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The following message was delivered by Rev. Canon Gideon B. Byamugisha during an ecumenical service on 1 December, World AIDS Day. He reflected on the theme ““Let us overcome inequalities with justice and love.”

The food system is a complex web of activities involving production, processing, transport, and consumption. Key issues concerning the food system include how food production affects the natural environment, the impact of food on individual and population health, the governance and economics of food production, its sustainability, and the degree to which we waste food.

476 million indigenous people live around the world, of which 11.5% live in our Latin American region. In these years that we are going from the COVID 19 pandemic in our territories (indigenous or tribal at the Latin American level), the presence of many extractive companies, mainly uranium and lithium, has increased, land traffickers and among other monoculture companies with fires for the cultivation of oil palm, logging, putting vulnerable peoples at greater risk than what is already experienced.

As we commemorate 22 May as the International Day for Biological Diversity (Biodiversity Day), we celebrate the beauty and diversity of creation. We acknowledge the glory of God manifested in the whole creation (Palm 104), and the entire creation praises God (Psalm 65).

The aftermath of the pandemic will present enormous long-term political, social and economic challenges. After the pandemic has subsided, there will be an enormous financial cost to be calculated – especially in terms of increased government debt for almost every country. In particular, there is a very real risk that the UN Sustainable Development Goals will not be met. As Christians, we cannot use COVID-19 as an excuse for inaction and the preferential option for the poor must be recognised.

In the words of Prof. Rev. Dr John Langan SJ, a human right "is a right that a human person has simply by virtue of being (human), irrespective of his or her social status, cultural accomplishments, moral merits, religious beliefs, class memberships or cultural relationships.”