People of the Centre engage UN climate summit in Brazil

The delegation also shared their ongoing legal strategies to assert their fundamental rights to participate directly in national and international policy making on forest and climate change under the landmark historical Court Ruling STC4360/18 in Colombia. Through alliances and legal assistance facilitated by FPP and the Colombia legal NGO Dejusticia, delegates highlighted recent gains in securing State funding to enable their direct inputs to the construction of an Intergenerational Plan for the Future Life in the Colombian Amazon (PIVAC) and Action Plan to Combat (Amazonian) Deforestation. Crucially, delegates again warned of an uncontrolled deforestation frontier to the West and in the North that edges ever closer to their territories across the ‘arc of deforestation’ in Caquetá and Guaviare departments.

Reflecting on the whole experience days after arriving back in Colombia, Peoples of the Centre delegates note that despite massive indigenous mobilisation around COP30, although international media rightly picked up on indigenous protests and messages, States Parties had not paid attention; and had disregarded core indigenous demands on climate justice. Delegates, including Hernán conclude that deep change must take place in the way global summits are organised. Crucially, change is needed to ensure more effective participation, including guarantees for serious, thoughtful and respectful intercultural dialogues between Indigenous Peoples and international actors on actions needed to address the global climate emergency.