of their languages, their cultures and their ways of life. From my travels to Canada, to Australia, to Paraguay I have heard time and again the recurring challenges that indigenous communities must overcome. From violence against women and girls, to land dispossession, to shared stories of brutal assimilation policies, to even the hard fight for a basic education. These painful stories ring true to me. One simple fact, their struggles are ours. These shared hardships are why we must recognize on a global scale that indigenous peoples deserve to be on their land and that we shouldn't have to fight for our own equality. And they are why governments worldwide must center indigenous principles from peace building to conservation to tackling the climate crisis. If we are to build the world we know is possible. Our work isn't done yet but together we are moving mountains. And it's the partners in this room that are making the change we need to happen on the scale that it demands. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you for bringing everything that you have to this table. It's incredibly important. Thank you for your heart and your passion. I'm grateful to be your partner on the good work now and tomorrow. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Good morning. Can we have another round of applause for Secretary Haaland please? Good morning everyone. I'm Michael LaRona and I am deeply honored to participate in this historic and timely summit. And I want to thank the U.S. Institute for Peace for bringing us together to discuss this important topic of global indigenous peace building. Let me start by thanking Bear Clan Mother Louise McDonnell-Hearn for the wonderful and beautiful prayer this morning. Thank you. Thank you Maya and Pablo for the wonderful prelude. Thank you both. And I also want to thank U.S. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland for the groundbreaking work that she continues to do in support of indigenous peoples not only in this country but around the world. Now I work here in Washington DC but I am originally from the Southwestern United States born in Arizona and raised in New Mexico to parents of Apache and Yaqui ancestry. And I'd like to welcome everyone here this morning in my father's language of Apache. Thank you. Now thank you. My global mandate at the U.S. Department of State as senior advisor for international indigenous issues is to partner with government officials and indigenous peoples from around the world to ensure that U.S. foreign policy protects and advances the rights of indigenous peoples. Not let me say this again underscore this not because we have solved these challenges here in the United States but rather because we recognize that these are global challenges that need coordinated and sustained global solutions that require again that require the leadership of indigenous peoples from around the world. Now I believe it is important to underscore that advancing the rights of all people, advancing the rights of indigenous peoples ensures more stable and inclusive societies, more prosperous economies and more peaceful nations because it does. Besides being the morally right thing to do it is in our global security interests to address inequities faced by indigenous peoples. Local and regional conflicts around the world demonstrate how indigenous communities are subject to compounding and disproportionate harm. Societies that successfully address deep rooted disparities tend to be more peaceful, more prosperous and more stable and that is inherently good for all of us as a global community. In my work, my goal is to listen, to listen, to consult, and to collaborate with indigenous peoples. These communities have agency they have always had agency and no better than anyone else the challenges they face and what is needed to overcome them. Historically, as we all know on a global level indigenous peoples for too long have been informed or told rather than leading discussions on decisions that impact them. However, society can no longer categorize indigenous peoples as historical figures whose time has passed but instead now must look to indigenous peoples as a significant element in the construction of a unified world and the establishment of a global civilization. There are over 400 million indigenous peoples across our world. Many are leaders overseeing a wide and diverse range of critical issues, a source of traditional indigenous knowledge and strategies on sustainability. This includes climate change, food security, equitable governance, gender equality, peace building, and so so much more. These are all issues that are important to our very existence as a global society. Indigenous peoples are also uniquely positioned to develop and implement culturally appropriate sustainable solutions and must be at the forefront in the creation of local, regional, national, and global policies and strategies. On the environment, the land inhabited by indigenous peoples constitutes nearly 30% of the global land surface. More reason for indigenous peoples to lead the discussion on global climate change. Collectively, we must help foster a more inclusive society in which indigenous peoples are free to reach our full potential to share indigenous knowledge and unique perspectives and how to confront issues facing our planet. It is this inclusive and consultative approach that will help create a better, safer, and more peaceful world for the benefit of us all. Now, I believe the complete transformation of society necessitates the ability to harness the power of all people. Not allowing or preventing diverse perspectives by diverse participants hinders humanity's ability to achieve our collective destiny. Preventing a segment of humanity. Preventing a segment of humanity. Think about this. Preventing indigenous peoples to express or achieve our full capability is detrimental to the rest of our global community. This complete transformation of society starts with acknowledging our own tragic history. In the United States, this means acknowledging the forced removal of Native peoples from ancestral lands, the legacy of boarding schools, and other tragic policies. And again, I thank Secretary Holland and her staff for the important work they continue to do on these important issues. In conclusion, let me underscore in a world where conflict and justice and social inequality continue to impede the promotion of sustainable development and lasting peace. It is the traditional knowledge systems of indigenous peoples that has never stopped to contribute to peaceful and inclusive societies, which merits greater global attention and support. Indigenous peoples have always had a special role in making our world a more secure and more peaceful place. This is nothing new to us. In support of global food security, we have served as providers of over half of the world's foods, such as corn, potatoes, tomato, squash, beans, and so forth. Now, so shall we provide in this day the spiritual food and guidance to create lasting peace. Native peoples have also provided true healing by giving to the world a pharmacopia of medicine that included quinine, guayacal, petroleum, jelly, arnica, and so many other medicinal cures. And so shall we provide in this day the spiritual healings to heal the ills that have plagued our world for too long. This is our responsibility. This is our destiny. It is our time. We have endured to fulfill it, and so it shall be done. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Now, if you would please help me welcome Chief Wilton Little Child to the stage. I just bring you greetings in my Cree language to acknowledge all of you present on such an important, important day today and tomorrow. My name is Maikant Mohtio in Cree. I'm also known as Usaugi Heu as a chief. And my residential school name was number 65. My borrowed name is Wee Willie Little Child. So I wanted to mention those by way of honoring the international decade for Indigenous languages. As you know, we lose an Indigenous language every two weeks, similar in the world than Indigenous language dies. So I want to honor that by speaking to you in Cree. Thank you very much to our hosts for, as you heard, through convenience on such an important and timely summit. Timely given the violent conflicts, the wars that are ongoing, we are witnessing it every day, the associated killings. But as we did before, we want to now focus on peace, peace building and Indigenous peace building. You have to forgive me for my hip is not hipping. I broke it recently. So I'm going to be a little shaky here due to a lot of sports injuries. So I'm trying to make peace with my body. I want to also applaud her honor, the Secretary of the Interior, Deborah Hall, and for all the work she continues to do on promoting wellness and healing and peace building. History has recorded other Indigenous peoples' contributions to peace. In 1996, after two meetings in 1993 and 1994, we gathered in Mexico, I believe it was in Chiapas, to form the International Indigenous Initiative for Peace. So this is something that's been going on for a while. Indeed, we declared a decade at that time, which was subsequently made into a United Nations decade for Indigenous peoples. I recall an elder, Chief Dan George's writings in a book, My Heart Sores. I sincerely apologize. I should have got the exact wording when he stated in my paraphrase. As a chief, my power to make war is gone. I can now only fight my peoples' wars with words. And it seems to me that's where we are today. As I reflect back on different and traditional roles of chieftainship, yes, we had war chiefs, we had ceremonial chiefs, we had political chiefs, Sundance chiefs, peace chiefs. So you see, here we are today again to celebrate life, perhaps through an Indigenous lens of justice, healing, reconciliation, and what I've come to call reconciliation. You will hear next day today and tomorrow about traditional systems, practices, laws, natural laws. During the United Nations International Year for Peace, and Elsa will remember this, the states came together and asked themselves a question, should we have a theme for the International Year of Peace? And they said, yes, we should. Perhaps a prayer would be appropriate. And I wanted to thank Mama Bear. I said in my language, I'm from Mesquiteast, the Bear Hills at home, so we're related. But during that discussion, over 380 prayers were sent to the UN to pick one that might be appropriate for International Year of Peace. And you will remember some of you that were there, like Kenneth, I think, was there from the outset in Chiapas. The prayer that was chosen was the International Peace Prayer of St. Francis. And those who practice Catholicism will recall it begins with, Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there's hatred, let me so love. Where there's injury, pardon. Where there's doubt, faith. Where there's darkness, light. Where there's sadness, joy. And where there's despair, hope. And it goes on from there. O great Spirit, let me not so much seek to be consoled as to console. To be loved as to love. To be understood as to understand. And it goes on from there. So that was the prayer that was picked. And we ask ourselves, what does peace look like? Well, you saw it unravel in front of us already this morning with the women from the youth to the spiritual leader to the elder. Show us what peace looks like. We heard it in a song. And a young athlete, I believe is an athlete, basketball player, I think, who came up and said, I'll come back to that. But you might see a face of a happy, smiling, laughing child. You might see face in a wrinkled, yet laughing face of a grandma or grandpa. You might see a happy face of parents as they witness their child succeed, perhaps in education, sports or leadership. You see there's a power of sport, and I can't help but reflect on that. That's been my life. You saw it this morning already. For example, the power of sporting the Olympics, we see every Olympic, there's a truce, a peace truce, where states that are participating in the games put down their arms, weapons of war for the duration of the Olympic truce. But the duration of the games, we need to expand that extended beyond what is normally just a two-week period. It's within us that we can extend that. For example, we saw it this morning in times of ceremony, family union and family reunion. In the world of indigenous games, when we pause and come together at the end of the games, thank you. I should have asked for this before. My dad used to say, will you think you're tough? Wait till those injuries come and pile up on you. So during the world of indigenous games, we pause at the end of the games to have a peace dance, a dance of victory among indigenous people celebrating life. But to go back to indigenous people's peace building, you know that we had treaties among ourselves long before newcomers came to our territories. As you heard, Deb Halland, the Honorable Secretary, say this morning, we have in our Cree language a name of a neighbor town. For example, I sometimes say it's the most mispronounced city in Wataskwan, Canada. It's actually a Cree word, a daily reminder for us about what ought to be our goal. We tusky win in Cree means having good relations. But it hasn't been easy as you heard and as many of you have lived. We have a treaty, for example, of economic alliance with a brother Cree tribe, a treaty with our eastern brothers, the James Bay Cree, to work together in unity. And we saw that play out in the international negotiations on two indigenous declarations, on the rates of indigenous peoples. In 1975, the national chiefs in Canada got together and had a declaration. They made a declaration as chiefs about our right to self-determination. And just before Christmas, we had a chief's assembly in Canada. And I proposed a resolution that there be an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli Gaza conflict. Over 400 chiefs supported at four abstentions, no opposition. So you see our peace building has always been with us. It's a common and lasting activity with each other, peace building. We have those, yes, with our brother nations and those with newcomers. For example, the J Treaty, the migratory birds convention for treaty. Later tomorrow we'll go more into some of the traditional practices reflected in new international laws. We will hear about pre-confederation treaties, the numbered treaties, post-confederation or sometimes called modern treaties. Many of those, if not all, are about peace and justice, peace and healing, peace and reconciliation. So peace building, as you heard her honor, the Secretary of Interior say this morning, has always been in our history. And I dare say, as I think she kind of hinted, we are good at it. We're good at peace building. So our message today, I heard once that a friend of mine said to me, Willie, I've been working on this for 10 years. And I said, way to go, Raymond, way to go. And he said, no, no. Today I finally realized it begins with me. It begins with me. And to that I would add, as we sit here for today and tomorrow, an observation that a Supreme Court of Canada made, and again I paraphrase, we're going to be here for a long time together. So we might as well learn how to get along, to which I would simply add in peaceful coexistence. I will not need the chair. Thank you, Chief Little Child, for your vision, for your courage, and for being with us here today. You're an inspiration and a guide to all of us. And we will carry on the work that you started for a long, long time. Greetings, everyone. Greetings to everyone in my Indigenous language. I pay my obeisance to each and every one of you who are gathered here. On behalf of USIP and our partners, we thank you for all your support, which has made this summit possible today. A big hand for everyone, all who have co-created this event together from day one to each one of you. I pay my respects as we gather here in the ancestral lands of the Nagoj Tank and the Piscatawe people. We pay respects to our elders, past and present, and to our young ones, and those who are waiting to be born. We take a moment to consider how long we have come to be where we are today. We are mindful that we are in the land where the mighty Potomac River flows, and continues to nurture, nourish, and strengthen many who have passed its banks. We have come here today from the many lands where our own mighty river continues to flow. We are here today, many mighty rivers joined together in this particular room. We recognize that in the world of today, we need meaningful peace building that works for everyone. 476 million Indigenous people in over 90 countries and territories live in areas, border zones, which are on the front lines of violent conflict, insurgency, organized crime with devastating humanitarian impact. We remember today all the lives that we have lost, innocent lives in the past years, in the past one year, in our homes where we all come from, including myself. We remember the wisdom which will get us through this all that will pave the way for healing peace people and one planet that we all co-habit together, not wars but let peace be the pathway. We acknowledge that Indigenous people have their own traditions, culture, and religious practices that will help resolve violence and build local peace. While often highly successful Indigenous people's efforts are underappreciated by the peace building community or ignored entirely in formal peace processes. Last year at USIP, here in this very room, we started mapping out some of the root causes of the violent conflicts that are currently happening and we try to analyze what is happening in the world today. And this is what we found. Number one, 80% of the world's conflicts happen in biodiversity areas where Indigenous people live. 80%. Number one, so if you're coming from these zones, no, you're not alone. And together we will find resolve solutions. Second, in order to mitigate violent conflicts, it is imperative that we understand what is happening in these territories, border areas where news don't reach, where our policymakers are hardly present to know what is happening and work with the wisdom of Indigenous people who are living in these territories to be able to resolve and mitigate violent conflicts. Third, that Indigenous people have lived for centuries as many of our esteemed speakers have spoken before. Yet their resilience that they have showed in the face of many of this is noteworthy, extraordinary. And this is the wisdom that will take us through in the hundred years to come from now. Fourth, studies have also found that Indigenous women, Indigenous women here in this room, and those who are listening online, we know that Indigenous women across cultures and nations have evolved extraordinary forms of nonviolent protestant mechanisms that have confronted decades of violence, weaponization and structural wars that have marked their lives for a decade. We must put Indigenous women at the forefront of national, global and multilateral efforts in the field of peace building. Fifth, we realize that to heal people for peace and our planet, we will need to look into traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution and mitigation processes. We just started that in 20 and this is one of the main reasons we are gathered here today. For us at the Institute and our partners in the field, we just therefore came up with this idea of a global summit as I mentioned. We know that Indigenous people have from time immemorial evolved innovative ways of peace building. We heard Secretary Harland speaking about the great law of peace of the Haudenosaunee people and you are here guiding us as we do this work. So thank you Mama Bear and thank you, all of you have come all the way to be here with us. We are truly honored and blessed by your presence. We recognize the extraordinary all roles as we mentioned of Indigenous women are mothers, grandmothers and our ancestors who have forged innovative peace building methods against amidst all odds. As we mentioned that Indigenous people have been trying to engage with the United Nations since the 1970s to resolve, mitigate and prevent violent conflicts. Noting that it was for the first time that special attention was paid to Indigenous people by the peace area of the UN was in connection with the peace process in Guatemala and we have colleagues joining us from Guatemala here with us today and those joining online who have been a part of this. This was here in the year 1995. In UN General Assembly agenda, item number 42A slash 49 slash 882 dated 10th April 1995. Cognizant after this, the Manila Declaration done by Indigenous leaders of the Philippines. In 2000 Indigenous people called for the creation of new systems and institutions of peacemaking that are sourced in Indigenous values and that coexist with existing bodies such as the International Court of Justice and similar regional bodies to ensure the inclusion of independent Indigenous people's tribunals, commissions of inquiry that are recognized as legitimate organs in any poor process of conflict resolution. And then following this in 2007, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and Professor Elsa is here with us today who have been a part of that process that it did contain several articles that are relevant to preventing conflict. 17 years since adoption of undripped conflict in Indigenous lands and territories have not lessened yet it has increased more than ever. We are now in the search to find new solutions and pathways. That is why we are meeting here today and tomorrow. So we are also aware that the Human Rights Council resolution 3325 during the 14th session of 2021, the expert mechanism confirmed its decision to prepare a report on what is happening in the violence in Indigenous lands to address the issue. So we'll be following up very, very acutely on this. To end, what is the way forward? As Michael Orona has mentioned, we're over 476 million Indigenous people living in 90 countries and territories, speaking a majority of more than 7,000 languages representing 5,000 different cultures, faith and way of life. A section of this 470 million are here with us today, each one of you who have taken time travesting countries and oceans to be here with today. You have all come in peace. You have come to us with the wisdom of your people and your ancestors and your young in the hope of a future that our future generations can help in healing people, peace and planet. 107 wars are happening in the world today, displacing 117 million all over the world. Peace-making efforts are negotiated, but Indigenous people are hardly represented. Even in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it is important that any peace-building methods and conflicts must resolve and include Indigenous people. This is why we are meeting, bringing over 50 extraordinary Indigenous leaders, peace-builders, elders, women and youth from seven social, cultural, Indigenous regions of the world. We welcome each one of you to our summit today. The aim of the summit is to understand what is happening, share Indigenous approaches to peace-building, we will share knowledge, science, research, practices to enable us to work to mitigate violent conflict. So as we mentioned, the aim of the summit are threefold. First, we will be bringing, like all of you are here. Second, we will be, you know, having all your sharing. So in the next two days, please feel free to share the ideas, your thoughts coming from your people and your nations. And then we have, we will be launching a global network of Indigenous peace-builders, negotiators and mediators. The research and the findings will be published so you will ever get the report and what we have done in the next, we'll be doing in the next two days. We will also work to ensure the inclusion of Indigenous peace-building efforts in several peace talks and peace processes. We will engage the UN Permanent Forum and all the multilateral fora on this to quote, from the great law of peace, roots have spread out from the tree of great peace, one to the north, one to the east, one to the south, and one to the west. These are the great white roots and their nature is peace and strength. Thank you. Let the work begin.