Sidelined—Quilombos Fight on for Health of World’s Largest Rainforest

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COP30

Fabio Nogueira, a leader of the Menino Jesus Quilombola Afro-descendant community, stands in front of a proposed landfill, which is 500m from their homes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Fabio Nogueira, a leader of the Menino Jesus Quilombola Afro-descendant community, stands in front of a proposed landfill, which is 500m from their homes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS) – Just 30 minutes from where the UN climate negotiations are unfolding in the port city of Belém, Afro-descendant communities are engaged in a fierce struggle for the full recognition and legal titling of their ancestral territories—critical as their security and livelihoods are compromised by businesses wanting to set up contaminating landfill sites and drug cartels.

A boat ride along the expansive Amazon basin takes you inside the forest. It is the largest rainforest in the world, estimated to be 5.5 to 6.9 million square kilometers and spanning eight countries.

In the forest are the Quilombos or communities founded by descendants of Africans who escaped enslavement. They have defended their rights for generations. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, they may be known by different names, but they are all Afro-descendant communities with shared histories.

Well over 130 million people in Latin America identify as Afro-descendant, descendants of those forcibly brought to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. In Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Suriname, these communities collectively hold recognized management rights to nearly 10 million hectares, or nearly 24 million acres, of land.

Açaí is harvested in an Afro-descendant community near BelémBrazil,il where COP30 is underway. Açaí is part of the daily diet and is historically known as a source of subsistence. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Açaí is harvested in an Afro-descendant community near Belém, Brazil, where COP30 is underway. Açaí is part of the daily diet and is historically known as a source of subsistence. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

But the Amazon is the backdrop for the struggle for the full recognition and legal titling of their ancestral territories, as guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution of 1988.

IPS spoke to Fabio Nogueira, a leader among the Menino Jesus Quilombola community home to 28 families about their struggles and successes.

“Without titles, Quilombolas are exposed to invasion and displacement from big companies, ranchers, farmers and land grabbers.”

Alarmingly, criminal gangs target the Quilombola communities and their leaders for illegal activities.

Increased surveillance and drug seizures on direct routes from Latin America to Europe have turned the Amazon into a drug corridor. In Brazil, drug traffickers use ‘rios de cocaine,’ or cocaine rivers, jeopardizing the safety of the Quilombos along the Amazon rainforest.

Major rivers and remote areas in many Quilombola territories serve as key “cocaine corridors” for drug trafficking. The lack of state presence and land titling makes these communities soft targets.

Today, the Amazon rainforest is also the scene of a fierce struggle against landfills or sites for the disposal of waste material. He says landfills in the Amazon cause significant problems, including contaminating the soil and water with heavy metals and other toxins and releasing greenhouse gases like methane.

“We are currently 15 kilometers away from the lixão de Marituba landfill and it still pollutes our air and environment. Now they want to bring a landfill only 500 meters from our community. The landfill will be 200 hectares in size. We are saying no to landfills and have a case in court,” Nogueira said.

“The Menino Jesus quilombola community is in a legal dispute. We are resisting the proposed landfill project.”

Belém is a port city and gateway to Brazil’s lower Amazon region. A 30-minute boat ride through the expansive Amazon River takes you inside the forest. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Belém is a port city and gateway to Brazil’s lower Amazon region. A 30-minute boat ride through the expansive Amazon River takes you inside the forest. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

The project was planned without recognition of their existence or the impact it would have on them. The Public Defender’s Office of Pará has filed legal action and recommended the project’s suspension, citing that the land is public and part of the area traditionally occupied and claimed by the community for twenty years.

If the Brazilian State maintains the current pace of land regularization of quilombola territories, it will take 2,188 years to fully title the 1,802 processes currently open at the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform.

The slow pace of titling negatively affects forest preservation. Despite two studies indicating that the Quilombola play a crucial role in climate solutions, their ongoing struggle for basic recognition makes it difficult for them to secure their rights or access climate finance in formal spaces, such as COP30, according to Malungu, the coordinator of Associations of Remaining Quilombo Communities of Pará, which represents and advocates for the Quilombola communities in the state.

Two recent studies indicate that titling is a determining factor for the success of Quilombos in protecting the Amazon and titled territories maintain 91 percent of their forests, while non-titled territories preserve 76 percent.

“Alarmingly, self-declared territories that do not yet have certification (necessary for starting the titling process) had a rate of forest loss 400 percent higher than that of titled territories, highlighting the urgency of recognition to halt degradation.”

During COP30, a visit to the two Quilombos—Menino Jesus and Itaco-Miri—in the Amazon rainforest demonstrates the significance of communal land titling. It illustrates how this titling enhances the well-being of Afro-descendant peoples across the Amazon and how secure land tenure contributes to climate goals through carbon absorption, forest protection, and biodiversity preservation through traditional agriculture.

Throughout six generations, Quilombola communities stand out as caretakers and conservers of the Amazon rainforest’s biodiversity, using sustainable practices passed down through generations.

Menino Jesus and Itacoã-Miri territories and other Afro-descendant community lands ‘have high biodiversity and irrecoverable carbon and were associated with a 29 to 55 percent reduction in forest loss compared to control sites.’

Still, communities deliver better results with tenure security. Key data from Instituto Social Ambiental’s Study on Quilombo Territories in the Brazilian Amazon shows that while Quilombos face significant land tenure challenges, approximately 47 percent of mapped Quilombos lack even basic delimitation or fixing of boundaries, and over 49 percent of communities have not even passed the first step.

Along the Amazon basin, communities often live in houses facing the river. The forest is their backyard. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Along the Amazon basin, communities often live in houses facing the river. The forest is their backyard. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Meanwhile, they remain outstanding in their conservation performance. They have preserved nearly 92 percent of mapped Quilombo territories, including forests and native vegetation. From 1985 to 2022, these territories lost only 4.7 percent of original forest cover, compared to 17 percent loss in private areas.

But political recognition has moved much more slowly than scientific recognition. Shortly before COP30, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the Afro-descendant communities of Menino Jesus and Itacoã-Miri near Belém, Pará, as part of an agenda of preparatory meetings for the COP30 climate conference.

It has taken 30 COPs for a historic breakthrough, as COP30 has included the term ‘people of African descent’ in draft negotiating texts of the UN climate convention for the first time. This inclusion is a significant step toward formally recognizing this population in global climate policy.

The term ‘people of African descent’ has been incorporated into draft documents, including those related to the Just Transition and the Gender Action Plan. This had never happened in the history of the UN climate convention system, which has often been more technical and less focused on human rights and racial justice.

The Belém Declaration on Fighting Environmental Racism is a political commitment that was joined by 19 countries at the leaders’ summit before COP30 began. The text acknowledges the disproportionate exposure of people of African descent, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities to environmental harms and climate risks.

This declaration is an international agreement that seeks to foster a global dialogue on the intersection of racial equality, climate change, and environmental justice. The declaration recognizes the global ecological and racial justice crises as intertwined and proposes cooperative actions to overcome historical inequalities affecting access to environmental resources.

Its goals include reinforcing human rights and social justice in environmental policy, broadening the scope of equality in sustainable development, and building a more equitable future for all.

Coelho Teles from the Quilombo community told IPS that he is not aware of this recognition because they have “been sidelined. We do not know how to get involved and participate in COP30.”

Brazil identified forests and oceans as twin priorities and launched the Brazil-led Tropical Forests Forever Facility at COP30, seeking to compensate countries for preserving tropical forests, with 20 percent of funds reserved for Indigenous Peoples.

Science has shown communities keep forests standing. For the Tropical Forests Forever Facility to achieve desired results, those in Quilombo territories say their recognition and participation will need to be significantly more substantial.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Cold or Heat, A Disputed Roadmap to Leave Fossil Fuels Behind in COP30

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Climate Change

Entrance to the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém. The climate summit, which began on November 10 and is due to conclude on Friday the 21st, is debating issues such as the phase-out of fossil fuels and adaptation goals. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Entrance to the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém. The climate summit, which began on November 10 and is due to conclude on Friday the 21st, is debating issues such as the phase-out of fossil fuels and adaptation goals. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS) – The heat in the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia, in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém, has reached the negotiation rooms of the climate summit. Over the past 72 hours, one of the most delicate and significant discussions of this climate meeting has been taking place: the path to progressively abandon the production and use of coal, gas, and oil.

In recent hours, a global coalition of rich and developing countries, led by Colombia, has doubled down on pushing for a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap, while major producer countries resist it.

“The plan must have differentiated commitments, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, and the reform of the international financial system, because foreign debt payments are punishing us,” Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez explained to IPS.

For the official, the 30th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) on climate change must result in a roadmap. “People are mobilizing, demanding climate action; we have to start now,” she urged.

In Belém, the gateway to the planet’s largest rainforest, it is no longer just about reducing emissions but about transforming the foundation of the energy system, thus acquiring a moral, political, and scientific urgency. What was initially meant to be the “Amazon COP” has mutated into the “end-of-the-fossil-era-COP,” but the roadmap to achieve it is a toss-up.

“The plan must have differentiated commitments, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, and the reform of the international financial system, because external debt payments are punishing us” –Irene Vélez.

Two years after the world agreed at COP28, held in 2023 in Dubai, to move away from fossil fuels, Belém is the moment of truth, upon which the effort to keep global warming below the 1.5° Celsius limit largely depends—a goal considered vital to avoid devastating and inevitable effects on ecosystems and human life.

Thus, the discussion among the 197 parties to the United Nations climate convention has shifted from the “what” to the “how,” and especially to the “when,” questions that have turned potential coordinates into a geopolitical labyrinth.

In that vein, a coalition of over 80 countries emerged on Tuesday the 18th to push the roadmap, including Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, and Panama among the Latin American countries.

One challenge for the roadmap advocates is that the issue is not explicitly part of the main agenda, a resource that the Brazilian presidency of COP30 could use to shirk responsibility on the matter.

The issue appears on the thematic menu of COP30, which started on the 10th and is scheduled to conclude on the 21st, and whose official objectives include approving the Global Goal on Adaptation to climate change and securing sufficient funds for that adaptation.

Approximately 40,000 people are attending this climate summit, including government representatives, multilateral agencies, academia, and civil society organizations.

An unprecedented indigenous presence is also in attendance, with about 900 delegates from native peoples, drawn by the ancestral call of the Amazon, a symbol of the menu of solutions to the climate catastrophe and simultaneously a victim of its causes.

Also present and very active in Belém are about 1,600 lobbyists from the hydrocarbon industry, 12% more than at the 2024 COP, according to the international coalition Kick Big Polluters Out.

The clamor from civil society demands an institutional structure with governance, clear criteria, measurable objectives, and justice mechanisms.

“The roadmap has become a difficult issue to ignore; it is already at the center of these negotiations, and no country can ignore it. The breadth of support is surprising, with rich and poor countries, producers and non-producers, indicating that an agreement is about to fall,” Antonio Hill, Just Transitions advisor for the non-governmental and international Natural Resource Governance Institute, told IPS.

Activists protest on Wednesday the 19th against fossil fuel exploitation at the entrance to the venue of the Belém climate summit, in the Amazonian northeast of Brazil. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Activists protest on Wednesday the 19th against fossil fuel exploitation at the entrance to the venue of the Belém climate summit, in the Amazonian northeast of Brazil. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Poisoned

The push for the roadmap comes from the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, promoted by civil society organizations, strongly adopted by Colombia, and which so far has the support of 18 nations, but no hydrocarbon-producing Latin American country, such as Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, or Venezuela.

Colombia, despite also being a producer and exporter of fossil fuels, has presented its Roadmap for a Just Energy Transition, with which it seeks to replace income from coal and oil with investments in tourism and renewable energy.

Colombia’s 2022-2052 National Energy Plan projects long-term reductions in fossil fuel production. The country announced US$14.5 billion for the energy transition to less polluting forms of energy production.

But for the rest of the region, the duality between maintaining fossil fuels and promoting renewable energies persists.

A prime example of this duality is the COP30 host country itself, Brazil. While the host President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, have insisted on the need to abandon fossil fuels, the government is promoting expansive oil and gas extraction plans.

In fact, just weeks before the opening of COP30, the state-owned oil group Petrobras received a permit for oil exploration in the Atlantic, just kilometers from the mouth of the Amazon River.

But Lula and his team committed that this summit in the heart of the Amazon would be “the COP of truth” and “the COP of implementation,” and the issue of fossil fuels has become central to the negotiations, which Lula joined on Wednesday the 19th to give a push to the talks and the outcomes.

In their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—the set of mitigation and adaptation policies countries must present to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change signed in 2015 at COP21—Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, or Chile avoid mentioning a managed phase-out of fossil fuels.

Simply put, they argue they cannot let go of the old vine before grasping the new one. This stance also involves a delicate aspect, as nations like Ecuador depend on revenues from hydrocarbon exploitation.

Therefore, the Global South has insisted on its demand for funding from rich nations, due to their contribution to the climate disaster through fossil fuel exploitation since the 17th century.

The result of the presented policies is alarming: although many countries have increased their emission reduction targets on paper, they lack details on phasing out production. The only existing roadmap is the growing extractive one.

In fact, the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement process, originating from COP28, demanded that countries take measures to move towards a fossil-free era.

The argument is unequivocal: various estimates indicate that fossil fuels contribute 86% of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of global warming.

But a key point is where to start. For Uitoto indigenous leader Fanny Kuiru Castro, the new general coordinator of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin –which  brings together the more than 350 native peoples of the eight countries sharing the biome–, the starting point must precisely be at-risk regions like the Amazon.

“It is a priority. If there isn’t a clear signal that we must proceed gradually, it means the summit has failed and does not want to adopt that commitment. We will have another 30 years of speeches,” she told IPS, alluding to that number of summits without substantial results.

In the Amazon, oil blocks threaten 31 million hectares or 12% of the total area, mining threatens 9.8 million, and timber concessions threaten 2.4 million.

And in that direction, a major obstacle arises: how to finance the phase-out. The roadmap has a direct link to the financial goals aimed at the Global South, with a demand for US$1.2 trillion in funding for climate action starting in 2035.

“Can the COP deliver the financial backing that countries need to reinvent their economies in time to guarantee just and inclusive development?” Hill questioned.

The atmosphere in Belém is of a different urgency compared to Dubai or Baku, where COP29 was held a year ago. The roadmap to a world free of fossil fuel smoke remains a blurry map, drawn freehand on ground that is heating up far too quickly.

In Belém, humanity is deciding whether to brake gradually or to accelerate, with the air conditioning on and a full tank.

 

The Top Climate Leaders Are Now in The Global South

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Opinion


As climate leaders gather in the Amazon, the world’s green transformation is speaking with a southern accent—powered by markets, technology, and a new economic logic.

Belém—30th Conference of the Parties (COP30). Credit: Antônio Scorza/COP30

Belém—30th Conference of the Parties (COP30). Credit: Antônio Scorza/COP30

OSLO, Norway, Nov 11 2025 (IPS) – When world leaders now gather in Belém, Brazil for the UN climate conference, expectations will be modest. Few believe the meeting will produce any breakthroughs. The United States is retreating from climate engagement. Europe is distracted. The UN is struggling to keep relevant in the 21st century.

But step outside the negotiation tents, and a different story unfolds—one of quiet revolutions, technological leaps, and a new geography of leadership. The green transformation of the world is no longer being designed in Western capitals. It is being built, at scale, in the Global South.

Ten years ago, anyone seeking inspiration on climate policy went to Brussels, Berlin or Paris. Today, you go to Beijing, Delhi or Jakarta. The center of gravity has shifted. China and India are now the twin engines of the global green economy, with Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia closely behind.

Erik Solheim

This is not about rhetoric; it is about results. China accounts for roughly 60 percent of global capacity in solar, wind, and hydropower manufacturing. It dominates in electric vehicles, batteries, and high-speed rail. China’s 93 GW installation of solar in May 2025 is a historic high and exceeds the monthly or short‐term installation levels of any other country to date.

China has made the green transition its biggest business opportunity, turning green action into jobs, prosperity and global leadership. China is now making more money from exporting green technology than America makes from exporting fossil fuels.

India, too, is reshaping what green development looks like. I was in Andhra Pradesh last month, when I visited a wonderful six-gigawatt integrated energy park—solar, wind, and pumped storage. It delivers round-the-clock clean power. There is nothing like that in the West. In another state, Tamil Nadu, an ecotourism circuit is protecting mangroves and marine ecosystems while creating local jobs in tourism. The western state of Gujarat, long a laboratory for industrial innovation, has committed to 100 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, with the captains of Indian business – Adani and Reliance – driving large-scale solar and wind investments with the state government.

These are not pilot projects. They are national strategies. And they are succeeding because the economics have flipped.

The cost of solar power has fallen by over 90 percent in the last decade, largely thanks to the intense competition between Chinese solar companies. Battery storage is now competitive with fossil fuels. What was once an environmental aspiration has become a financial inevitability. In Indian Gujarat, solar-plus-storage projects are already cheaper than coal. Switching to clean energy is no longer a cost—it is a saving.

That is why climate action today is driven not by diplomacy, but by economics. The question is no longer if countries will go green, but who will own the technologies and industries that make it possible.

Europe, long the moral voice of the climate agenda, now risks losing the industrial race. After years of blocking imports from developing countries on grounds of “inferior” green quality, it now complains that Chinese electric vehicles are too good— too cheap and too efficient. Europe cannot have it both ways. The world cannot build a green transition behind protectionist walls. The markets must open to the best technologies, wherever they are made.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil understands this new reality. That is why he chose Belém, deep in the Amazon, as the site for climate talks. The location itself is a statement: the future of climate policy lies in protecting the rainforests and empowering the people who live within them.

Forests are not just carbon sinks; they are living economies. When I was Norway’s environment minister, we partnered with Brazil and Indonesia to reward them for reducing deforestation. Later, Guyana joined our effort—a small South American nation where nearly the entire population is of Indian or African origin.

Guyana has since turned conservation into currency. Under its jurisdictional REDD+ programme, the country now sells verified carbon credits through the global aviation market known as CORSIA. In the third quarter of this year, these credits traded at USD 22.55 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent, with around one million credits sold through a procurement event led by IATA and Mercuria.

The proceeds go directly to forest communities—building schools, improving digital access, and funding small enterprises. It is proof that the carbon market can deliver real value when tied to real lives. You cannot protect nature against the will of local people. You can only protect it with them. Last year in Guyana, I watched children play soccer and cricket beneath the jungle canopy—a glimpse of life thriving in harmony with the forest, not at its expense.

That, ultimately, is what Belém should represent: not another round of procedural debates, but a vision for linking markets, nature and livelihoods.

The Global South has also sidestepped one of the West’s greatest political failures: climate denial. In India, there is no major political party—or public figure, cricket star or Bollywood artist—questioning the reality of climate change. Leaders may differ on ideology, but not on this. Across Asia, from China to Indonesia, climate action unites rather than divides. Because here, ecology and economy move together.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India puts it simply: by going green, we also go prosperous. President Xi Jinping of China and President Lula of Brazil share that same message—a vision that draws people in, instead of lecturing them. It is this integration of growth and sustainability that explains why the Global South is moving faster than most of the developed world.

None of this means diplomacy is irrelevant. The UN still matters. But its institutions must evolve to reflect the realities of the 21st century. The Security Council, frozen in 1945, still excludes India and Africa from permanent membership. Without reform, multilateralism risks losing its meaning.

Yet, while negotiations stall, transformation continues. From solar parks in Gujarat to high-speed rail across China, from mangrove tourism in Tamil Nadu to carbon markets in Guyana—climate leadership is happening in real economies, not in press releases.

Belém will not deliver a grand agreement. But it doesn’t need to. The world is already moving—faster than our diplomats.

The story of Belem will not be written in communiqués, but in kilowatts, credits, and communities.

The real climate leaders are no longer in Washington or Brussels.

They are in Beijing, Delhi, São Paulo, and Georgetown.

The future of climate action is already here.

It just speaks with a southern accent.

The author is the former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme and Norway’s Minister for Environment and International Development.

IPS UN Bureau

 

The Top Climate Leaders Are Now in The Global South

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Biodiversity, Climate Action, Climate Change, Conferences, COP30, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Energy, Environment, Global, Green Economy, Headlines, Labour, Natural Resources, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion


As climate leaders gather in the Amazon, the world’s green transformation is speaking with a southern accent—powered by markets, technology, and a new economic logic.

Belém—30th Conference of the Parties (COP30). Credit: Antônio Scorza/COP30

Belém—30th Conference of the Parties (COP30). Credit: Antônio Scorza/COP30

OSLO, Norway, Nov 11 2025 (IPS) – When world leaders now gather in Belém, Brazil for the UN climate conference, expectations will be modest. Few believe the meeting will produce any breakthroughs. The United States is retreating from climate engagement. Europe is distracted. The UN is struggling to keep relevant in the 21st century.

But step outside the negotiation tents, and a different story unfolds—one of quiet revolutions, technological leaps, and a new geography of leadership. The green transformation of the world is no longer being designed in Western capitals. It is being built, at scale, in the Global South.

Ten years ago, anyone seeking inspiration on climate policy went to Brussels, Berlin or Paris. Today, you go to Beijing, Delhi or Jakarta. The center of gravity has shifted. China and India are now the twin engines of the global green economy, with Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia closely behind.

Erik Solheim

This is not about rhetoric; it is about results. China accounts for roughly 60 percent of global capacity in solar, wind, and hydropower manufacturing. It dominates in electric vehicles, batteries, and high-speed rail. China’s 93 GW installation of solar in May 2025 is a historic high and exceeds the monthly or short‐term installation levels of any other country to date.

China has made the green transition its biggest business opportunity, turning green action into jobs, prosperity and global leadership. China is now making more money from exporting green technology than America makes from exporting fossil fuels.

India, too, is reshaping what green development looks like. I was in Andhra Pradesh last month, when I visited a wonderful six-gigawatt integrated energy park—solar, wind, and pumped storage. It delivers round-the-clock clean power. There is nothing like that in the West. In another state, Tamil Nadu, an ecotourism circuit is protecting mangroves and marine ecosystems while creating local jobs in tourism. The western state of Gujarat, long a laboratory for industrial innovation, has committed to 100 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, with the captains of Indian business – Adani and Reliance – driving large-scale solar and wind investments with the state government.

These are not pilot projects. They are national strategies. And they are succeeding because the economics have flipped.

The cost of solar power has fallen by over 90 percent in the last decade, largely thanks to the intense competition between Chinese solar companies. Battery storage is now competitive with fossil fuels. What was once an environmental aspiration has become a financial inevitability. In Indian Gujarat, solar-plus-storage projects are already cheaper than coal. Switching to clean energy is no longer a cost—it is a saving.

That is why climate action today is driven not by diplomacy, but by economics. The question is no longer if countries will go green, but who will own the technologies and industries that make it possible.

Europe, long the moral voice of the climate agenda, now risks losing the industrial race. After years of blocking imports from developing countries on grounds of “inferior” green quality, it now complains that Chinese electric vehicles are too good— too cheap and too efficient. Europe cannot have it both ways. The world cannot build a green transition behind protectionist walls. The markets must open to the best technologies, wherever they are made.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil understands this new reality. That is why he chose Belém, deep in the Amazon, as the site for climate talks. The location itself is a statement: the future of climate policy lies in protecting the rainforests and empowering the people who live within them.

Forests are not just carbon sinks; they are living economies. When I was Norway’s environment minister, we partnered with Brazil and Indonesia to reward them for reducing deforestation. Later, Guyana joined our effort—a small South American nation where nearly the entire population is of Indian or African origin.

Guyana has since turned conservation into currency. Under its jurisdictional REDD+ programme, the country now sells verified carbon credits through the global aviation market known as CORSIA. In the third quarter of this year, these credits traded at USD 22.55 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent, with around one million credits sold through a procurement event led by IATA and Mercuria.

The proceeds go directly to forest communities—building schools, improving digital access, and funding small enterprises. It is proof that the carbon market can deliver real value when tied to real lives. You cannot protect nature against the will of local people. You can only protect it with them. Last year in Guyana, I watched children play soccer and cricket beneath the jungle canopy—a glimpse of life thriving in harmony with the forest, not at its expense.

That, ultimately, is what Belém should represent: not another round of procedural debates, but a vision for linking markets, nature and livelihoods.

The Global South has also sidestepped one of the West’s greatest political failures: climate denial. In India, there is no major political party—or public figure, cricket star or Bollywood artist—questioning the reality of climate change. Leaders may differ on ideology, but not on this. Across Asia, from China to Indonesia, climate action unites rather than divides. Because here, ecology and economy move together.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India puts it simply: by going green, we also go prosperous. President Xi Jinping of China and President Lula of Brazil share that same message—a vision that draws people in, instead of lecturing them. It is this integration of growth and sustainability that explains why the Global South is moving faster than most of the developed world.

None of this means diplomacy is irrelevant. The UN still matters. But its institutions must evolve to reflect the realities of the 21st century. The Security Council, frozen in 1945, still excludes India and Africa from permanent membership. Without reform, multilateralism risks losing its meaning.

Yet, while negotiations stall, transformation continues. From solar parks in Gujarat to high-speed rail across China, from mangrove tourism in Tamil Nadu to carbon markets in Guyana—climate leadership is happening in real economies, not in press releases.

Belém will not deliver a grand agreement. But it doesn’t need to. The world is already moving—faster than our diplomats.

The story of Belem will not be written in communiqués, but in kilowatts, credits, and communities.

The real climate leaders are no longer in Washington or Brussels.

They are in Beijing, Delhi, São Paulo, and Georgetown.

The future of climate action is already here.

It just speaks with a southern accent.

The author is the former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme and Norway’s Minister for Environment and International Development.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Turning Indigenous Territories From ‘Sacrifice’ Zones to Thriving Forest Ecosystems

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A new report, ‘Indigenous Territories and Local Communities on the Frontlines,’ calls for secure land rights, free and informed consent, direct financing to communities, protection of life, and recognition of traditional knowledge.

Brazil's Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara attends a meeting during the UN Climate Change Conference COP 30. Credit: Hermes Caruzo/COP30

Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, attends a meeting during the UN Climate Change Conference COP 30. Credit: Hermes Caruzo/COP30

SRINAGAR, India & BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 8 2025 (IPS) – A report by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and Earth Insight paints a stark picture of how extractive industries, deforestation, and climate change are converging to endanger the world’s last intact tropical forests and the Indigenous Peoples who protect them.

The report, ‘Indigenous Territories and Local Communities on the Frontlines,’ combines geospatial analysis and community data to show that nearly one billion hectares of forests are under Indigenous stewardship, yet face growing industrial threats that could upend global climate and biodiversity goals.

Despite representing less than five percent of the world’s population, Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) safeguard more than half of all remaining intact forests and 43 percent of global biodiversity hotspots.

These territories store vast amounts of carbon, regulate ecosystems, and preserve cultures and languages that have sustained humanity’s relationship with nature for millennia. But the report warns that governments and corporations are undermining this stewardship through unrestrained extraction of resources in the name of economic growth or even “green transition.”

One of the main report authors, Florencia Librizzi, who is also a Deputy Director at Earth Insight, told IPS that the perspectives and stories from each region are grounded in the lived realities of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and come directly from the organizations from each of the regions that the report focuses on in Mesoamerica, Amazonia, the Congo Basin, and Indonesia.

Across four critical regions—the Amazon, Congo Basin, Indonesia, and Mesoamerica—extractive industries overlap with millions of hectares of ancestral land. In the Amazon, oil and gas blocks cover 31 million hectares of Indigenous territories, while mining concessions sprawl across another 9.8 million.

In the Congo Basin, 38 percent of community forests are under oil and gas threat, endangering peatlands that store immense quantities of carbon. Indonesia’s Indigenous territories face 18 percent overlap with timber concessions, while in Mesoamerica, 19 million hectares—17 percent of Indigenous land—are claimed for mining, alongside rampant narcotrafficking and colonization.

These intrusions have turned Indigenous territories into sacrifice zones. From nickel extraction in Indonesia to oil drilling in Ecuador and illegal logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, corporate incursions threaten lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems. Between 2012 and 2024, 1,692 environmental defenders were killed or disappeared across GATC countries, with 208 deaths linked to extractive industries and 131 to logging. The report calls this violence “the paradox of protection”—the act of defending nature now puts those defenders at deadly risk.

Yet the report also documents extraordinary resilience. In Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, Indigenous forest communities have achieved near-zero deforestation—only 1.5 percent forest loss between 2014 and 2024, compared to 11 percent in adjacent areas. In Colombia, Indigenous Territorial Entities maintain over 99 percent of their forests intact.

The O’Hongana Manyawa of Indonesia continue to defend their lands against nickel mining, while the Guna people of Panama manage autonomous governance systems that integrate culture, tourism, and ecology.

In the Congo, the 2022 “Pygmy Law” has begun recognizing community rights to forest governance, a historic step toward justice.

The report’s findings were released ahead of the 30th UN Climate Conference (COP30), emphasizing the urgency of aligning international climate and biodiversity frameworks with Indigenous rights.

The 2025 Brazzaville Declaration, adopted at the First Global Congress of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities from the Forest Basins, provides a roadmap for such alignment.

Signed by leaders from 24 countries representing 35 million people, it calls for five key commitments: secure land rights, free and informed consent, direct financing to communities, protection of life, and recognition of traditional knowledge.

These “Five Demands” are the cornerstone of what the GATC calls a shift “from extraction to regeneration.”

They demand an end to the violence and criminalization of Indigenous leaders and insist that global climate finance reach local hands.

The report notes that, despite the 2021 COP26 pledge of 1.7 billion dollars for forest protection, only 7.6 percent of that money reached Indigenous communities directly.

“Without financing that strengthens territorial governance, all global commitments will remain symbolic,” said the GATC in a joint statement.

Reacting to the announcement of the The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) announced on the first day of the COP Leaders’ Summit and touted as a “new and innovative financing mechanism” that would see forest countries paid every single year in perpetuity for keeping forests standing, Juan Carlos Jintiach, Executive Secretary of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) said, “Even if the TFFF does not reach all its fundraising goals, the message it conveys is already powerful: climate and forest finance cannot happen without us Indigenous Peoples and local leadership at its core.

“This COP offers a crucial opportunity to amplify that message, especially as it takes place in the heart of the Amazon. We hope the focus remains on the communities who live there, those of us who have protected the forests for generations. What we need most from this COP is political will to guarantee our rights, to be recognized as partners rather than beneficiaries, to ensure transparency and justice in climate finance, and to channel resources directly to those defending the land, despite growing risks and violence.”

Deforestation in Acre State, Brazil. Credit: Victor Moriyama / Climate Visuals

Deforestation in Acre State, Brazil. Credit: Victor Moriyama / Climate Visuals

Jintiach, who is also the report’s author, told IPS  the Global Alliance has proposed establishing clear mechanisms to ensure that climate finance reaches Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ initiatives directly, not through layers of external actors.

“That’s why we have established our Shandia Platform, a global Indigenous-led mechanism designed to channel direct, predictable, and effective climate finance to our territories. Through the Shandia Funds Network, we ensure that funding is managed according to our priorities, governance systems, and traditional knowledge. The platform also includes a transparent system to track and monitor funding flows, with a specific indicator for direct finance to Indigenous Peoples and local communities,” he said.

The report also warns that global conservation goals such as the “30×30” biodiversity target—protecting 30 percent of Earth’s land and sea by 2030—cannot succeed without Indigenous participation. Policies under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement must, it says, embed Indigenous governance and knowledge at their core. Otherwise, climate strategies risk reinforcing historical injustices by excluding those who have sustained these ecosystems for centuries.

Jintiach said that based on his experience  at GATC, Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’-led conservation models are not only vital but also deeply effective.

“In our territories, it is our peoples and communities who are conserving both nature and culture, protecting the forests, waters, and biodiversity that sustain all of us,” he said.

He added, “Multiple studies confirm what we already know from experience: Indigenous and local community lands have lower rates of deforestation and higher biodiversity than those managed under state or private models. Our success is rooted in ancestral knowledge, collective governance, and a deep spiritual connection to the land, principles that ensure true, lasting conservation.”

According to Jintiach, the GATC 5 demands and the Brazzaville Declaration are critical global reference points and we are encouraged by the level of interest and engagement displayed by political leaders in the lead-up to COP 30.

Map highlighting extractive threats faced by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities across the Amazon basin. Credit: GATC

Map highlighting extractive threats faced by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities across the Amazon basin. Credit: GATC

“We are hopeful that these principles will be uplifted and championed at COP 30, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, CBD COP 17 and on the long road ahead,” he said.

When asked about the rising violence against environmental defenders, Jintiach said that the Brazzaville Declaration calls for a global convention to protect Environmental Human Rights Defenders, including Indigenous Peoples and local community leaders.

According to him, the governments must urgently tackle the corruption and impunity fueling threats and violence while supporting collective protection and preventing rollback of rights.

“This also means upholding and strengthening the Escazú Agreement and UNDRIP, and ensuring long-term protection through Indigenous Peoples and local communities-led governance, secure land tenure, and accountability for human rights violations.”

Earth Insight’s Executive Director Tyson Miller described the collaboration as a call to action rather than another policy document. “Without urgent recognition of territorial rights, respect for consent, and protection of ecosystems, global climate and biodiversity goals cannot be achieved,” he said. “This report is both a warning and an invitation—to act with courage and stand in solidarity.”

The case studies highlight how Indigenous governance models already offer proven solutions to the climate crisis. In the Brazilian Amazon, Indigenous organizations have proposed a self-determined Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to reduce emissions through territorial protection. Their slogan, “Demarcation is Mitigation,” underlines how securing Indigenous land rights directly supports the Paris Agreement’s goals. Similarly, in Central Africa, communities have pioneered decolonized conservation approaches that integrate Indigenous leadership into national park management, reversing exclusionary models imposed since colonial times.

In Mesoamerica, the Muskitia region—known as “Little Amazon”—illustrates both crisis and hope. It faces deforestation from drug trafficking and illegal logging, yet community-based reforestation and forest monitoring are restoring ecosystems and livelihoods. Women and youth play leading roles in governance, showing how inclusive leadership strengthens resilience.

The report’s conclusion is unequivocal: where Indigenous rights are recognized, ecosystems thrive; where they are ignored, destruction follows. It argues that the fight for land is inseparable from the fight against climate change. Indigenous territories are not just sources of raw materials; they are “living systems of governance, culture, and biodiversity” essential to humanity’s survival.

The Brazzaville Declaration urges governments to ratify international human rights conventions, end deforestation by 2030, and integrate Indigenous territories into national biodiversity and climate plans. It also calls for a global convention to protect environmental human rights defenders, whose safety is central to planetary stability.

For GATC’s leaders, the message is deeply personal. “Our traditional knowledge is the language of Mother Earth,” said Joseph Itongwa, GATC Co-Chair from the Congo Basin. “We cannot protect the planet if our territories, our identity, and our livelihoods remain under threat.”

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Kerala’s Human-Elephant ‘Conflict’: Time To Understand a Complex Relationship

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Asia-Pacific, Biodiversity, Civil Society, Conservation, Environment, Featured, Headlines, Natural Resources, TerraViva United Nations

Conservation

Elephants at the Kappukadu elephant rehabilitation center in Kottoor.

Elephants at the Kappukadu elephant rehabilitation center in Kottoor.

NEW DELHI, Sep 5 2025 (IPS) – In the early part of this year, two deaths in Kerala garnered major media attention. A farmer in Wayanad and a female plantation worker in Idukki were killed in two separate events, within a matter of a few days, by wild elephants.

Arikomban, another wild elephant, has become a media favorite recently due to his brushes with human settlements near his habitat. Named so because of his love for ari (rice), the elephant had been relocated from Kerala to Tamil Nadu in 2023 following constant protests from people who also claimed him to be ‘life-threatening.’ Kerala’s news outlets widely covered Arikomban’s relocation.

These aren’t one-off cases in Kerala, which has seen a spike in human–wildlife conflict, especially involving elephants.

According to a news report, 451 people have been killed in wildlife conflicts in the past five years alone in the state, with 102 of them caused by elephants.

However, wildlife biologists and environmentalists have been at odds with the narratives promoted by the media and society regarding what constitutes conflict.

“I think we shouldn’t be using the terminology ‘wildlife conflict’ itself. I would prefer addressing it as ‘negative wildlife interaction,’” says Dr. P.S. Easa, who holds a PhD on Elephant Ecology and Behavior and is a member of the National Board for Wildlife and the IUCN, Asian Elephant Specialist Group.

The conflict between wild animals and humans has been going on for centuries, and what we witness in the current era has been influenced by the transformation in the behavior of both these groups, as well as humans’ perception towards wildlife in general, he adds.

In Kerala’s social framework, the rising phenomenon of human–elephant conflict takes on a much deeper and more complex meaning than the broader topic of conflict with wildlife. Elephants have been an integral part of Kerala’s culture and tradition for centuries—domesticated not just for heavy labor but also as part of temple festivals. In the last few decades, machines have replaced elephants in much of the labor environment in the state, yet the land giants continue to be a part of the festival parades. Animal behavioral experts and activists have been consistently raising their voices against this practice in this century, citing the need to treat elephants as solely wild animals.

Easa refuses to even use the term “domesticated” for them.

“Captive elephants are the only right way to address them in this age and time,” he says.

In 2024 alone, there had been nine reported deaths in Kerala by such captive elephants. The Hindu reported six such deaths, including an elephant mahout, within the first two months of this year. Although there have been stricter rules and regulations in recent years on using captive elephants for temple festivals, they have mostly been restricted to paper. The religious nature of the festivals that these elephants are made to be a part of makes the topic even more sensitive, and political parties tend to stay away from addressing the issue.

Kerala’s elephant reserves have been categorized mainly into four regions, namely Wayanad, Nilambur, Anamudi, and Periyar. Periyar Reserve had the highest count of elephants, followed by the Anamudi Reserve. According to the Kerala Government’s Forest Statistics and the report of the ‘Wild Elephants Census of Kerala,’ the four reserves have a combined total extent of 11,199.049 sq. km., out of which only 1,576.339 sq. km. is assessed to be devoid of elephant population. According to a 2024 official assessment, Kerala had an elephant population of just under 1800, a decline of more than 100 from the previous year.

As Kerala’s elephant reserves border the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, natural factors that affect the elephant population, like extreme drought and heavy, abrupt rainfall, influence the elephants’ migration across the states during the year.

In Kerala, particularly, shrinking forest habitats caused by deforestation and the increasing presence of human settlements in regions historically occupied by elephant populations, coupled with climate change and the invasive plant species erasing the elephants’ natural food sources, are some of the factors causing unnatural elephant migration, according to experts, and as a consequence, resulting in frequent interactions with humans.

The phrase “descent of wildlife into human settlements” itself is a misnomer, Eesa says.

“In almost all such cases, human settlements had crossed over to those places where the wildlife had existed peacefully before. Wayanad and Idukki are classic examples of this.”

“There was a report that I had come across a while ago—of an ‘elephant attack’ that happened in Sholayar Forest Reserve. Look at the irony of that news. It’s a forest reserve—the habitat belongs to the elephant, not the people who were driving through it. What I’m saying is, every time an elephant conflict is reported, you need to dissect all the circumstances surrounding it. Where—was it within the jungle or outside it? When was it, during the daytime or at night? And how? What were the circumstances leading up to the interaction?” he explains.

The drastic increase in food waste owing to tourism in Kerala has been another factor for wild animals encroaching into human spaces lately. Elephants, wild boars, and monkeys have been observed to have come to human settlements to feed on the food waste.

There is no one, foolproof method to resolve the human–elephant conflict, scientists opine. Easa points out that several techniques that had been fruitful in African countries proved ineffective when used in countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

A mahout riding a captive elephant. Kerala continues to make use of elephants for temple festivals and parades.

A mahout is seen riding a captive elephant. Kerala continues to make use of elephants for temple festivals and parades.

Wildlife biologist Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan, in an interview given to Mongabay in 2023, suggests five main long-term measures that will help mitigate human-elephant conflict. This includes initiating long-term studies to understand elephant movements and spatiotemporal patterns of conflict, which will help ascertain where and how interventions are required; tracking areas of elephant movement and identifying regions of intense use while installing alert lights at vantage points that can be triggered in case of elephant sightings; raising awareness among local populations to discourage feeding elephants or unwanted interactions; training local rapid response teams to prevent negative interactions and indiscriminate drives; and fitting satellite collars on elephants that frequently cause issues.

Kerala also has an elephant rehabilitation center established in Kottoor, Thiruvananthapuram, for rescuing, rehabilitating, and protecting both captive and wild elephants. The state, like other forest reserves in India, has historically chosen to turn many of the captured conflict-making elephants into ‘Kumkis’ (a Kumki elephant is a specially trained and domesticated elephant used in rescue operations and to train other wild elephants and manage wildlife conflict).

Apart from the above, one of the most effective measures that has been implemented in Kerala is through the Wayanad Elephant Conflict Mitigation Project by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). The project, first initiated in 2002–2003 by WTI, has evolved into a successful model for tackling human–elephant conflict in Kerala. The model has focused on relocating human settlements from places identified as ‘elephant corridors’ in the Wayanad district of Kerala. Wayanad, spanning a total of 2,131 sq. km., has an elephant reserve spread over 1,200 sq. km., with an elephant density of 0.25 elephants/sq. km.

Shajan M.A., a Senior Field Officer with WTI who handles the project currently, tells me, “Our method is to buy such sensitive land from the people, including both tribal and other communities, and relocate them to safer regions, away from wildlife conflict.” Ultimately, WTI hands over the purchased land to the Kerala Forest Department.

In regions like the Tirunelli–Kudrakote elephant corridor, the human–elephant conflict had escalated so much that it had resulted in several human deaths. For the communities, leaving a land they had occupied for decades and considered home is never easy, Shajan acknowledges. But of all the tried and tested methods to deal with the human–wildlife conflict, this approach has been the most effective in the long run, he points out.

Shajan also muses on the question of what exactly comprises a ‘conflict.’

“Conflict can hold different meanings. From a monkey stealing food from the house to a tiger or an elephant attack on a human, even leading to deaths, it’s all considered a human–wildlife conflict. Sadly, we, as a society, tend to be reactive once it transforms into a conflict and place the blame wholly on the wildlife.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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