- While nations search for complex climate solutions at this year’s COP30 climate meeting in Belém, a simple yet powerful answer is just waiting in the wings: empowering the world’s most powerful protectors of forests and nature – Indigenous people – and we must let them point the way, a new op-ed argues.
- Ending fossil fuel use and transforming global food systems are essential but expensive and take time, but nations like Indonesia can score an immediate climate win by enacting its long debated Indigenous Peoples Bill, for example.
- “Humanity seeks an answer, but the answer has always been here,” the Sira Declaration states. “The answer is us.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Climate change is the defining issue of our age. While nations search for complex technological solutions at this year’s high-stakes climate meeting in the Amazon city of Belém, a simpler yet powerful answer has been waiting in the wings. I saw it firsthand in the forests of West Papua’s Bird’s Head Peninsula in the company of Indigenous youth from the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Borneo.
They showed me a truth that the world has been overlooking: one of the most effective climate solutions lies in empowering Indigenous people.
In this way, we can prevent an immense amount of carbon emissions from deforestation and preserve priceless biodiversity and all the benefits we reap from it. It’s a strategy that more than pays for itself.
The first piece of good news is that it is simple. The rest of the good news is that we can put it into practice right now, and that it needn’t cost too much. Ending fossil fuels, transforming global food systems – these are essential but they’re expensive and they take time. They often require re-skilling whole workforces. While that hard and slow work is underway, Indonesia can score an immediate goal by finally enacting the Indigenous Peoples Bill, and by providing Indigenous communities access to modest funding that they require, and deserve, to keep doing what they’re doing.
The only mystery is why Indonesian lawmakers are taking so long – 14 years and counting – to enact the bill that is before them.
My realization of the importance of this came from listening to the youth participants of the Forest Defender Camp, held in September among the Merbau and Ironwood trees near Sira Village in West Papua, on the lands of the Tehit-Knasaimos Indigenous people.
For 18 long years the Tehit-Knasaimos have been running a grueling marathon to win legal recognition of their forests, fending off transmigrants and companies pushing to clear it for agriculture and palm oil plantations.
Last year they crested the final hill with a decree from the South Sorong Regent recognizing customary ownership of almost 100,000 hectares (nearly a quarter million acres) of their traditional land. This July they began their final sprint, carrying that decree to Jakarta and placing it in the hands of Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry for recognition under its customary forest scheme. The hardest miles are behind them. I hope Minister Raja Juli Antoni doesn’t keep them from their well-deserved victory any longer.
The trials and tribulations of the Tehit-Knasaimos are illustrative, firstly in that Indigenous communities’ ownership of tropical rainforests is rarely accorded legal recognition by the nation states that have sprung up in recent centuries and laid claim to lands that have been held under customary title for millennia, and secondly, in the way that they have overcome them, by escalating their local struggle through regional government and on to the national level.
This story of escalation, as told by Tehit-Knasaimos elders and youth leaders to the 89 Indigenous youth attendees of the Forest Defender Camp, was a source of inspiration during the three-day drafting process for a statement that emerged from the camp.
From their work together, these young leaders forged the ‘Sira Declaration.’ It delivers a clear message to world leaders at UN biodiversity and climate talks: “The solutions you seek are rooted in Indigenous traditional knowledge and practices.”
The declaration calls for meaningful participation of Indigenous people – particularly youth and women – in climate negotiations and at every level of decision-making that affects their lives and territories. As a concrete example of this in action, camp participants from the Amazon shared how they are already working to weave traditional Indigenous knowledge into Brazil’s national climate and biodiversity policies and action plans.
The Sira Declaration calls for implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), with a deadline no later than 2030. It demands the end of military presence in Indigenous territories; effective recognition of the boundaries of Indigenous territories; the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC); the right to maintain cultural and spiritual identity; and the right to self-determination.
This vision is not only theoretical. Inspired by their own experiences and by demonstrations of sago-tree based social enterprises run by the Tehit-Knasaimos, the participants emphasized that Indigenous-led forest solutions are ready to go.
However, for these solutions to succeed, they must be supported by direct funding mechanisms that empower Indigenous people and their organizations. This critical issue is something that my organization, Greenpeace, along with some of the Indigenous participants from the forest defender camp, will be advocating for at the UN climate talks.
This year’s meeting in Belém will mark 30 years of UN climate change conferences. Three decades of looking for solutions!
Finally, though, Indigenous youth have spoken through the Sira Declaration, which concludes with the following:
“Humanity seeks an answer, but the answer has always been here. The answer is us.”
Kiki Taufik leads Greenpeace’s Indonesia forests campaign.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan joined the show to discuss why Indigenous communities are considered the world’s most effective conservationists, listen here:
See related coverage:
After decade of delays, pressure mounts on Indonesia to pass Indigenous rights bill
Climate finance must reach Indigenous communities at COP30 & beyond (commentary)
Citation:
Cámara-Leret, R., Frodin, D.G., Adema, F. et al. New Guinea has the world’s richest island flora. Nature 584, 579–583 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2549-5
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