Indigenous Peoples are the real solutions to the nature and climate crises
As world leaders prepare to gather for major summits on biodiversity and climate change – COP16 in Colombia and COP29 in Azerbaijan – Indigenous Peoples and local communities are calling for greater support for their tried and tested solutions.
Participants in an exchange hosted by the International Network of Mountain Indigenous People learn about traditional maize varieties in the ‘Barter and Maize’ Park in Cusco, Peru (Photo: Krystyna Swiderska, IIED)
Worldwide, one million species are threatened with extinction and many ecosystems are being degraded, undermining essential services such as clean water, food and resilience to climate change. Ecosystem degradation generates greenhouse gas emissions, adding to existing climate chaos, including deadly floods in Europe, wildfires in the Amazon, drought and flooding in Africa and typhoons in Asia.
Success at October’s COP16 biodiversity summit and November’s COP29 climate summit requires ambitious commitments to accelerate action. It also requires the adoption of effective, equitable solutions: solutions based not only on western science, but also on the wisdom of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have lived harmoniously with nature for thousands of years.
Safeguarding biodiversity
Nearly half a billion Indigenous Peoples in 90 countries maintain deep cultural and spiritual relationships with Mother Earth and protect sacred sites such as mountains, forests, lakes and rivers, which sustain all life. Indigenous territories, which cover 37% of the earth’s natural land, are essential for safeguarding biodiversity.
The traditional knowledge and innovations of Indigenous Peoples and local communities – including philosophies for living in balance with nature, agroecological food systems and resilient crop and livestock varieties – provide vital solutions for addressing the nature and climate crises.
However, their territories and cultures face significant threats from extractive industries and industrial agriculture, and from some of the very solutions intended to address the nature and climate crises, such as 'fortress conservation'. Recent examples include the eviction of Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania in the name of conservation, and the eviction of Ogiek forest peoples in Kenya for a carbon scheme.
Furthermore, traditional knowledge is rapidly disappearing, with approximately 20 Indigenous languages becoming extinct each year. Indigenous Peoples suffer widespread marginalisation and racism. In 2023, close to 200 environmental defenders were murdered: nearly half of them were Indigenous Peoples.
Protecting rights and cultures
Indigenous Peoples have repeatedly called for solutions that protect their rights to land and self-determination, as per the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Protecting Indigenous territories can deliver large-scale emissions reductions by conserving tropical forests, grasslands, wetlands and savannahs. But their voices are still marginal in policymaking.
In June 2024, Indigenous representatives of 137 mountain communities from Peru, Bolivia and China, and 10 semi-arid communities from Kenya – along with government, research and civil society organisations – gathered in Cusco, Peru for a learning exchange on establishing biocultural heritage territories (BCHTs) for climate resilience.
The event, organised by the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples (INMIP) with support from IIED, culminated in the Huaran Declaration for COP16 and COP29. The declaration notes that communities are suffering increasingly severe climate impacts, including loss of life, exacerbated by growing pressure from extractive industries, erosion of traditional knowledge and institutions, and certain solutions to climate change.
It calls on governments to fully integrate traditional knowledge in national biodiversity and climate plans, and to protect Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ collective rights to territories and resources, including self-governed BCHTs. It urges governments to act urgently to reduce emissions, and transition to alternative development paradigms rooted in respect for Mother Earth.
The INMIP declaration also urges governments to reject ‘false climate solutions’, including carbon markets and offsets. These, it says, fail to reduce emissions, lead to the privatisation of communal resources and divert attention from real solutions needed to reduce emissions.
Similarly, at the Trua World Summit on Traditional Knowledge in August 2024, Indigenous Peoples called for, among other things, support for biodiversity and climate change initiatives that are based on traditional knowledge, innovations and practices.
Addressing multiple crises
There are countless examples where Indigenous Peoples and local communities have developed solutions to multiple crises – nature, culture, climate and inequality – based on traditional knowledge, such as BCHTs and Territories of Life (ICCAs).
Examples include the Potato Park in Peru, a collectively governed BCHT established by six Quechua communities in 2000, with support from Asociación ANDES (Peru) and IIED. Through a uniquely decolonial approach, it has tripled agrobiodiversity, conserved wildlife and ecosystems, ensured food and nutrition security, protected land rights against mining and reversed traditional knowledge loss.
Other communities have been inspired to replicate this success. In coastal Kenya, for example, 10 Mijikenda villages in Rabai, Kilifi county, are establishing a collective BCHT to protect sacred Kaya forests, with support from IIED, Kenya Forestry Research Institute and the UK Darwin Initiative. INMIP is supporting this process globally through an emerging network of BCHTs in 14 countries.
A call to world leaders
At COP16 and COP29, there must be a commitment to increase protection and support for Indigenous and traditional territories across different ecosystems. These are included in the global biodiversity framework’s (GBF) 30x30 Target which aims to conserve 30% of land, waters and seas by 2030. Ensuring a human-rights based approach also requires equitable governance of protected and conserved areas.
Integrating the GBF’s cross-cutting considerations across national biodiversity targets and plans is crucial for successful implementation. These include:
- Recognising the important roles, contributions and rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as biodiversity custodians
- Ensuring traditional knowledge, worldviews and value systems are respected, and
- Ensuring their full and effective participation in decision-making and gender equality.
Indigenous Peoples are also calling for a permanent body (PDF) on traditional knowledge to be established at COP16, and for an increase in direct finance to support their solutions.
At the forthcoming summits, all countries – both in the global North and South – must show true solidarity with Indigenous Peoples and local communities, while decentering national interests and ‘expert’ knowledge. Only then can COP16 and COP29 truly succeed.
