COP16 sidelines Indigenous voices

As international delegates flew home from COP16 in Cali, Colombia, Indigenous leaders from the region began weighing up their wins and losses. Bringing together officials from almost 200 countries, November’s UN summit set out to find solutions to the destructive loss of biodiversity. Leaders from Upper Amazon communities in Colombia and Ecuador attended, arguing for the role of Indigenous governance for conservation. While deforestation was once significantly lower in Indigenous territories than the rest of the Amazon, the devastation caused by land clearances, drought and warming temperatures now threatens the lives and homes of 1.7 million Indigenous people.

Reflecting on the two-week conference, the leaders acknowledge that some significant achievements were made. For example, the creation of a permanent subsidiary body allowing Indigenous peoples to advise on future COP negotiations has been described as a ‘watershed moment’ for Indigenous representation.

However, ‘Indigenous peoples still don’t have a seat at the negotiating tables with states, which is where decisions are ultimately drafted and made,’ explains Jorge Acero, a lawyer at the non-profit organization Amazon Frontlines. ‘It felt like talking among ourselves,’ says Mario Yaiguaje, who represented the Siona people of the Ecuadorian Amazon, frustrated by the fact that Indigenous speakers were only given small rooms, far from the zone where negotiations took place.

Acero adds that COP16 failed to include Indigenous territories as a form of conservation in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a landmark treaty for multilateral biodiversity conservation. Likewise, decision-makers didn’t discuss the link between climate change and biodiversity, nor extractive activities as a cause of deforestation. ‘The countries that contaminate the environment are not listening to those who are the forests’ experts,’ says Yaiguaje.

The first woman to be part of the Indigenous guard of Sinangoe, Alexandra Narváez, arrived at COP16 ‘hopeful that Indigenous voices would be heard’ but left feeling sidelined. ‘Too little space for too big concerns,’ she says.

Speaking at the conference, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said: ‘I want to believe we can change and the world is not going to end.’ Yet, Ecuador has been fast-tracking the entry of foreign mining companies in the Amazon, and plans to launch a new oil auction that threatens Indigenous territories.

‘Many countries speaking of biodiversity are responsible for extinguishing biodiversity,’ argues Narváez, who won The Goldman Environmental Prize in 2022 for her work to eliminate more than 52 mining concessions affecting the A’i Cofán territory. ‘We are on the frontlines of environment conservation, but our lives, cosmovisions and cultures are under constant attack.’ According to Acero, COP16 showed that ‘there’s still a crucial battle ahead to guarantee the inclusion of Indigenous values, voices and proposals in these global decision-making spaces’. When multilateral decision-making starts including Indigenous contributions, everybody will win.

— Beatriz Miranda