- The two-week COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, saw the largest global participation of Indigenous leaders in the conference’s history.
- With the adoption of measures like the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, a $1.8 billion funding pledge, and the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), the summit resulted in historic commitments to secure land tenure rights for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant people.
- Yet despite these advances, sources say frustrations grew as negotiators failed to establish pathways for rapid climate finance for adaptation, loss and damage, or to create road maps for reversing deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels.
- While some pledges appear ambitious, Indigenous delegates say effective implementation of the pledges will depend on government transparency and accountable use of funds.
After two weeks of negotiations in Belém, Brazil, the COP30 U.N. climate summit delivered mixed outcomes, Indigenous delegates say. The event saw the largest Indigenous participation in COP history and landmark pledges made, but also heated protests and last-minute disappointments.
“The summit was historic for Indigenous peoples, and this is the result of the Indigenous struggle working to be at this COP not only in numbers but also in quality of participation,” said Kleber Karipuna, executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), one of the main Indigenous organizations in Brazil. “Not everything has been won as we expected — much more Indigenous lands [still need] to be demarcated.”
Promises on securing land rights
A major outcome of the summit was the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment (ILTC), a historic pledge to recognize Indigenous land tenure rights over 160 million hectares (395 million acres) — an area the size of Iran — across tropical forest countries, including Brazil, Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, by 2030.
“It is one of the most positive outcomes we hoped to achieve at COP30,” Kleber said. “In Brazil alone, 63 million hectares [156 million acres] of Indigenous lands are pledged for protection, management, and land ownership.”
In addition, the Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG) announced a renewed pledge, totaling $1.8 billion, to support Indigenous peoples, local and Afro-descendant communities in securing land rights over the next five years. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also signed decrees for 28 quilombos — rural Afro-Brazilian communities — across 14 states in Brazil, recognizing these areas as being of social interest and completing a step toward titling the territories. The COP30 host also announced the demarcation of 10 Indigenous territories, encompassing diverse peoples, biomes and regions.
The decision follows a recent analysis that showed designating public forests as conservation units or Indigenous lands could prevent up to 20% of additional deforestation and reduce carbon emissions by 26% by 2030.
The renewed $1.8 billion FTFG pledge, which aims to strengthen stewardship of terrestrial ecosystems, including forests, explicitly emphasizes Afro-descendant peoples, women and youth. Their roles and participation were recognized for the first time in four draft texts related to the deal to collectively mobilize against climate change (the Mutirão Decision), climate adaptation, the just energy transition, and a plan of action on gender.
Joan Carling, executive director of Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI), said the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ land rights and their traditional knowledge in the Mutirão Decision was key win.
“This is a milestone achievement, but the next battle is its implementation on the ground,” she told Mongabay.
Delegates like Ana Lucía Ixchíu Hernández, a Maya K’iche’ leader from Guatemala, also called for governments to address impunity against the killings of land defenders who protect the forests that are critical to mitigating climate change impacts.
During the last week of COP30, an Indigenous Guarani leader in Brazil was killed, reportedly by armed individuals linked to private security forces employed by local landowners. A recent report shows that Colombia recorded the highest number of documented killings of environmental defenders last year, with 48 deaths, while Guatemala saw an increase from four in 2023 to 20 in 2024.
Hernández — who recently participated in the Yakumama Flotilla, a 3,000-kilometer (1,860-mile) journey down the Amazon from the Andes to COP30 to demand better participation of Indigenous peoples be in climate negotiations, and who has lived in exile since 2021 for her advocacy — said COP summits do very little to actively ensure protection of Indigenous land defenders.
“We are not criminals, we are not terrorists, we demand to be alive to continue doing our work for life and biodiversity,” she said.
Climate finance in action?
A key outcome of COP30 was the launch by Brazil of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), raising $6.6 billion, part of a targeted $125 billion, from public and private investors and philanthropies. Under this new finance mechanism, countries that maintain intact tropical forest cover could receive up to $4 per hectare ($1.62 per acre) annually, with Indigenous and local communities receiving at least 20% of those payments.
However, the TFFF has also received criticism. More than 50 Indigenous and other civil society organizations argue that industrially developing countries could absorb the risks for the investments, while investors and intermediaries, typically from industrialized countries, are guaranteed generous returns.
Countries also adopted the Belém Package, a final bundle of decisions related to the just energy transition, finance and gender, and agreed to a two-year program to help developing nations mobilize at least $1.3 trillion in climate adaptation funding by 2035, in line with the Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation. Along with this came a set of 59 voluntary indicators to track progress on the global goal. However, Indigenous delegates also noted the absence of concrete commitments from industrialized countries on how the indicators would be implemented or financed.
Andrew Msami of PINGO’s Forum, a coalition of pastoralist organizations based in Tanzania, said tripling funding by 2035 is too slow for communities already losing herds and harvests.
“For Maasai, Hadzabe, Sandawe and Barbaig pastoralists who are already seeing livestock deaths, unpredictable weather and loss of wild foods, the adaptation money could support pastoralists only if it reaches them,” Msami said.
According to the latest report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), Africa’s adaptation funding gap stands at $51 billion.
Meanwhile, there was little progress on negotiations on a loss and damage fund to help countries grapple with climate change impacts. At the conference, Indigenous delegates noted that extreme weather events taking place at the same time, such as a hurricane in Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti, and typhoons in the Philippines, underscored the urgent need for funding.
As of June 2025, $788.8 million has been pledged to the loss and damage fund (known as the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, or FRLD), with $582.5 million turned into actual contributions. During COP30, the fund launched a call for requests to initiate its first interventions to support response efforts in industrially developing countries. It aims to disburse $250 million by 2027 to countries most affected by climate change. Another key outcome was the adoption of the FLRD’s 2025 report, which provides guidance for the fund.
Derailed road maps
The creation of the Belém Action Mechanism for Just Global Transition, delegates say, was another key summit achievement, designed to ensure a just, equitable and inclusive transition to sustainable economies.
Carling noted that the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), established at COP27 in Egypt in 2022 to guide countries toward achieving climate goals that are socially just and equitable, now explicitly references Indigenous rights and the requirements for free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
“This is a big win, as the requirement for FPIC and the right to self-determination were included for the first time, as well as the protection of Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation,” she told Mongabay.
However, there were still major disappointments around COP30, according to delegates from Asia and Africa.
The 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment found that deforestation is rising at an alarming rate, with 8.1 million hectares (20.9 million acres) lost in 2024. Despite more than 90 countries at COP30 calling for a road map to combat deforestation and more than 80 calling for a fossil fuel phaseout, neither item appeared in the final text of the summit. Also missing was any mention of critical minerals, used in renewable energy technologies but whose extraction disproportionately affects Indigenous peoples and local communities.
“The removal of any reference to the mining of minerals [from the JTWP updated draft and COP30 final outcome text] is unacceptable,” Carling said. “Once again, too many negotiators chose to listen to the powerful fossil fuel lobbyists. The climate crisis demands bold, concerted global action rooted in justice, rights, and real solutions — not more delay, distraction or corporate influence.”
According to a study published in Nature Sustainability, about 54% of the critical minerals needed for the energy transition are on and near Indigenous peoples’ lands. “The removal would then be mined without the protection of Indigenous peoples and the environment,” Carling said.
The summit also concluded without commitments to finance a just energy transition. Mithika Mwenda, executive director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, said African countries urgently need financial support that isn’t “privately mobilized climate finance” but instead is led by the people.
“What Africa needs first and foremost is energy access and justice to over 600 million people living without electricity access,” she said.
From paper to practice
Emelyne Cheney, secretariat director of the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP), said the ILTC goal to recognize 160 million hectares of Indigenous and community lands reflects specific national targets achievable by 2030.
“Tropical forest countries themselves have identified 12 months of consultation and analysis to determine where tenure rights need to be secured or strengthened,” she told Mongabay.
Cheney noted that the FLCP supported governments’ national and subnational consultations with Indigenous peoples and local communities during the commitment’s design, and will continue these consultations throughout its implementation to ensure the commitment benefits communities.
To ensure pledges are implemented effectively and equitably, Michael Jarvis, executive director of the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative, or TAI, said governments must be transparent about climate mitigation and adaptation budget allocations, and must provide avenues for public input. “Donors should encourage accountable use of funds, recognizing that ultimate accountability is to those adversely affected by climate change,” he said.
COP30 concluded with major commitments for Indigenous peoples, but leaders say only time will tell whether it will truly be an “implementation COP,” as some attendees had hoped for.
Hernán Moreno, a Nonuya community leader from the Colombian Amazon attending his first COP, said the summit offered an opportunity for meaningful listening rather than empty conversations.
“If we want to save the planet, we’d have to sit down and talk through the problems and seek solutions for nature,” said Moreno, also an education coordinator for the Association of Traditional Authorities of the Regional Indigenous Council of Middle Amazonas (CRIMA).
Banner image: Indigenous people take part in the “We are the answer” march during the annual Free Earth camp, where they discuss rights, territorial protection and their role in COP30, which will take place for the first time in the Amazon, in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, April 10, 2025. Image by AP Photo/Eraldo Peres.
Brazil aims for alternative route to fossil fuel road map after COP30 failure
Citation:
Owen, J. R., Kemp, D., Lechner, A. M., Harris, J., Zhang, R., & Lèbre, É. (2022). Energy transition minerals and their intersection with land-connected peoples. Nature Sustainability, 6(2), 203-211. doi:10.1038/s41893-022-00994-6
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