Yellowknife, N.W.T. - Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus is home from Brazil.

Erasmus was in Rio de Janeiro for the Indigenous Peoples International Conference, which was a separate, but pre-cursory event to the Rio plus-20 Summit.

The meeting was a way to talk about issues which would be brought up at the conference itself and he said they came up with a declaration that they must be involved in any solution to the world's problems.

"What's happening is when these meetings take place, our people are not fully represented. For our people, for example, Canada can't speak on our behalf, they don't have the authority to do that. It's like when we have constitutional talks in Canada, the First Nations have to speak for themselves."

Indigenous people want to work with their counterparts to talk about things like the environment and Erasmus said no one knows local issues better than the locals themselves.

"Our local people know the land, they know their surroundings, and they can certainly contribute their science to solving these kinds of issues."

The conference in Rio wrapped up last Friday.

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