COP26 - leaders renew their demands for recognition and support to protect their territories and rights

The UNFCCC Climate Conference (COP26) begins next week in Glasgow. COP26 comes at a critical point in the fight against climate change, and many Indigenous Peoples and Local Community (IPLC) representatives will be attending.

FPP is directly supporting a delegation of 10 Indigenous leaders and representatives (full details below), and members of the team will be in Glasgow to support Indigenous and Local Community partners from our global network. Our partners are travelling to Glasgow to represent their nations, peoples and communities, share their experiences and renew their demands for recognition and support to protect their territories and rights. FPP is also working to ensure more partners can provide inputs and engage in COP26 remotely.

Over the two weeks in Glasgow, the Indigenous leaders and representatives will take part in various panels and events*, as well as screening video messages from their communities at venues across the city. Their aim is not just to highlight the ever-increasing threats that are putting the future of their communities at risk, but also to share and advance indigenous-developed strategies, processes and proposals that allow them to effectively protect and govern their traditional lands and sustain their vital contributions to global climate and biodiversity protection.

*We’ll be posting live updates and event announcements on our website, and Twitter and Facebook feeds, and all leaders are available for interview throughout COP26.

Partners at COP26

Attending COP26 in person are:

Chief Kokoi and Immaculata Casimero, Wapichan representatives from southern Guyana. Their aim at the COP is to reaffirm their longstanding call to the international community to recognise their territory, as well as highlighting the continued pressure they face from extractive industries that are damaging their lands without their consent.

Hernando Castro Suarez, a leader of the Nɨpodɨmakɨ-Uitoto people of the Colombian Amazon. He will give an indigenous critique of current international climate funds and programmes, in particular REDD+ and state-run protected areas.

The Kichwa representatives from Peru – Isidro Sangama, Marisol Garcia Apagueño and Nelsith Sangama – are experiencing mounting climate impacts. They will present their legal actions to demand the collective titling of their lands and challenge exclusionary state-managed conservation areas that are dispossessing them of their lands, in part financed by sales of carbon offsets to some of the planet’s worst polluters, including major oil and gas, aviation and international transport companies. Marisol and Nelsith will also share the challenges they face to achieve gender equity and access to justice, education, and health services as women leaders.

Wampis pamuk Teófilo Kukush Pat and pamuk ayatke Galois Flores Pizango will represent the Wampis’ Autonomous Territorial Government and their pioneering approach to territorial governance and protection in northern Peru at the COP26. They will present the Climate Strategy and Ambition of the Wampis Government, which includes their 2030 commitments. They will also share the Wampis’ proposals for how international climate finance must be restructured if it is to more adequately recognise and support Indigenous peoples’ efforts to protect and govern their traditional lands.

Despite Peru’s international obligations and previous commitments made at past COPs, at least 20 million hectares of Indigenous lands remain untitled. Miguel Guimaraes of the Shipibo-Konibo people, and Saul Puerta Peña of the Awajun people will use the COP26 as an opportunity to highlight the Peruvian state’s continuing failure in this regard. They will also discuss the status of Indigenous peoples’ access to climate funds, evaluate the implementation of the Indigenous Peoples’ Platform on Climate Change in Peru – the first of its kind in the world, as well as share their proposals and demands regarding Indigenous economies, Indigenous women’s struggle for their rights and violence and killings against leaders who defend their territories.

The Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, together with FPP, will also launch the first regional indigenous-led review of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), providing an analysis and assessment of the relationship between NDCs and the rights of indigenous peoples. Tunga Rai (author of the Nepal review) and Ei Ei Min (author of the Myanmar review) will participate in person to share some of the findings.

More information

All participants are available in Glasgow for interview.

Contact: Tom Dixon, Media Manager, Forest Peoples Programme: tdixon@forestpeoples.org +44 7876 397915

Events

FPP and partners will be hosting several events at COP26, including:

• Sustaining Life, Forests and the Climate for Future Generation
  • 03 November 2021, 17:15 - 17:55 GMT, Indigenous Peoples Pavilion, Blue Zone. Livestream the event here

• Fixing finance from the ground up – making Indigenous voices count in the fight to stop deforestation. 

  • 03 Nov 2021, 16:00 - 17:30 GMT, Green Zone. Livestream the event here

• Resistance from below to territorial dispossession and destruction in the Amazon

  • 08 Nov 2021, 18:30 - 20:00 GMT, Online only. Livestream the event here

• Ending Impunity and the Climate Emergency: Indigenous Autonomy and Defending Territories of Life in the Amazon:

  • Part 1: 09 Nov 2021, 18:30 – 20:00 GMT, McLeod Hall, The Pearce Institute, Glasgow

  • Part 2: 10 Nov 2021, 18:30 – 20:00 GMT, McLeod Hall, The Pearce Institute, Glasgow

• Restructuring International Climate Finance to Centre Indigenous Peoples' Defence of Territories of Life

  • 09 Nov 2021, 4:15 - 5:45 GMT, Online only. Livestream the event her