From the left, Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jn with Mariann Bassey Olsson during the launch of the campaign in Cartagena, Colombia. Credit: AFSA.

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Apr 14 2026 (IPS)

Over 800 households in Ikolomani Constituency in Kakamega County, Western Kenya, fear eviction to pave the way for a British firm, Shanta Gold Limited, to begin extracting gold valued at Sh683 billion ($5.29 billion) on an estimated 337 acres of residential and agricultural land.

Efforts by residents to protest against the looming displacement during an attempt for a public participation session on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) by the government on 4 December 2025 were met with police brutality, leading to four deaths due to bullet wounds, arbitrary arrests and scores of injuries.

According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the incident is part of a disturbing and escalating pattern in Kenya’s extractive sector, where communities seeking accountability are met with brutal force, political threats, and procedural manipulation.

“Mining zones are increasingly becoming death traps rather than engines of community development,” reads part of a statement issued by the commission following the incident.

This trend mirrors what is happening in many other countries across Africa, where communities living in mineral-rich areas face forceful displacements, abuse of basic human rights, and environmental degradation linked to industrial mineral extraction, often perpetrated by foreign firms with full support of the political class.

According to Appolinaire Zagabe, a Congolese human rights activist and the Director for the DRC Climate Change Network (Reseau Sur le Changement Climatique RDC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), often, people he terms ‘greedy government officials’ sign contracts with extractive firms to legalise their activities, then use police machinery to forcefully and brutally evict communities without informed consent and proper compensation.

It is based on such injustices that civil society organisations, social movements, faith-based actors, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralist and peasant organisations from Africa under the umbrella of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) launched a campaign calling for land policies that protect African smallholder farmers and communities against punitive extractive practices and land grabbing, which are currently a threat to human rights, livelihoods and sustainable food systems.

“Land is more than a resource; it is our heritage, our identity, and our future,” said Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jr, the Executive Director at the Faith and Justice Network, during the launch of the campaign on the sidelines of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Cartagena, Colombia.

“Across Africa, our soils feed our families, sustain our economies, and connect generations, yet today, land degradation, industrial extractive practices by foreign enterprises, climate change, and land grabbing threaten the very foundation of our food systems,” he added.

In a joint declaration at the conference, the organisations observed that rural communities across the world continue to face dispossession, land concentration, and ecological destruction.

“Despite global commitments to end hunger and poverty, land and food systems are increasingly controlled by corporate and financial interests, while communities that produce food remain marginalised and insecure,” reads part of the declaration statement.

It was further observed that carbon offset projects, extractive industries, agribusiness expansions, and speculative land markets are accelerating dispossession, soil degradation, and social inequality, often excluding communities from territories they have governed collectively for generations.

The campaign, dubbed “Protect Our Land, Restore Our Soil”, is now calling on governments to strengthen land rights and protect smallholder farmers; communities to embrace sustainable farming practices that rebuild soil fertility; and youthful farmers to view agriculture not as a last resort but as a powerful pathway to innovation and resilience.

“When soil is degraded, food becomes scarce, and when land is taken or misused, communities lose dignity and security,” said Rev. Tolbert, who is also the sitting Chairperson at the AFSA’s Board of Directors.

Just like the looming evictions of residents of Ikolomani in Kenya, Amnesty International has also observed that people of the DRC also pay a high price to supply the world with copper and cobalt: forced evictions, illegal destruction of their homes, and physical violence – sometimes leading to deaths.

The DRC supplies 70 to 74 percent of the copper and cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries. These batteries power our smartphones, laptops, electric cars, and bicycles, and they play a major role in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. This transition is urgent and necessary.

However, according to Amnesty International, mineral-rich regions of the DRC are sacrificed to mining development, leading to a shocking series of abuses in the region. Thousands of people have lost their homes, schools, hospitals, and communities due to the expansion of copper and cobalt mines in the country, especially in Kolwezi, which sits above rich copper and cobalt deposits.

The AFSA-led campaign calls on governments and corporate organisations to guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities and free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in land, agriculture and climate decision-making to avoid conflicts and abuse of basic human rights.

“The future lies not in further commodifying land and food systems, but in restoring community control over territories, securing pastoralist mobility and commons, and supporting agroecological transitions rooted in justice and ecological integrity,” observed Mariann Bassey Olsson, a Lawyer, and Director at Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria).

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Nature-positive business operations can contribute to both business success and the environment, according to IPBES’ Business Biodiversity Assessment. Credit: iStock/IPBES

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe & MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, Feb 9 2026 (IPS)

Business can still remain profitable while protecting the environment but invest in nature-positive operations, says a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which finds that global companies have contributed to the escalating loss of biodiversity.

The IPBES Methodological Assessment Report on the Impact and Dependence of Business on Biodiversity and Nature’s Contributions to People, known as the Business and Biodiversity Report, says global business has benefited from nature but has immensely contributed to the decline in biodiversity. It is time it changes how it does business because biodiversity decline is a “critical systemic risk threatening the economy, financial stability, and human well-being.”

The global economy, driven by business, is dependent on healthy biodiversity and nature for materials, climate regulation, clean water, and pollination. However, the current economic system treats nature as free and infinite, creating perverse incentives for its exploitation. Businesses are largely rewarded for short-term profit, even when their activities degrade the natural systems they rely on, creating a huge risk to the economy and society, the report said.

The cover of the Business and Biodiversity Report. Credit: IPBES

It Must Be Business Unusual Now

Approved at the recent 12th session of the IPBES Plenary, held in Manchester, United Kingdom, the report calls for the end of business as usual. Global businesses, heavily dependent on nature and impacted by nature, must quickly change their operations or face collapse.

“Businesses and other key actors can either lead the way towards a more sustainable global economy or ultimately risk extinction… both of species in nature but potentially also their own,” noted the report.

Based on thousands of sources and prepared over three years by 79 leading experts from 35 countries from all regions of the world, the report is the first assessment of the impacts and dependencies of business on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.

Current conditions perpetuate business as usual and do not support the transformative change necessary to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, said the report, pointing out that large subsidies that drive biodiversity losses are directed to business activities with the support of businesses and trade associations.

For example, in 2023, global public and private finance flows with directly negative impacts on nature were estimated at USD 7.3 trillion. Of this amount, private finance accounted for USD 4.9 trillion, with public spending on environmentally harmful subsidies at about USD 2.4 trillion, the report said.

In contrast, USD 220 billion in public and private finance flows were directed to activities contributing to the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, representing just 3 percent of the public funds and incentives that encourage harmful business behaviour or prevent behaviour beneficial to biodiversity.

The new report shows that business as usual is not inevitable – with the right policies, as well as financial and cultural shifts, what is good for nature is also what is best for profitability, said Prof. Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the assessment, who highlighted that the loss of biodiversity was among the most serious threats to business.

“Business as usual may once have seemed profitable in the short term, but impacts across multiple businesses can have cumulative effects, aggregating to global impacts, which can cross ecological tipping points,” Polasky said.

Polasky said during a press briefing today (February 9, 2026) that business can immediately act without waiting for governments to create an enabling environment. They can measure their impact and dependencies by increasing the efficiencies of their operation, reducing waste and understanding new business opportunities and products.

A 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by IPBES warned that one million species face extinction in the next few years as a result of overexploitation of resources, development, and other human activities, posing serious consequences for people and the planet.

Global business, which turns profits from nature, has contributed to the loss of biodiversity as a result of poor production practices that have poisoned river systems, emitted dangerous high greenhouse gases and led to land degradation. This is despite business being affected by natural disasters, from extreme weather floods and droughts to climate change.

The report is the latest assessment by IPBES, an independent intergovernmental body comprising more than 150 member governments. IPBES, often described as the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) for biodiversity, provides policymakers with objective scientific assessments about the state of knowledge regarding the planet’s biodiversity, ecosystems and the contributions they make to people.

IPBES Chair, David Oburo,  said the assessments done by IPBES are balanced by the knowledge systems needed to integrate information business and its impacts and dependencies on biodiversity.

He said there is a need to move away from the scientific language often used in talking about impacts and dependencies of businesses to simplifying it to be about risks and opportunities “so that the messaging that comes out from our assessments is really accessible to the audience that needs to access that information.”

The IPBES methodological assessment report warned that the current system was broken because what is profitable for businesses often results in loss of biodiversity.

A Peruvian indigenous Quechua woman weaving a textile with the traditional techniques in Cusco, Peru. The IPBES Business and Biodiversity Report suggests business should integrate Indigenous knowledge into their operations. Credit: iStock/IPBES

IPBES Executive Secretary, Luthando Dziba, said nature was everybody’s business. The conservation and restorative use of biodiversity is central to business success. Although businesses have contributed to innovations that have driven improvement of living standards, that same success had come at the cost of biodiversity.

An Enabling Environment Is Good for Biodiversity

The report offers a key solution of creating a new “enabling environment” where what is profitable for business aligns with what is good for biodiversity and society. Current conditions — laws, financial systems, corporate reporting rules, and cultural norms — do not reward businesses for protecting nature.

There are many barriers to protecting nature, such as the focus on short-term profits versus long-term ecological cycles. In addition, there is a lack of mandatory disclosure and accountability for environmental impacts, inadequate data, metrics, and capacity within the business community, as well as the failure to integrate Indigenous and local knowledge in biodiversity protection.

The creation of an enabling environment needs coordinated action policy and legal frameworks where governments should integrate biodiversity into all trade and sectoral policies. Besides, there is a need to redirect the USD 7.3 trillion in harmful flows using taxes, green bonds, and sustainability-linked loans to reward positive action.

Businesses must engage with Indigenous Peoples and local communities with Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), while access to and sharing of location-specific data on business activities and biodiversity should be improved.  Leverage technology such as remote sensing and artificial intelligence for better monitoring and traceability across business supply chains.

Measure It to Manage It

Another key finding of the report is that business could improve the measurement and management of its impacts and dependencies on nature through appropriate engagement with science and Indigenous and local knowledge.

Assessment co-chair Prof. Ximena Rueda noted that data and knowledge are often siloed, as scientific literature was not written for businesses. Besides, a lack of translation and attention to the needs of business has slowed uptake of scientific findings.

“Among business there is also often limited understanding and recognition of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as stewards of biodiversity and, therefore, holders of knowledge on its conservation, restoration and sustainable use,” said Rueda in a statement.

Industrial development threatens 60 percent of Indigenous lands around the world, and a quarter of all Indigenous territories are under high pressure from resource exploitation. However, Indigenous Peoples and local communities often find themselves inadequately represented in business research and decision-making, said the report.

Commenting on the report, Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), noted that while all businesses depend on nature, some were more exposed to risks stemming from resource depletion and environmental degradation. She said companies need a deeper understanding of the breadth of their dependencies and impacts on biodiversity to act better.

“In too many boardrooms and offices around the world, there is still a dearth of awareness of biodiversity protection as a business investment,” said Schomaker in a statement. “Too often, public policy still incentivises behaviour that drives biodiversity loss.”

While Alexander De Croo, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said too often biodiversity is an invisible and expendable asset on a balance sheet of global companies, but that was changing.

“Awareness is now accelerating of the risks to development if biodiversity fails—and of the economic opportunities and future prosperity that emerge where it thrives,” De Croo said.

The report underscored that we cannot business-as-usual our way out of the biodiversity crisis. Governments need to stop incentivising the destruction of biodiversity and start rewarding environmental stewardship. Besides, business leaders should now integrate natural capital accounting into their business strategy to disclose their environmental footprint while contributing to a positive global economy.

The evidence is clear: our economic prosperity is inextricably linked to nature’s health, and we are severing that vital link at our peril.

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Binalakshmi Nepram. Credit: Nobel Women Initiative

By Kumkum Chadha
NEW DELHI, Jan 27 2026 (IPS)

It was Christmas eve: some two decades ago. Binalakshmi Nepram was a witness to the killing of a 27-year-old.

In utter disbelief, she saw a group of three men dragging the victim from his workshop. Within minutes, he was shot dead.

“Every day three or four people are shot dead in Manipur’s ongoing conflict. Thousands have died and many women widowed and children orphaned. And those who survive look into a scarred future. This must end,” she said.

When Nepram contributed 4,500 Indian rupees to buy a sewing machine for the victim’s wife, Rebika, the intervention was just the beginning. Since then, there has been no looking back. The date is etched in Nepram’s mind and psyche: December 24, 2004.

Now, two decades later, when she was unanimously elected Vice President of the International Peace Bureau, it was a befitting tribute to her crusade for peace: a recognition of the work her organization, the Manipur Gun Survivors Network, has done to rescue and uplift women from the trauma and agony that they face because of armed conflict.

Nepram has been at the forefront of providing the necessary healing touch to those affected by the violence perpetrated by mindless individuals.

She has also co-founded the Control Arms Foundation of India to focus on gender-based violence and end racial discrimination in India.

Currently, Nepram is chair of the Rotary Satellite Club of International Peace, an initiative that led to the establishment of the International House of Peace in Japan. She is also an associate at Harvard University and she is researching and leading work on Indigenous approaches to peacebuilding to help resolve some of the entrenched global conflicts.

“Good research should be the foundation of good policies and social action,” she says.

A globally recognized Indigenous scholar and a peace builder, Nepram is the first Indigenous person from the Indian state of Manipur to be appointed to this prestigious post. In the past, she has served on the IPB Board for two terms. As Vice President, she will hold this position until 2028.

With 400-member organizations spanning 100 countries, the International Peace Bureau or IPB is a Nobel Peace Laureate; 14 of its officers have been recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Founded in 1891, the IPB is one of the oldest Peace Organizations. It was awarded the Nobel in 1910.

Hammering a vision of a world without war, the IPB focus is on reducing funding for the military sector and disseminating those funds for social projects.

In her role as Vice President, Nepram would focus on strengthening global coalitions for peace and disarmament.

Peace, for Nepram, is not a project but a lifetime commitment. Her firm belief: “If wars can be engineered, we can also engineer peace.”

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Nepram spelled out the various dimensions of her work and what she plans to in her new role at the International Peace Bureau.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: What does this election mean?

Nepram: My election as Vice President of the International Peace Bureau is a historic one because it is the first time that anyone from India or my home state, Manipur, has been elected to this post. It means the growing recognition of our role, especially women-led peacebuilding—whether at home in Manipur, Northeast India or around the world—that we have been honored by the international community.

IPS: What would be your focus areas?

Nepram: My focus areas will include building a more peaceful world where people treat each other with love, respect and dignity; reducing wars and conflicts in biodiversity hotspots where Indigenous Peoples live; and the inclusion of women and Indigenous Peoples in peace talks, peace mediation and negotiations, as this is, as of now, missing.

IPS: What needs to change and has remained neglected?

Nepram: What needs to change are the mindsets of  people, policymakers and nations who believe in “war profits.” As of now, many “wars” in our homes, regions and nations are “engineered” for profit and power. Pitch this against the hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians who pay the price by way of their homes being burnt and many of them being displaced. In this context my own hometown, Manipur, stands as an example, particularly since 2023. But change will come; it must come and it will come once realization dawns.

IPS: How will your election help your people and the cause you are fighting for?

Nepram: Manipur has been in a state of violent conflict since the 1970s. Nobody has been able to work genuinely to bring peace in my state for decades. I, for one, will work for bringing the peace that has been denied but that every citizen in the state deserves. This is the need of the hour.

IPS: What are the first steps you will take?

Nepram: The first steps for peace in Manipur had been taken even before my election. This is by way of the formation of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace and the Northeast India Women Peace Congregations. I have also conceptualized the Global Summit on Indigenous Peacebuilding in April 2026 and will help in the forthcoming World Peace Congress.  We will also continue peace meetings, dialogue, negotiations, and mediation this year. These are the first few steps I will take this year.

IPS: What does this election mean for women and India and Manipur? How excited are you?

Nepram: This election puts India and Manipur back on the world map of peacemaking, and this, to me, is crucial and critical. India and the women of Manipur in particular have shown the world the power of peace and non-violent action in ending the colonization of British rule. At a time of rising wars and conflicts, this news will come as a balm to many wounded lives.

IPS: What is the big picture that needs to be addressed? What is the way forward?

Nepram: The big picture we are considering is that there are currently 132 conflicts and wars in the world, which have displaced 200 million people. Eighty percent of these conflicts and wars are happening in biodiversity areas where Indigenous Peoples live. Greed and power are what are driving the world towards wars and if humans don’t stop this, we will be heading towards doom. War is the greatest polluter in this world; every year our climate is changing. There are floods, droughts etc. so we need solutions now to protect the planet and to achieve this peace is the answer, as is Indigenous peacebuilding the way forward.  We must include Indigenous people and women in every process of decision-making from now on.

Peace for us is not a project; it is a commitment of a lifetime. If wars can be “engineered,” we can also “engineer” peace.

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Claudia Ignacio Álvarez in San Lorenzo de Azqueltan, Jalisco, Mexico. Credit : Eber Huitzil

By Claudia Ignacio Álvarez
MICHOACÁN, Mexico , Dec 18 2025 (IPS)

My niece Roxana Valentín Cárdenas was 21 years old when she was killed. She was a Purépecha Indigenous woman from San Andrés Tziróndaro, a community on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro in the Mexican state of Michoacán.

Roxana was killed during a peaceful march organised by another Indigenous community commemorating the recovery of their lands. Forty-six years earlier, three people had been murdered during that same land struggle. This time, the commemoration was once again met with gunfire.

Roxana was not armed and was not participating in the march. She encountered the demonstration and was struck by gunfire. Her death was deeply personal, but it took place within a broader context of long-standing violence linked to land and territory.

That violence has intensified in Michoacán recently, where the assassination of a mayor in November this year underscored how deeply insecurity has penetrated public life and how little protection exists for civilians, community leaders and local authorities alike.

Across Mexico, Indigenous people are being killed for defending land, water and forests. What governments and corporations often describe as “development” is experienced by our communities as dispossession enforced by violence – through land grabbing, water theft and the silencing of those who resist.

A way of life under threat
I come from San Andrés Tziróndaro, a farming, fishing and musical community. For generations, we have cared for the lake and the surrounding forests as collective responsibilities essential to life. That way of life is now under threat.

In Michoacán, extractive pressure takes different forms. In some Indigenous territories, it is mining. In our region, it is agro-industrial production, particularly avocados and berries grown for export. Communal land intended for subsistence is leased for commercial agriculture. Water is extracted from Lake Pátzcuaro through irregularly installed pipes to irrigate agricultural fields, depriving local farmers of access.

Agrochemicals contaminate soil and water, forests are deliberately burned to enable land-use change, and ecosystems are transformed into monocultures that consume vast amounts of water. This is not development. It is extraction.

Violence as a method of enforcement
When Indigenous communities resist these processes, violence follows.

Two cases illustrate this reality and remain unresolved.

José Gabriel Pelayo, a human rights defender and member of our organisation, has been forcibly disappeared for more than a year. Despite an urgent action issued by the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances, progress has been blocked. Authorities have delayed access to the investigation file, and meaningful search efforts have yet to begin. His family continues to wait for answers.

Eustacio Alcalá Díaz, a defender from the Nahua community of San Juan Huitzontla, was murdered after opposing mining operations imposed on his territory without consultation. After his killing, the community was paralysed by fear, and it was no longer possible to continue human rights work safely.

Together, these cases show how violence and impunity are used to suppress community resistance.

Militarisation is not protection
It is against this backdrop of escalating violence and impunity that the Mexican state has once again turned to militarisation. Thousands of soldiers are being deployed to Michoacán, and authorities point to arrests and security operations as indicators of stability.

In practice, militarisation often coincides with areas of high extractive interest. Security forces are deployed in regions targeted for mining, agro-industrial expansion or large infrastructure projects, creating conditions that allow these activities to proceed while community resistance is contained.

Indigenous people experience this not as protection, but as surveillance, intimidation and criminalisation. While companies may claim neutrality, they benefit from these security arrangements and rarely challenge the violence or displacement that accompanies them, raising serious questions about corporate complicity.

A global governance failure
Indigenous territories are opened to extractive industries operating across borders, while accountability remains fragmented. Corporations divide their operations across jurisdictions, making responsibility for environmental harm and human rights abuses difficult to establish.

Voluntary corporate commitments have not prevented violence or environmental degradation. National regulations remain uneven and weakly enforced, particularly in regions affected by corruption and organised crime. This is not only a national failure. It is a failure of global governance.

International responsibility, now
In this context, I have recently spent ten days in the United Kingdom with the support of Peace Brigades International (PBI), meeting with parliamentarians, officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and civil society organisations.

These discussions are part of a broader international effort to ensure that governments whose companies, financial systems or diplomatic relationships are linked to extractive activities take responsibility for preventing harm and protecting those at risk.

While the UK is only one actor, its policies on corporate accountability and support for human rights defenders have consequences far beyond its borders.

Why binding international rules are necessary
For years, Indigenous peoples and civil society organisations have called for a binding United Nations treaty on business and human rights. The urgency of this demand is reflected in the lives lost defending land and water and in the defenders who remain disappeared.

A binding treaty could require mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence across global supply chains, guarantee access to justice beyond national borders, and recognise the protection of human rights defenders as a legal obligation. It could make Free, Prior and Informed Consent enforceable rather than optional.

Such a treaty would not prevent development. It would ensure that development does not depend on violence, dispossession and impunity.

Defending life for everyone
Indigenous peoples are not obstacles to progress. We are defending ecosystems that sustain life far beyond our territories. Indigenous women are often at the forefront of this defence, even as we face extraordinary risks.

When defenders disappear, when others are murdered, and when young women like my niece lose their lives, it is not only our communities that suffer. The world loses those protecting land, water and biodiversity during a deep ecological crisis.

Defending life and land should not come at the cost of human lives.

Claudia Ignacio Álvarez is an Indigenous Purépecha feminist, lesbian, and environmental human rights defender from San Andrés Tziróndaro, Michoacán. Through the Red Solidaria de Derechos Humanos, she supports Indigenous and rural communities defending their territories from extractive industries and organised crime. Her work has been supported by Peace Brigades International (PBI) since 2023.

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When the world gathered in Glasgow for COP26, the mantra was “building back better.” Two years later, in Sharm El Sheikh, COP27 promised “implementation.” This year, in Belém, Brazil, COP30 arrived with a heavier burden: to finally bridge the chasm between lofty rhetoric and the urgent, measurable steps needed to keep 1.5 °C alive.

James Alix Michel

What Was Expected of COP30 was modest yet critical. After the disappointments of Copenhagen (2009) and the optimism sparked by Paris (2015), developing nations, small island states, Indigenous groups and a swelling youth movement demanded three things:

• 1. Binding phase-out timelines for coal, oil and gas.

• 2. A fully funded Loss and Damage Facility to compensate vulnerable countries already suffering climate impacts.

3. Scaled-up adaptation finance—tripling the $120 billion a year pledge and ensuring it reaches the frontline communities that need it most.

However, the negotiations evolved into a tug-of-war between ambition and inertia. Wealthier nations, still reeling from economic shocks, offered incremental increases in adaptation funding and a new Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) worth $125 billion, with 20 percent earmarked for Indigenous stewardship. The Global Implementation Accelerator—a two-year bridge to align Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with 1.5 °C—was launched, alongside a Just Transition Mechanism to share technology and financing.

However, the text on fossil fuel phase-out remained voluntary; the Loss and Damage Fund was referenced but not capitalized; and the $120 billion adaptation pledge fell short of the $310 billion annual need.

But there were Voices That Could Not Be Ignored.

Developing Nations (the G77+China) reminded the plenary that climate justice is not a charity—it is a legal obligation under the UNFCCC. They demanded that historic emitters honor their “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

Island States (AOSIS) warned that sea level rise is no longer a future scenario; it is eroding coastlines and displacing entire cultures. Their plea: “1.5 °C is our survival, not a bargaining chip.”

Indigenous Peoples highlighted the destruction of Amazon and Boreal forests, urging that 30 percent of all climate finance flow directly to communities that protect 80 percent of biodiversity.

Youth — The Gen Z generation—marched outside the venue, chanting, “We will not be diluted,” demanding binding commitments and accountability mechanisms.

The Legacy of Copenhagen, Paris, and the Empty COPs

I attended COP15 in Copenhagen (2009), where the “Danish draft” was rejected, and the summit collapsed amid accusations of exclusion. The disappointment lingered until Paris (2015), where the 1.5 °C aspiration was enshrined, sparking hope that multilateralism could still work. Since then, COPs have been a carousel of promises: the Green Climate Fund fell $20 billion short; the 2022 Glasgow Climate Pact promised “phasing out coal” but left loopholes. Each iteration has chipped away at trust.

COP30 was billed as the moment to reverse that trend.

And the result? Partial progress, but far from the transformational shift required.

Did We Achieve What We Hoped For?

In blunt terms: No. The pledges secured are insufficient to limit warming to 1.5 °C, and critical gaps—binding fossil fuel timelines, robust loss and damage funding, and true equity in finance—remain unfilled.

Yet, there are glimmers. The tripling of adaptation finance, the first concrete allocation for Indigenous led forest protection, and the creation of an Implementation Accelerator signal that the architecture for change exists. The challenge now is to fill it with real money and accountability.

Let us look at ‘What Must Happen Next

• 1. Full Capitalisation of Loss and Damage Fund

• – G20 nations must commit 0.1 % of GDP and disburse within 12 months.

• 2. Binding Fossil Fuel Phase out – Coal, oil and gas with just transition financing for workers.

• 3. Scale Adaptation Finance to $310 billion/yr

• – Re channel subsidies from fossil fuels to resilience projects.

• 4. Direct Funding for Indigenous and Youth Initiatives

• – Allocate 30 % of climate finance to community led stewardship.

• 5. Strengthen Accountability

– Mandate annual NDC updates with independent verification and penalties for noncompliance.

But for all this to become reality, there must be a determined effort to achieve Future Actions.
We have watched promises fade after every COP, yet the physics of climate change remain unforgiving. The urgency is not new; the window to act is shrinking. But hope endures – in the solar panels lighting remote villages, in mangroves being restored to buffer storms, and in the relentless energy of young activists demanding a livable planet.

Humanity has the knowledge, technology, and resources. What we need now is the collective political will to use them. Let COP30 be remembered not as another empty summit, but as the turning point where the world chose survival over complacency.

The future is not written; we write it with every decision we make today.

James Alix Michel, Former President Republic of Seychelles, Member Club de Madrid.

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COP30 in Belém is not just another annual climate meeting; it is the 32-year report card of the world governance architecture that was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. And that is what report card says: delivery has been sporadic, cosmetic and perilously disconnected with the physics of climatic breakdown.

M. Zakir Hossain Khan

The Amazon, which was once regarded in Rio as an ecological miracle of the world, is now on the verge of an irreversible precipice. Even the communities that struggled to protect it over millennia also demonstrate against COP30 to make it clear that they do not oppose multilateralism, but because multilateralism has marginalized them many times.

Rio Promised Rights, Take Part, and Protection, But Delivery Has Been Fragmented

Rio Summit gave birth to three pillars of international environmental control: UNFCCC (climate), CBD (biodiversity) and UNCCD (desertification). Every one of them was supposed to be participating, equitable and accountable. But progressively delivery disintegrated:

• • Rio has only achieved 34 per cent biodiversity commitments (CBD GBO-5).

• • CO₂ emissions rose over 60% since 1992.

• • The globe is headed to 2.7 o C with the existing policies (UNEP 2024).

• The funding obligations are in a chronic state of arrears, adaptation requirements are three times higher than the real flows.

Rio gave the world a vision. COP30 demonstrates the fact that that vision is yet to be developed.

The Rights Gap: The Key Failure between Rio and Belém

Although Rio pledged to involve Indigenous people, Indigenous people today are only getting less than 1 percent of climate finance. In addition, it caused a rising trend of carbon market-related land grabs and resource exploitation, because of the lack of binding power in the decisions regarding climate. This is not a delivery gap but a right gap. COP30 has been improved technically but has failed to redress the inherent imbalance at Rio that remained unaddressed: decision-making in the absence of custodianship.

The Sleepiness Menace Came to Rio and Detonated by COP30

Rio established three overlapping conventions that lacked a single governance structure. Climate to oceans, food, forests, finance, security, and technology; CBD to traditional knowledge, access and benefit-sharing, and UNCCD to migration, peace and livelihoods all increased over the decades.

The outcome is an institution that is too broad to govern effectively, making watered-down decisions and poor accountability. COP30 is being developed, however, within a system that was never intended to deal with planetary collapse on this level.

The Amazon: The Ultimate Test of Rio on Prognosis

Rio glorified forests as the breathing organs of the world. However, three decades later:

• • Amazon was deforested by 17 per cent and was close to the 20-25 per cent dieback mark.

• • Native land protectors become increasingly violent.

• Carbon markets run the risk of stimulating extraction in the name of green growth.

Another pledge is not required by Amazon. It requires energy from its protectors. That was missing in Rio. It is still missing in COP30. Indigenous people depicted in CoP30 in all their frustration and agitation are the consequences of the system failure to provide them with a say in the decision-making process and the unceasing denial of their natural rights.

Young: The Post-Rio Generation that was Duped by Incrementalism

The post-Rio generation (those that were born after the year 30) is more than 50 percent of the world population. They left behind a) tripled fossil subsidy regime; b) soaring climate debt; c) ever-turbid biodiversity collapse; d) rising climate disasters; and e) inability to send up $100B/year finance on time.

They are only impatient not because of emotions. They observe that a system that was developed in 1992 to address a slow-paced crisis can no longer be applied to the fast emergency of 2025.

Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG): Making Good What Rio Left, but Left Incomplete

Natural Rights-Led Governance (NRLG) provides the structural correction that Rio has evaded: a) Nature as a law-rights holder, not a resource; b) Indigenous peoples as co-governors, not consultants; c) Compulsory ecological and rights-based control, not voluntary reporting; d) Direct financing to custodians, not bureaucratic leakage; e) Accountability enforceable in law, not conditional on political comfort. NRLG is not the alternative to the vision of Rio, it is the long-deserved update that will turn the arguments of Rio into reality.

The Verdict: COP30 Moves forward, yet Rio Business Unfinished Haunts it

The advancement of COP30 with its stronger fossil language, more comprehensible measurements of adaptation, new pressure on financing is a reality that is inadequate. It advances the paperwork. It is yet to develop the power shift that would safeguard nature or humanity. As long as rights are not yet non-negotiable, the Rio-to-COP30 trip will be a tale of great promises, half-fulfilled and increasingly dangerous.

What the World Must Do Now

Include nature and Indigenous rights in the COP document; construct governance based on custodianship and co-decision; a system of NCQG to deliver finance to communities; no longer voluntary but obligatory commitments reflecting the final Advisory of ICJ assuming integration of natural rights as a prelude to human rights; and use NRLG as the backbone to all future multilateral climate action.

Rio taught us what to do. COP30 is an education about the consequences of procrastinating. The 30-year period is not going to forgive the errors made in the previous 30. The world should stop being a promise and change to power, negotiate to justice, Rio dream of NRLG deliveries. The deadline is not 2050. It is now.

Rio had sworn justice and rights, but COP30 taught a crueler lesson: the world made promises and not protection. Emission increased, ecosystems failed, money is not spent on fulfilling the finances and Indigenous guardians, to the last remaining forests, continue to get less than 1% of climate money and nearly no say. It is not a policy gap but a failure of rights and governance. If the leaders of the world do not recalibrate climate architecture based on natural rights, since co-decision of the Indigenous and on binding commitments rather than a voluntary one, COP30 will be remembered as the moment when the system was exposed as limiting, not as the moment when the system was fixed. This is no longer a promising problem it is a power problem. And the deadline is not 2050. It is now.

M Zakir Hossain Khan is the Chief Executive at Change Initiative, a Dhaka based think-tank, Observer of Climate Investment Fund (CIF); Architect and Proponent of Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG).

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Credit: UN News/Felipe de Carvalho

By Ginger Cassady
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon River, was always going to be a symbolic host for the UN COP30 climate summit, but the mood here has gone far beyond symbolism.

Indigenous Peoples, forest communities, women, workers and youth have set the tone in the streets and in the many grassroots spaces across the city. Their message has been consistent and clear — the Amazon cannot survive under the same financial system that is destroying it.

Inside the talks, however, governments are still trying to confront a planetary emergency while operating within a global economic architecture built for extraction. Debt burdens, high borrowing costs, reliance on extractive commodities, volatile currencies and investor-driven pressures all shape what is deemed “possible” long before negotiators put pen to paper.

This is the constraint the UN climate regime cannot escape: countries are expected to deliver climate action within a financial order that makes that action prohibitively expensive.

For wealthier countries, maintaining this structure shields their budgets and geopolitical leverage. For many developing countries, pushing for more ambitious outcomes means navigating the limits imposed by debt service and credit ratings. Emerging economies face their own entanglements, tied to commodity markets and large-scale extractive industries that remain politically powerful.

Overlaying this landscape is the relentless influence of lobbyists from fossil fuel companies, agribusiness conglomerates, commodity traders and major banks. Their presence across delegations and side events narrows the space for solutions that would challenge their business models.

What remains “deliverable” tends to be voluntary measures, market mechanisms and cautious language—steps that do not shift the structural incentives driving deforestation, fossil expansion and land grabs.

The Just Transition Debate Exposes the Real Fault Line

Nowhere is this tension more visible in the final hours of COP30 than in the negotiations over the Just Transition Work Programme. Many industrialized countries continue to frame just transition in narrow domestic terms: retraining workers and adjusting industries. For most of the G77, it is inseparable from land governance, food systems, mineral access, rights protections and—above all—financing that does not reproduce dependency and extraction.

The proposed Belém Action Mechanism reflects this broader vision. It could embed rights, community leadership, implementation support and a mandate to confront the systemic barriers that make unjust transitions the norm. But its language remains heavily bracketed — a sign of both political resistance and the pressure from vested interests uncomfortable with shifting power toward developing countries and frontline communities.

Debt-Based Forest Finance: The TFFF’s Structural Risks

The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), launched by Brazil ahead of COP30, has become a flashpoint for these concerns. Despite political appeal, its reliance on long-term bonds and private capital ties forest protection to the expectations of bond markets rather than to the rights and priorities of the Peoples who live in and protect the forests.

Civil society groups have warned that the TFFF risks locking forest countries deeper into market volatility, exposing them to investor-driven conditions, and prioritising investment returns toward creditors over Indigenous Peoples or forest communities.

By treating forests as financial assets within debt markets, the model risks repeating the very dynamics that have fueled deforestation: inequitable power relations, external control and dependence on private capital.

As the talks wind down, negotiators should be frank about the stakes: debt-based climate finance will entrench, not ease, the vulnerabilities that climate action must confront.

Food, Land and the Weight of Finance

The financialization of land and food systems also looms over COP30’s final outcomes. Agribusiness giants, asset managers and commodity traders have reshaped agriculture into a global investment sector, consolidating land, driving forest loss and sidelining small-scale producers.

Draft texts now reference agroecology and Indigenous knowledge, but the political space for transforming these systems remains limited. Without addressing how speculative capital and global supply chains dictate land use, any agreement will fall short of what climate resilience truly requires.

Rights and Human Safety Under Threat

In the closing days of the talks, attempts to dilute gender language, weaken rights protections and sideline environmental defenders have drawn strong backlash from civil society and many governments. These are not isolated disputes; they reflect the political economy of extraction. Where industries rely on weak rights protections to expand, rights language becomes a bargaining chip.

The Indigenous Political Declaration: A Blueprint for Structural Change

As negotiators haggle over bracketed text, the Amazon-wide Indigenous Political Declaration stands out as one of the most coherent and grounded climate agendas to emerge at COP30. It calls for:

• Legal demarcation and protection of Indigenous territories

• as a non-negotiable foundation for climate stability.

• Exclusion of mining, fossil fuels and other extractive industries from Indigenous lands.

• Direct access to finance for Indigenous Peoples — not routed through state or market intermediaries that dilute rights or impose debt.

• Recognition of Indigenous knowledge and governance systems as central to climate solutions.

• Protections for defenders, who face rising threats across Amazonian countries.

This is not simply an agenda for the Amazon; it is a structural map for aligning climate action with ecological reality.

The Divide That Now Matters

As COP30 closes, it is clear the old frame of North versus South cannot explain the choices before us. The more revealing divide is between those defending an extractive financial order and those fighting for a rights-based, equitable and ecologically grounded alternative. Many of the interests blocking climate ambition in the North are aligned with elites in the South who profit from destructive supply chains.

Indigenous Peoples, women, workers and small-scale farmers share more in common with one another across continents than with the financial interests influencing their own governments.

Belém has forced the world to confront the limits of incremental change within an extractive order. Whether the final decisions reflect that reality will determine not just the legacy of this COP, but the future of the Amazon itself.

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Excerpt:

Brazilian Indigenous leader and environmentalist Cacique Raoni Metuktire (center) during the closing ceremony of the Peoples’ Summit in Belem on November 16, 2025. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

By Tanka Dhakal
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 17 2025 (IPS)

Brazilian Indigenous leader and environmentalist Cacique Raoni Metuktire appealed for support for Indigenous peoples and their land. From the podium of the Peoples’ Summit, Cacique Raoni warned negotiators at the UN climate conference in Belém that without recognizing Indigenous peoples’ land rights, there will be no climate justice.

“It is getting warmer and warmer. And a big change is going on with the earth. Air is harder to breathe; this is only the beginning,” he said on Sunday while addressing representatives of the global climate justice movement at the Peoples’ Summit. “If we don’t act now, there will be very big consequences for everyone.”

Indigenous people and civil activists from around the world took part in the Peoples’ Summit. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

While Belém city is hosting world leaders, government officials, scientists, policymakers, activists, and more than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists to decide the future course of global climate action, the Peoples’ Summit gathered frontline voices.

About nine kilometers from the COP30 venue, at the grounds of the Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA-Federal University of Pará), activists engaged in diverse dialogue for five days and issued the “Declaration of the Peoples’ Summit Towards COP30” in the presence of Indigenous leaders like Raoni, which was handed over to the COP presidency.

The Declaration states that the capitalist mode of production is the main cause of the growing climate crisis. It claims that today’s environmental problems are “a consequence of the relations of production, circulation, and disposal of goods, under the logic and domination of financial capital and large capitalist corporations.” It demands the participation and leadership of people in constructing climate solutions, recognizing ancestral knowledge.

Artists performing indigenous folklore during the closing event of the Peoples’ summit. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

Sebastián Ordoñez Muñoz, associated with War on Want, a UK-based organization and part of the political commission of the Peoples’ Summit, said the political declaration constructed through the summit process reflects peoples’ demands and proposals. “It has our solutions, people’s solutions,” he said. He explained that crafting the declaration was a convergence of diverse voices, uniting around clarity on what needs to happen to address the climate crisis.

“It is an expression of the autonomy of people’s movements coming together, converging to develop clear proposals that are based on the real solutions happening on the ground-in the territories, in the forests, in the seas, in the rivers, and so on,” he added. “It’s important to hand it over because we need to make sure that our voices are represented there [at COP]. Any space that we have inside the COP has always been through struggle.”

As a space for community members to come together and deliver the public’s point of view, Peoples’ Summits have been organized as parallel conferences of the COP. It did not take place during the last three COPs. But in Brazil, civil society is actively making its case.

The Peoples’ Summit attracted a large number of Indigenous leaders and community members, whereas at COP their access is limited. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

“We need to continue making our voices heard there, but also not to beg-to state that we have the solutions and that we must be listened to, because none of these answers, none of these solutions are possible without the communities themselves,” Ordoñez Muñoz told IPS News from the Peoples’ Summit ground. “I think it’s a statement and a road map. Where do we go from here?”

Unlike COP30, the Peoples’ Summit attracted diverse groups of community members and civil society leaders. The COP venue follows the process of negotiations, while the summit emphasizes collaboration to find solutions and celebrate unity. It blends discussion with Indigenous folklore and music to bring stories of community.

“If you go into the COP summit, it’s so stale. It’s so sterile. It’s so monotonous. So homogeneous. So corporate,” Ordoñez Muñoz said. “Over here, what we have is the complete opposite. We have such diversity-differences in voice, vocabulary, language, and struggles.”

He added that the COP process is moving in one direction, unjust in nature, and reproducing many of the dynamics that led to the crisis in the first place.

“Over here, we’re all moving together. We have unity.”

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

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Indigenous leaders at COP30 in Belem. They are demanding active participation in the negotiation process. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

By Tanka Dhakal
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 11 2025 (IPS)

Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon region are calling on climate negotiators to base climate initiatives on the recognition of the land rights of affected Indigenous communities. From the COP30 venue in Belém, these leaders are demanding full participation in the design and implementation of proposed projects.

The Indigenous leaders presented evidence that reforestation initiatives, carbon market schemes, and renewable energy projects could displace Indigenous and local communities and harm ecosystems if they are developed without community involvement and respect for their rights. According to the UNFCCC assessment report, active participation of Indigenous and local communities is key to the success of climate change-related initiatives, whether funded by public or private sources.

In this context, IPS spoke with Elcio Severino da Silva Manchineri (also known as Toya Manchineri), an Indigenous leader from the Manchineri people of Brazil. Manchineri is the General Coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB).

Elcio Severino da Silva Manchineri at COP30. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

IPS: COP30 is happening on the land of Indigenous people here in Belém. What is the call from the Indigenous community to the negotiators?

Toya: Our main request to negotiators is to include Indigenous land demarcation as a climate solution—recognizing Indigenous lands as a climate response strategy.

IPS: Why is the recognition of land rights for Indigenous communities in climate negotiations so important?

Toya: It’s important because 80 percent of biodiversity is found in Indigenous territories, which means we conserve life. Land titling here and in other countries is crucial. If countries want to meet their targets for zero deforestation, they need to title Indigenous lands.

IPS: What is your view on reforestation efforts that happen without negotiation with Indigenous communities?

Toya: Reforestation is one of the key issues. But really—who is going to take care of those forests? We are the ones who care for them. We will be responsible for those forests. It’s been proven that 98 percent of our territories are well preserved. So, the real issue behind reforestation is guaranteeing the rights of Indigenous peoples to ensure our survival as well.

IPS: My follow-up question is: how can Indigenous communities and climate finance or climate progress come together? Is there a way?

Toya: We are working on climate hack finance and direct access to climate finance. Only direct access will strengthen what people are already doing in their territories. At the heart of it is the question: how can climate finance support what we’re already doing? That’s the important part.

IPS: To gain direct access to finance, you might need a place at the negotiation table. Do you think there is space for Indigenous leaders like you?

Toya: No, I don’t have a place—and that’s the problem. We need countries to consider us as negotiators, as part of official delegations, because we are the ones who know how to care for the forest and the environment.

IPS: Since you don’t have a place at the negotiation table, but Indigenous people have the knowledge to mitigate and adapt to climate change, how can climate projects or negotiations integrate Indigenous knowledge? Is there a way for Indigenous communities, their knowledge, and the negotiation process to come together?

Toya: It’s not only our traditional knowledge that can help mitigate climate change—we can also influence scientific knowledge. Sometimes scientists think they’re the only ones who can speak, but we can too. Our lands capture large amounts of carbon, which helps clear the air and reduce emissions. That’s the knowledge and practice we bring.

IPS: Finally, is there anything you want to see come out of the Belém climate conference? What is your top agenda?

Toya: What we really want to see in the final document is countries recognizing land titling for Indigenous peoples as a climate strategy—as a climate mitigation strategy. The just transition needs clear timelines to be effective. It must be just, but we also need to know by when.

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

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Family agriculture and land defenders in Colombia. Credit: Both Nomads/Forus

By Bibbi Abruzzini and Lucia Torres (Forus) and Jake Wieczorek (Hivos)
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 10 2025 (IPS)

As the world prepares for the next COP30 summit, a quieter battle is raging in courtrooms. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are the fossil-fuel industry’s new favourite weapon, turning justice systems into instruments of intimidation.

“Speak out, and you’ll pay for it”

On a humid morning in August 2025, two small environmental groups in Panama — Centro de Incidencia Ambiental and Adopta Bosque Panamá — found out through social media that they were being sued for “slander” and “crimes against the national economy.” Their offence? Criticising a port project on the country’s Pacific coast.

A few days later, across the border in Costa Rica, two environmental content creators woke up to find their bank accounts frozen and salaries withheld. Their “crime” was posting videos about a tourism project they said was damaging Playa Panamá’s fragile coastline.

In both cases, the message was straightforward: speak out, and you’ll pay for it.

These are part of a growing global trend that is particularly ominous as climate activists, Indigenous defenders, and journalists push their demands upon the upcoming COP30 negotiations. The battle to protect the planet increasingly comes with an additional cost: defending yourself in court.

SLAPPs: Lawsuits Designed to Scare, Not Win

The acronym sounds almost trivial — SLAPP — but its impact is anything but. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, a term coined decades ago to describe legal actions intended not to win on merit but to intimidate, exhaust, and silence those who speak out on matters of public interest.

According to Transparency International, “SLAPPs are also known as frivolous lawsuits or gag lawsuits, as they silence journalists, activists, whistleblowers, NGOs and anyone who brings facts to light in the public interest.”

These are not just lawsuits; they are in fact strategy. They don’t need to win, they just need to drain your time, your money, and your hope.

The claimants are usually powerful, ranging from corporations, politicians, or investors.

In the Costa Rican case, the company linked to the Playa Panama tourism project did not even allege material harm. Yet the court imposed “precautionary embargoes,” blocking credit cards, freezing wages, even restricting property rights, punishing through the process.

In Panama, the developers of the Puerto Barú port project filed a criminal complaint against environmental NGOs who had challenged the project’s environmental impact assessment before the Supreme Court. Those challenges are still pending. Rather than waiting for the judiciary’s ruling, the company launched a separate legal attack, accusing those NGOs of harming the national economy.

Observers call it “judicial intimidation.” The case triggered several alerts across the EU SEE Early Warning Mechanism, warning of a “chilling effect on civic participation.”

‘Unfortunately, in Panama, judicial harassment of journalists and activists by politicians and businesspeople is already common practice because criminal law allows it. Reform is needed in relation to so-called crimes against honour and the grounds for seizure of assets. International organisations such as the Inter-American Press Association have warned about this,’ says Olga de Obaldía, executive director of Transparency International – Panama Chapter, a national member of the EU SEE network.

In Costa Rica, the embargoes imposed on content creators Juan Bautista Alfaro and Javier Adelfang sparked outrage. Within days, 72 organisations and more than 3,000 individuals — from academics to Indigenous leaders — signed an open letter condemning the action as “an assault on public interest advocacy.”

The backlash worked: members of the Frente Amplio Party introduced a bill to restrict the use of preventive embargoes in cases involving public interest speech.

But for those already targeted, the damage – emotional, financial and reputational – has already been done.

We do not just see SLAPPs deployed in Latin America. Examples of SLAPPs as a means of lawfare by the rich and powerful have been around for a long time across the globe.

In Thailand, Thammakaset sued several members of the NGO Fortify Rights and other activists for denouncing abusive working conditions. Still today content posted by communities or NGOs, or even comments under local government posts, are often picked up and turned into criminal defamation cases.

Despite the existence of anti-SLAPP provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code, experiences indicate that they are largely ineffective. The constant threat of facing litigation based on online content disrupts CSO work and chills free speech.

Climate Activism Under Pressure

As the world heads toward another global climate summit in Brazil – where journalist Amanda Miranda faces a SLAPP by government officials for uncovering corruption – we face a paradox: while governments make promises about protecting the environment, environmental defenders are being prosecuted for holding them accountable.

Brazil’s baseline snapshot on an enabling environment also highlights a related trend: environmental defenders are frequently framed as “anti-development,” a narrative used to delegitimise their work and undermine public support. SLAPPs reinforce this strategy. Beyond draining time and resources, these lawsuits inflict reputational harm, serving as tools in broader campaigns to discredit and silence critics.

According to research from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, the highest number of SLAPPs – almost half of them – took place in Latin America, followed by Asia and the Pacific (25%), Europe & Central Asia (18%), Africa (8.5%), and North America (9%). Nearly three-quarters of cases were brought in countries in the Global South and 63% of cases involved criminal charges. Furthermore, most individuals and groups facing SLAPPs raised concerns about projects in four sectors: mining, agriculture and livestock, logging and lumber, and finally palm oil.

In an International Center for Non-Profit law – ICNL – study on over 80 cases of SLAPPs across the Global South, out of them “91% were brought by private companies or company officials(…) 41% brought by mining companies and (…) 34% brought by companies associated with agriculture.”

According to data from the CASE Coalition, SLAPP cases have risen sharply in recent years: from 570 cases in 2022 to over 820 in 2023 in Europe alone. Around half of those targeted climate, land, and labor rights defenders. Fossil fuel and extractive industries remain the most frequent initiators.

It is important to remember that those numbers under-represent the extent of SLAPP use, they are based on reported legal cases and can’t include the many cases in which the mere threat of a lawsuit was enough to silence before filing a complaint

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has documented that companies linked to mining, tourism, and large infrastructure projects are increasingly using SLAPPs to paralyse critics ahead of international events like COP, when scrutiny intensifies.

The danger of SLAPPs lies in their quietness. They happen behind closed doors, in legal language, far from the marches and hashtags. The trials often do not even end up in lawsuits. Yet their effect is profound. Every frozen bank account, every unpaid legal fee, every public apology extracted under duress weakens the collective courage needed to hold power to account.

Across regions, SLAPPs follow the same playbook: identify outspoken defenders, sue them on vague charges like “defamation” or “economic harm”, drag the process out for years, win by exhausting, not convincing.

Of course, the specific tactics vary by legal context. In some countries, certain charges carry strategic advantages. For example, in the Philippines, authorities frequently rely on serious, non-bailable allegations — including charges like illegal possession of firearms — to keep activists detained for extended periods.

The Philippines remains the most dangerous country in Asia for land and environmental defenders with frequent attacks linked to mining, agribusiness, and water projects.

Political repression persists and civil society groups continue to face “red-tagging” and SLAPPs, further enabled by the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001, and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012.

Authorities have also used fabricated firearms and explosives charges to target activists, journalists, and community leaders, often accompanied by asset freezes, surveillance, and prolonged detention. In these settings, SLAPPs can “weaponise” the criminal justice system itself to remove critics from public life entirely.

SLAPPs have become the invisible front of the climate struggle, a slow-motion suppression campaign that rarely makes headlines.

Tactics to Fight Back

In early 2024, the European Union adopted its first-ever Anti-SLAPP Directive, a milestone achievement after years of campaigning by journalists and civil society. It sets out minimum standards to prevent abusive lawsuits and protect public participation.

But implementation remains uncertain. The Vice-President of the European Commission, Vera Jourova, called the Directive “Daphne’s law,” in memory of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in 2017 while she was the victim of numerous legal proceedings against her, and whose tragic story helped raise awareness of the issue.

Beyond the European context, similar efforts to counter SLAPPs have emerged elsewhere, for example in Colombia with the Guerra v. Ruiz-Navarro case. This case illustrates the importance of investigating sexual violence and abuse of power, recognising it as a matter of public interest that warrants protection. This ruling sets a strong precedent against the misuse of courts to silence the press by influential figures and underscores that defending victims and informing the public are acts of defending human rights.

In Indonesia, another country where SLAPPs are being deployed, civil society groups continue to advocate for stronger legal protections, including legislation to protect from SLAPPs. A small step forward came in September 2024, when the Ministry of Environment and Forestry issued Regulation No. 10/2024, on legal protection for environmental defenders.

“While the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Regulation No. 10/2024 represents an initial step toward safeguarding environmental defenders, civil society organisations expect its effective implementation, coupled with broader anti-SLAPP legislation, to ensure comprehensive protection against retaliatory lawsuits and foster a secure environment for public participation in environmental governance,” says Intan Kusumaning Tiyas of INFID, national civil society platform in Indonesia.

Civil society groups are calling for action on immediate priorities.

These include stronger legal safeguards by enacting robust national anti-SLAPP laws that allow for early case dismissal, ensure defendants can recover legal costs, and penalise those who file abusive lawsuits.

Setting up solidarity and support through regional and global networks can quickly mobilise legal assistance, mental health support, and emergency funding for those targeted.

Finally, actions around visibility and accountability are needed to bring SLAPPs into the public eye and raise awareness. SLAPPs need to be framed not as ordinary legal conflicts, but as violations of human rights that weaken an enabling environment for civil society, democratic participation and obstruct climate justice.

At COP30, negotiators will debate carbon credits and transition funds. But the real test of climate commitment may lie in whether states protect the people defending rivers, forests, and coastlines from powerful interests.

Civil society hopes to push a bold message into COP30 discussions: defending the environment requires defending those who defend it and supporting an enabling environment for civil society.

This article was written with the support of the Forus team, particularly Lena Muhs, and members of the EU SEE network.

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Amitabh Behar speaks to IPS at ICSW2025 in Bangkok, Thailand. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
BANGKOK, Nov 2 2025 (IPS)

Speaking to IPS on the sidelines of the International Civil Society Week in Bangkok (November 1–5), Amitabh Behar, Executive Director of Oxfam International and a passionate human rights advocate, highlighted his concerns about rising inequality, growing authoritarianism, and the misuse of AI and surveillance. Yet, he expressed optimism that, even as civic spaces shrink, young people across Asia are driving meaningful change. He also shared his vision of a just society—one where power is shared, and grassroots movements lead the way.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: What does civil society (CS) mean to you personally in today’s global context?

Behar: In an age of grotesque and rising global inequality, civil society is ordinary people challenging elites and the governments that are elected to serve them. It’s the engine that keeps democracy from being just a mere formality that happens at a ballot box every four years.

IPS: What was the role of CS society in the past? How has it evolved? How do you see it in the next decade?

Behar: During Asia’s economic miracle, governments invested in public services while civil society worked alongside unions to defend workers’ rights and speak up for communities. Today, with austerity and rising authoritarianism around the world, civil society is stepping in where governments should be but are currently failing. It runs food banks, builds local support networks, and defends citizens and workers even as basic freedoms and the right to protest are increasingly under attack.

IPS: What do you see as the greatest challenge facing CS today?

Behar: A tiny elite not only controls politics, media, and resources but also dominates decisions in capitals around the world and rigs economic policies in their favor. Rising inequality, debt crises, and climate disasters make survival even harder for ordinary people, while repressive governments actively silence their voices.

IPS: What’s the most significant challenge activists face when it comes to democracy, human rights or inclusion? 

Behar: Authoritarian governments crush dissent and protests with laws, surveillance, and intimidation. AI and digital tools are now being weaponized to track and target and illegally detain protestors, deepen inequality, and accelerate climate breakdown, all while activists risk everything to defend democracy and human rights.

IPS: How can civil society remain resilient in the face of shrinking civic spaces or restrictive laws?

Behar: From protests in Kathmandu to Jakarta, from Dili to Manila, one encouraging theme is emerging: the courage, inspiration, and defiance of young people. Gen Z-led movements, community networks, and grassroots campaigns are winning real change, raising wages, defending workers’ rights, improving services, and forcing action on climate disasters. Despite the immense odds, we will not be silenced. This is our Arab Spring.

IPS: Can you give examples from recent days that indicate that the work of CS is making a difference? Has the outcome been (good or bad) surprising?

Behar: In cities across Asia, Gen Z-led protests are winning higher wages, defending workers’ rights, and forcing local authorities to respond to youth unemployment and climate threats.

IPS: In your experience, what makes partnerships between civil society actors most effective?

Behar: Partnerships work when civil society groups trust each other and put the people most affected at the center. When local networks, youth groups, and volunteers coordinate around community leadership, as in cyclone responses in Bangladesh, for example, decisions are faster, resources reach the right people, and the work actually makes a difference.

IPS: How can civil society collaborate with the government and the private sector without losing its independence?

Behar: Civil society can work with governments and businesses strategically when it genuinely strengthens people’s rights rather than erodes them. But the moment politicians or corporations try to co-opt, stage manage or greenwash their work, civil society can be compromised. Real change only happens when communities set the priorities, not politicians or CEOs.

IPS: What are the biggest strategic choices CSOs need to make now in this shrinking civic space or rising pushback?

Behar: When governments erode rights across the board, from reproductive freedom to climate action, to the right to protest, civil society can’t just stay on the back foot. It must fight strategically, defending civic space, backing grassroots movements, and focusing power, time, and resources where they matter most. The core struggle is inequality, the root of nearly every form of injustice. Striking at it directly is the most strategic way to advance justice across the board.

IPS: In your view, what kinds of alliances (across sectors or geographies) matter most for expanding citizen action in the coming years?

Behar: The alliances that matter are the ones that actually shift power and resources away from the elites. Young people, women, Indigenous communities, and workers linking across countries show governments and corporations they can’t ignore them. When those on the frontlines connect with the wider world, people’s movements stop being small and start changing the rules for everyone.

IPS: How can the marginalized voices be genuinely included in collective action?

Behar: Marginalized voices aren’t there to tick a box or make up the numbers. At spaces like COP in Brazil this year, they should be calling the shots. Indigenous people, women, and frontline communities live through the consequences of rampant inequality every day in every way conceivable. It’s time we pull them up a chair at the table and let them drive the decisions that affect their lives.

IPS: Are emerging technologies or digital tools shaping the work of CS? How? Please mention both opportunities and risks.

Behar: Across Asia, Gen-Z activists are leading protests against inequality and youth unemployment, using digital tools to mobilize, amplify, and organize. But AI and intrusive surveillance now track every post and monitor every march, giving governments even greater powers to violently clamp down on civil society.

IPS: How do you balance optimism and realism when facing today’s social and political challenges?

Behar: I’m optimistic because I see ordinary people, especially young people, refusing to accept injustice. They’re striking, protesting, and building communities that protect each other. But we have to be realistic about the challenge, too. Obscene levels of inequality, worsening climate disasters, and repressive governments make change hard. Yet, time and again, when people rise together, they start to bend the rules in their favor and force the powerful to act.

IPS: What advice would you give to young activists entering this space?

Behar: Keep your fire but pace yourself. Fighting for justice is exhausting, and the challenges can feel endless. Look after your mental health, lean on your community, and celebrate the small wins that can keep you energized for the next challenge. The fight is long, and staying strong, rested, and connected is how you’ll keep on making a difference.

IPS: If you could summarize your vision for a just and inclusive society in one sentence, what would it be?

Behar: A just and inclusive society is one where the powerful can’t rig the rules, the most vulnerable set the agenda, and fairness runs through every policy.

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Sônia Guajajara, Brazil's minister for Indigenous peoples, addresses an official Pre-COP Opening Ceremony. Credit: Rafa Neddermeyer/COP30 Brasil Amazônia

By Tanka Dhakal
BLOOMINGTON, USA, Nov 2 2025 (IPS)

Strengthening Indigenous land rights will protect more forest in Brazil’s Amazon and avoid large amounts of carbon emission, according to new research released ahead of COP30.

An analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) finds Indigenous lands and protected areas are key in solving deforestation; without them, Brazilian Amazon forest loss would be 35 percent higher. This would result in nearly 45 percent higher carbon emissions.

At a time when the Amazon forest is constantly losing its forest cover and an irreversible tipping point, the report says, “placing more forests under Indigenous or government protection would prevent up to an additional 20 percent of deforestation and 26 percent of carbon emissions by 2030.”

The analysis, “The Importance of Protected Areas in Reducing Deforestation in the Legal Amazon,” also finds that current protected areas—indigenous lands and conservation units will prevent an estimated total of 4.3 million hectares of deforestation between 2022 and 2030 in the nine Brazilian states. The impact would mean that 2.1 GtCO₂e (gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent) will be avoided—more than the annual carbon emissions of Russia, or approximately 5.6 percent of the world’s annual emissions.

Approximately 63.4 million hectares of Brazilian Amazon forests remain unprotected, and should this land be designated as Indigenous lands or protected, the loss of forest due to land grabbing, cattle ranching, soy farming or other destructive activities could be avoided.

“The Amazon, as all the climate scientists now clearly agree, is approaching a tipping point, which, if it passes, will mean that a large part of the ecosystem will unravel and transform from forest into scrub Savannah,” said Steve Schwartzman, Associate Vice President for Tropical Forests at EDF.

“How close we are to the tipping point is not clear, but it’s very clear that deforestation needs to stop and we need to begin restoring the areas that have been deforested.”

He says that the future of the already struggling world’s largest rainforest—the Amazon—depends on protecting this vast area of Indigenous territories, protected areas, and Quilombola territories.

“As delegates gather for COP30, it’s critical that they’re armed with evidence that points to the most effective solutions,” he added.

Belém, a Brazilian city in the Amazon region, is hosting the annual UN climate talks from November 10-21.

The research shows that lands managed by Indigenous Peoples have lower deforestation rates and store significantly more carbon than other areas. Between 1985 and 2020, 90 percent of Amazon deforestation occurred outside of Indigenous lands, with just 1.2 percent of native vegetation lost over that period.

The Amazon territories managed by Indigenous communities with recognized land rights have stored far more carbon than they have emitted. Between 2001 and 2021, they released around 120 million metric tons of carbon (CO₂) annually while removing 460 million metric tons.

The nine states of Legal Amazon-Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Maranhão, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins-contain approximately 60% of the entire Amazon rainforest, which spans eight South American countries. Of the region’s total area of 510 million hectares, in 2022, around 393 million hectares would be covered by native vegetation in the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal biomes. By the end of 2021, the region had deforested 112.5 million hectares.

“Protected areas in the Brazilian Legal Amazon are critical for the preservation of native vegetation, carbon stocks, biodiversity, the provision of ecosystem services and the livelihoods of indigenous people and local communities. Our model captures that protected areas avoid deforestation inside their boundaries and beyond due to spatial interactions across the landscape,” said Breno Pietracci, an environmental economist consultant and lead report researcher.

As countries prepare to present their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) at COP30, Indigenous Peoples in Brazil have pushed for governments to include the recognition of Indigenous lands, support Indigenous-led climate solutions, and greater legal protections for Indigenous lands in their plans.

“We think that it is not possible to protect the Amazon, where we have Quilombola people and Afro-descendant people, without recognizing their rights in terms of climate negotiations at the UN,” said Denildo “Bico” Rodrigues de Moraes, executive coordinator of the National Coordination of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ). “It is very important for us to be recognized, for this to be recognized in the climate negotiations at the UN.”

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A man farms in rural Ghana. Credit: Courtesy of Land Rights Defenders Inc.

By Nana Kwesi Osei Bonsu
COLUMBUS Ohio, USA , Oct 28 2025 (IPS)

I had hoped to attend this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP) in person, to stand alongside fellow Indigenous leaders and advocate for the rights of our communities.

However, due to my ongoing political asylum proceedings before the U.S. immigration court, it is not advisable for me to leave the United States until a final determination is made. While I may not be there physically, my voice—and the voices of those I represent—remains firmly present in this dialogue.

The founding of Land Rights Defenders Inc. was born from a deep conviction: that Indigenous peoples, despite being the most effective stewards of biodiversity, are too often excluded from the decisions that shape our lands and futures.

Our territories hold over 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity—not because of external interventions, but because of centuries of careful stewardship rooted in respect, reciprocity, and resilience.

We do not protect the land because it is a resource. We protect it because it is sacred.

Land Rights Defenders Inc. Founder Nana Kwese Osei Bonsu. Courtesy: Land Rights Defenders Inc.

Land Rights Are Climate Rights

The evidence is clear: where Indigenous communities have secure land tenure, deforestation rates drop, biodiversity thrives, and carbon is stored more effectively. In the Amazon and across Africa, Indigenous-managed lands outperform even state-protected areas in preserving forest cover and absorbing carbon.

Yet, these lands are under constant threat—from extractive industries, infrastructure projects, and even misguided conservation efforts. Too often, climate solutions are imposed without consent, displacing people in the name of progress.

As I’ve said before, “For Indigenous communities, land rights are not just a legal issue but the very foundation of our cultures, livelihoods, and futures.”

A Story of Hope and Impact

One of the most significant victories we’ve achieved at Land Rights Defenders Inc. was our successful intervention in the Benimasi-Boadi Indigenous Community Conserved Area in Ghana. This ancestral land, stewarded by the Huahi Achama Tutuwaa Royal Family—descendants of King Osei Tutu I—was under threat from unauthorized exploitation and institutional land grabs.

This case is especially personal to me. The Benimasi-Boadi community is part of my ancestral lineage, and witnessing the threats to its sacred lands was one of the driving forces behind my decision to found Land Rights Defenders Inc.

We submitted spatial data and a formal case study to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) through the UNEP-WCMC, advocating for the enforcement of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). This action helped establish international recognition of the community’s rights and halted further encroachment.

We also supported the community in appealing a biased ruling influenced by the Kumasi Traditional Council and filed a Special Procedure complaint to the UN Human Rights Council, seeking redress for victims of human rights violations by local authorities and police forces.

This wasn’t just a legal win—it was a cultural and spiritual victory. It affirmed the community’s right to protect its sacred heritage and inspired broader advocacy for the enforcement of Ghana’s Land Act 2020 (Act 1036), which we continue to champion today.

Climate Finance Must Reach the Ground

Each year, billions are pledged for climate action, but less than 1 percent reaches Indigenous-led initiatives. This is not just unjust—it’s inefficient. Indigenous peoples have proven time and again that we know how to protect our environments. What we need is direct support, not intermediaries.

Climate finance must be restructured to empower Indigenous communities as decision-makers. We need flexible funding that respects our governance systems and supports our solutions.

From Consultation to Consent

I’ve seen how governments and corporations “consult” Indigenous communities after decisions have already been made. This practice violates the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), which is enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We must move beyond symbolic inclusion. Indigenous communities must have the power to say no—to projects that threaten our lands, cultures, and futures.

Indigenous Knowledge Is Climate Wisdom

Our knowledge systems are not relics of the past—they are blueprints for the future. From controlled burns in Australia to water harvesting in the Andes, Indigenous practices offer time-tested strategies for climate adaptation and resilience.

As Great-Grandmother Mary Lyons of the Ojibwe people said at COP28, “We must be good caretakers and not bad landlords. It’s not just Indigenous Peoples; it’s all human beings. It’s all plant life, it’s all water bodies, our sky relatives. We are all related.”

We must protect Indigenous knowledge from misappropriation and ensure that partnerships are built on mutual respect. Our science is equal to Western science, and our voices must be heard.

A Call to Action

To ensure climate justice is more than a slogan, I urge COP30 negotiators, governments, and civil society to take the following steps:

• • ● Guarantee Indigenous land rights through legal recognition and protection.
  • ● Ensure direct access to climate finance for Indigenous-led initiatives.
  • ● Embed FPIC into all climate-related agreements and mechanisms.
  • ● Elevate Indigenous leadership in decision-making spaces, not just side events.

● Protect Indigenous knowledge systems through ethical and equitable partnerships.

As I reflect on my journey—from fleeing persecution in Ghana to building a global movement for Indigenous land rights—I am reminded that resilience is not born from comfort, but from conviction. While our current work is focused on the Benimasi-Boadi community due to limited resources, it is our hope to expand this mission to other communities as we work to secure sustainable funding.

Though I may not be present at COP in person, I am there in spirit—with the elders who taught me to listen to the land, the youth who carry our legacy forward, and the global allies who believe that justice must begin with those who have protected the Earth the longest.

Let this be the COP where Indigenous voices are not just heard—but heeded.

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CIVICUS discusses Peru’s new amnesty law with Nadia Ramos Serrano, founder and researcher at the Leadership Centre for Women of the Americas, a civil society organisation working on democratic development and the role of women in politics.

Nadia Ramos Serrano

In August, the Peruvian government passed a controversial amnesty law that benefits military personnel, police officers and members of self-defence organisations accused of committing human rights violations during Peru’s internal armed conflict from 1980 to 2000. The law affects the search for justice for some 69,000 victims and has drawn national and international condemnation for institutionalising impunity.

What does the amnesty law establish?

The amnesty law exonerates from criminal responsibility members of the armed forces, the national police and self-defence committees who have been prosecuted and sometimes convicted for crimes committed during the internal armed conflict. Although in theory the law excludes crimes of corruption and terrorism, in practice it could benefit people involved in serious human rights violations including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture.

The law re-victimises the victims. After over three decades of struggle, the state tells them that those who murdered and disappeared their relatives or subjected them to torture will not be punished and may be released. It is the state again causing harm rather than providing redress.

The law perpetuates impunity under the pretext of pacification and consolidates structural discrimination. The majority of victims were Indigenous Aymara and Quechua peasants, historically excluded groups. Relatives and victims feel the state is again abandoning them to protect the powerful, fuelling frustration, political disaffection and lack of trust in the system.

Does the new law comply with national and international law?

It doesn’t. The state cannot pardon itself for violating human rights: justice is not negotiable. This law seeks to normalise impunity and violates the principle of equality before the law. It weakens accountability and sends the dangerous message that those in power can violate fundamental rights and face no consequences.

This contravenes international law. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has established that amnesty cannot be granted for crimes against humanity. One example is the case of Barrios Altos versus Peru, where the court condemned the Peruvian state for murdering 15 people and seriously injuring four others in 1991. The court has also declared that amnesty laws that seek to prevent the investigation and punishment of serious human rights violations are incompatible with the American Convention on Human Rights.

What has civil society’s response been?

Civil society has responded firmly. Academic institutions, citizen movements, family associations, human rights organisations and victims’ groups have rejected the law, which they consider a serious setback for struggles for justice and memory. The National Human Rights Coordination, alongside feminist and youth groups, have organised sit-ins, published statements and run public campaigns to denounce impunity.

The wounds of the conflict remain open. While some insist on focusing exclusively on the fight against terrorism, rendering state crimes invisible, thousands of families continue to wait for justice. Most of those responsible have never been brought to trial and over 20,000 people are still missing. For their families, this law reinforces the lack of justice and prolongs a mourning process that has already lasted for decades.

How does this situation compare with other transitional justice processes in the region?

Peru is experiencing a setback, while the regional trend is of progress in transitional justice processes. Argentina, for example, repealed laws that prevented those responsible for crimes against humanity committed during dictatorship from being tried, and hundreds of military personnel have been convicted as a result. Chile implemented policies of reparation and held trials against some people responsible for human rights violations. Colombia, with the creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace as part of the peace agreement with FARC guerrillas, has also shown it is possible to seek justice and reconciliation without resorting to blanket amnesties.

The international community has reacted strongly to Peru’s setback. The IACtHR issued an urgent resolution reminding the state it cannot apply amnesties in cases of crimes against humanity. The United Nations and organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have pointed out the law violates basic principles of international law, and foreign governments and human rights experts have warned about the deterioration of the rule of law in Peru.

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Julia Francisco Martínez stands at the graveside of her husband Juan, a Honduran Indigenous defender who was found murdered in 2015. Credit: Giles Clarke / Global Witness

By Umar Manzoor Shah
LONDON & SRINAGAR, Sep 19 2025 (IPS)

At least 146 land and environmental defenders were murdered or forcibly disappeared in 2024 for standing up against powerful state and corporate interests, according to a new report released by Global Witness.

The findings, published under the title Roots of Resistance, expose a persistent global crisis that has claimed 2,253 lives since 2012, and show that violence against those protecting land, forests, and communities continues with little sign of justice.

Although the 2024 figure is lower than the 196 killings recorded in 2023, Global Witness cautions that this does not represent progress. Instead, it reflects chronic underreporting, difficulties in verifying cases in conflict zones, and a climate of fear that silences victims’ families and communities.

Latin America: The Epicenter of Attacks

The report shows that 82 percent of documented killings took place in Latin America. Colombia once again topped the global list, with 48 killings accounting for nearly a third of all cases worldwide. The victims were mostly community leaders, Indigenous defenders, and small-scale farmers confronting mining, agribusiness, and organized crime.

Despite government pledges of reform, Colombia’s weak state presence in former conflict zones has allowed armed groups and criminal networks to dominate. This has created a deadly environment for activists who resist environmental destruction.

Mexico followed with 19 cases, including 18 killings and one disappearance. It marked the second most lethal year for Mexican defenders in the past decade. Brazil recorded 12 killings, half of them small-scale farmers.

The most alarming rise was seen in Guatemala, where killings spiked from four in 2023 to 20 in 2024, giving the country the highest per capita murder rate for defenders worldwide. This escalation took place despite the election of President Bernardo Arévalo, who had promised to curb corruption and inequality.

“Eighty-two percent of recorded attacks in 2024 were in Latin America, where we have consistently seen the highest proportion of cases for over a decade,” said Laura Furones, Senior Advisor at Global Witness and one of the report’s authors, in an interview with Inter Press Service. “Killings were concentrated in four countries, which together accounted for around 70 percent of the murders: Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Brazil.”

According to Furones, Latin America’s rich natural resources, combined with strong civil society movements and widespread impunity, make it both a hotspot for extraction-related conflicts and for reporting of violence. “High levels of impunity mean there is little disincentive for violence to stop,” she said.

Who Are the Victims?

The report found clear patterns in who is most targeted. In 2024, 45 Indigenous defenders and 45 small-scale farmers were killed or disappeared. Together, they made up nearly two-thirds of all cases.

These killings are closely linked to profit-driven industries. Mining was identified as the deadliest sector, connected to 29 killings. Logging was tied to eight deaths, agribusiness to four. Organized crime was implicated in nearly a third of all attacks, often working with or tolerated by state forces.

State actors themselves, including police and military, were linked to 17 killings. In Colombia, only 5.2 percent of murders of social leaders since 2002 have been resolved in court, leaving the intellectual authors of the crimes almost untouched.
“Impunity fuels this cycle of violence,” the report notes. “Without justice, perpetrators feel emboldened to repeat attacks.”

Documenting Violence in Hostile Environments

Global Witness compiles its data through a systematic process of reviewing public information, analyzing datasets, and collaborating with local and regional organizations in more than 20 countries. Each case must be verified by credible sources with detailed information about the victim and the link to land or environmental defense.

Still, Furones acknowledged that many attacks go undocumented, particularly in authoritarian states, regions with limited civil society, or conflict zones. “These figures are likely underestimates,” she said.

Personal Stories Behind the Numbers

Beyond the statistics, the report highlights individual defenders whose struggles illustrate the human cost of the crisis.

In Nigeria, the Ekuri community has spent decades protecting one of West Africa’s last tropical rainforests. Activists like Louis Friday, Martins Egot, and Odey Oyama face threats from armed loggers and corrupt officials. Oyama was arrested in January 2025 by a masked police squad and charged with “promoting inter-communal war,” a crime that carries a life sentence. He says the charges are retaliation for his conservation work.

In Chile, 72-year-old Mapuche leader Julia Chufil disappeared in November 2024 while fighting to reclaim ancestral land from forestry companies. She had faced harassment and bribery offers for years. Her family, leading the search for her, say authorities have treated them as suspects rather than victims.

In Colombia, campesino leader Jani Silva has been under state protection for over a decade due to death threats tied to her defense of the Perla Amazónica Peasant Reserve. While protection measures have kept her alive, Silva describes them as isolating and burdensome, underscoring the inadequacy of current mechanisms.

Expanding Tactics of Repression

The report stresses that lethal attacks represent only the most visible form of violence. Defenders face a spectrum of threats including harassment, sexual violence, smear campaigns, and criminalization.

“Of particular concern is the rising trend of criminalization, as restrictive laws are increasingly enacted worldwide to make peaceful protest a crime,” Furones said.

She added that toxic anti-defender narratives, combined with Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), further erode protections.

Authorities in several countries have adopted laws specifically targeting protestors, intensifying crackdowns on land and climate activists. “States are unwilling to protect those who stand up for rights,” Furones said. “Instead, they use the law as a weapon against them.”

A Global Failure of Protection
The report warns that international agreements designed to safeguard defenders are being weakened. Nearly 1,000 defenders have been killed in Latin America since the adoption of the Escazú Agreement in 2018, which was meant to ensure their protection.

Global Witness calls for urgent action from governments and businesses. States must recognize land rights, strengthen laws against corporate abuse, and build effective protection mechanisms. Companies must respect Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, conduct rigorous human rights due diligence, and adopt zero-tolerance policies for attacks on defenders.

Indigenous Peoples are identified as especially vulnerable, living across 90 countries and managing more than a third of Earth’s protected land. Research shows Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities achieve better conservation outcomes than many official protected zones. Yet they often defend their territories with little state support, while their voices are excluded from decision-making.

“Particular protection of Indigenous Peoples requires breaking the cycle of violence,” Furones said. “This means respecting their right to self-determination and ending impunity.”

She cited the recent sentencing of illegal loggers in Peru for the murder of four Indigenous Saweto leaders as a rare but important example of accountability. “It shows the judiciary can play a role, even if justice comes only after a long and painful wait.”

Protection Mechanisms: Lifelines With Limits

State protection measures for defenders vary widely, from providing bulletproof vests and security escorts to emergency relocations. However, most programs are designed for individuals, not communities, despite the collective nature of defenders’ work.

As the case of Jani Silva shows, these measures can protect lives but also isolate defenders from their communities and impose psychological costs. Global Witness calls for expanding and improving protection systems to meet collective needs.

The Road Ahead

The report concludes that defenders remain at the frontline of protecting ecosystems and confronting the climate crisis, yet are increasingly under siege. Without stronger protections and accountability, the risks they face will persist.

Furones stressed that breaking the cycle of violence requires political will, robust legal systems, and corporate responsibility. “Study after study shows Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities are the best guardians of forests and natural resources,” she said. “Protecting them is not just about human rights; it is also about protecting the planet.”

Furthermore, the Roots of Resistance report  has laid stress on the fact that  while governments and corporations profit from resource extraction, those who safeguard the environment pay with their lives. The global community now faces a choice and that is to strengthen protections and enforce accountability, or allow the cycle of violence to continue unchecked.

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Activists demand loss and damage reparations outside the hall where the COP29 negotiators were concluding their negotiations. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth

By Jennifer Xin-Tsu Lin Levine
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 2025 (IPS)

As climate-induced disasters continue to devastate the Global South, nations are steadily mounting pressure at the United Nations for wealthier countries to deliver on long-promised climate reparations through the Loss and Damage Fund. For Indigenous peoples, whose territories are often the most ecologically intact yet most damaged by climate change, these negotiations define survival, sovereignty and recognition as rights-holders in global climate governance.

After the fund’s operationalization at the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku last fall, developing countries say that the pledges so far—approximately USD 741 million—fall drastically short of the trillions needed to recover from climate devastation.

This low number is acutely felt in Indigenous communities, whose local economies rely on thriving ecosystems.

“A lot of rich biodiversity, carbon sinks and the most preserved parts of the world are within indigenous territories,” said Paul Belisario, Global Coordinator for the Secretariat of the International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL), in an interview with IPS. “Without recognizing Indigenous people’s right to take care of it, to govern it and to live in it so that their traditional knowledge will flourish, we cannot fully address the climate crisis.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres echoed this sentiment in Baku, saying, “The creation of the Loss and Damage Fund is a victory for developing countries, for multilateralism and for justice.  But its initial capitalization of USD 700 million doesn’t come close to righting the wrong inflicted on the vulnerable.”

These “wrongs,” Indigenous leaders argue, must include the exclusion of traditional and tribal knowledge in decision-making. In light of pushback to make climate action a legal responsibility rather than a political agreement, many are hopeful that COP30 will yield a more successful negotiation for adequate compensation.

The call for action is led by coalition blocs including the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and G77, an alliance of developing countries with China as its primary political and financial supporter. Both alliances represent the countries most vulnerable to climate-related natural disasters. G77 was particularly vocal during COP29, where their rejection of the deal was backed by a number of climate and civil society organizations who criticized the negotiating text for giving developed countries too much leeway to shirk their climate finance obligations.

For Indigenous groups, this criticism stems from concerns that funding will not successfully reach their communities due to bureaucracy or geographical and political isolation.

Secretary-General António Guterres meets with André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, President-designate of COP 30, the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Belém, Brazil. Credit: UN Photo

Janene Yazzie, director of policy and advocacy at the NDN Collective, spoke about the importance of Indigenous involvement in funding distributions, saying, “What we’re advocating for is to ensure that these mechanisms… are accessible to Indigenous Peoples, uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and can be utilized towards solutions and responses that are designed and prioritized by Indigenous Peoples.”

Last year, countries eventually settled on mobilizing USD 300 billion annually by 2035 to developing countries for climate finance—far below the USD 1 trillion experts say is the minimum for effective mitigation and adaptation. The financial commitment is voluntary, meaning that countries can withdraw without consequence and no protections exist to ensure the money is distributed with regard for Indigenous governance systems.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Indigenous Foundation noted that groups without formal land titles could be excluded entirely, despite their role in stewarding biodiverse landscapes.

However, a recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) report has created new legal pathways. The court placed stringent obligations on states to prevent significant climate harm and tackle climate change, stating that failure to do so triggers legal responsibility. Scientific evidence can link emissions to specific countries, allowing those affected by climate change to seek legal action, which could include getting money back, restoring land, improving infrastructure, or receiving compensation for financial losses.

Indigenous activists at COP29. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth

This legal opinion opens new pathways for seeking restitution—not only in money but also in land recovery, infrastructure for adaptation, and guarantees of political participation.

This legal shift comes at a crucial time. In April 2025, thousands of Indigenous Brazilians marched in the capital ahead of COP30 in Belém, demanding land rights and decision-making influence. Meanwhile, the National Organization of the Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC) also issued a statement about the summit for Deforestation of the Amazon. They outline an action plan to end deforestation, strengthen land rights and phase out oil and gas exploration.

After indigenous groups were denied a co-presidency for COP30, Conference President André Corrêa do Lago pledged to establish a “Circle of Indigenous Leadership” within the conference. Many leaders found the arrangement insufficient—the FSC Indigenous Foundation called instead for “co-governance models where Indigenous Peoples are not just consulted but are leading and shaping climate action.”

Indigenous people make their message clear during COP29. Credit: UN Climate Change/Lara Murillo

Other groups were more explicitly critical. The Indigenous Climate Action co-authored a statement at the end of COP29 saying, “There is nothing to celebrate here today… While we urgently need direct and equitable access to climate finance for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage across all seven socio-cultural regions… we reject the financial colonization that comes from loans and any other financial mechanisms that perpetuate indebtedness of nations that have contributed the least to climate change yet bear the brunt of its tragedies.”

Belisario frames the funding question as a matter of justice rather than charity.

“This funding is not just corporate social responsibility or compensation,” he told IPS. “This is historical justice.”

However, without Indigenous influence in the distribution of money from the Loss and Damage Fund, it remains unclear how effective this aid will be in combating climate change based on Indigenous knowledge and science. Many activists advocate for more localized approaches to climate action.

Belisario acknowledges the limitations of international negotiations.

“It’s been a running joke that we will negotiate until COP100, and we might not have that long. What we would really like to get out of COP30 is to meet many communities to discuss the common problems and make them realize that this COP is just a part of how we would like to solve our climate crisis,” he said. “We really believe that more radical ways to enact accountability and responsibility will start with movements in people’s own countries, in their own localities.”

As the FSC Indigenous Foundation concluded, “Indigenous Peoples must lead the design, management, and oversight of financial mechanisms that affect their lands, lives, and futures. Climate justice will only be possible when Indigenous Peoples are recognized as rights-holders and partners in decision-making.”

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CIVICUS discusses the deaths of Indigenous activists in custody in Tajikistan with Khursand Khurramov, an independent journalist and political analyst.

Khursand Khurramov

What’s the background to the state’s persecution of Pamiri people?

The Pamiris are an Indigenous minority who have lived on their land for thousands of years. Throughout history, they have been part of various empires – from the Achaemenids and Alexander the Great to the Arab Caliphate and the Timurids – but have always retained de facto autonomy. At the end of the 19th century, the Pamir region was divided between the British and Russian empires, and the Pamiri people found themselves separated by the borders of modern states – Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Tajikistan – while retaining their cultural and linguistic characteristics and, importantly, their historical attachment to their land.

In Tajikistan, the Pamiris live in an area called Gorno-Badakhshan (GBAO). The Soviet period was favourable for them in terms of demographic, economic and technological progress. The region had good transport links with Kyrgyzstan, while the road to the central regions of Tajikistan was only accessible seasonally.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, civil war broke out in Tajikistan in 1992. The Pamiris supported the United Tajik Opposition and became victims of mass repression. Many were murdered, with the number of victims unknown to this day. Following the war, the authorities continued to persecute former opponents, including the Pamiris, and several military operations have been carried out in the region, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of arrests.

This means the Pamiri identity formed amid difficult conditions, largely in response to state pressure. Tajik authorities apparently fear recognition of Pamiri identity will lead to separatism, although there have never been any calls or demands for separatism within the Pamiri community.

It’s clear the authoritarian regime perceives Pamiri people’s desire for democratisation and freedom as a bad example for the rest of Tajikistan’s population, and it uses collective punishment to suppress any challenge to its authority.

What led to the recent wave of deaths in custody?

In November 2021, Tajikistan’s security officers carried out an operation in GBAO, in which a local resident was killed. This sparked mass protests, which in Tajikistan are prohibited by law and therefore extremely rare. Activists tried to hold those responsible to account by cooperating with law enforcement agencies. But instead of investigating, the authorities launched a large-scale crackdown on protesters, instrumentalising the law to justify violence by security forces.

In 2022, when protests flared up again, the authorities classified them as terrorist acts, allowing security forces to use firearms against protesters. As a result, around 40 people were killed. They also conducted mass arrests of activists. Some 300 people were imprisoned with sentences of over 15 years, and 11 received life sentences. Considering the entire Pamiri population is only about 220,000, these numbers represent a catastrophic scale of persecution. Prison conditions are extremely harsh, with relatives of prisoners repeatedly reporting overcrowding, lack of access to medical care and systematic psychological pressure. In 2025 alone, five men from GBAO aged between 35 and 66 have died in Tajikistan’s prisons.

How has the crackdown on civic freedoms affected GBAO?

Restrictions on civil liberties affect the whole of Tajikistan, but GBAO is subject to particularly harsh repression. In 30 years of independence, not a single independent media outlet has existed in GBAO. International media outlets such as the BBC and Radio Liberty have been unable to obtain accreditation to cover events in the region. As a result, most of what happens in GBAO remains unknown to the public, and state propaganda interprets events in a light favourable to the authorities, demonising Pamiri people in the eyes of the rest of the population.

At the national level, these restrictions take the form of a ban on political activities, a complicated procedure for registering associations and informal bans on the creation of parties and movements within the country and abroad. Any political or civic activity outside Tajikistan seems to be viewed by the authorities as a potential threat. Until 2022, Pamiris had a fairly powerful informal youth diaspora structure in Russia, but this has been effectively destroyed with its key figures arrested and returned to Tajikistan. The main reason for this was a rally they organised in November 2021 outside the Tajik embassy in Moscow.

Now even likes of social media posts by opposition groups are classified as extremism. According to the Tajikistan Prosecutor General’s Office, 1,500 people have been convicted for this, including nine journalists and bloggers. Many of them were not involved in politics at all. Their posts were exclusively about social rather than political issues.

How are Russia and other states in the region involved?

Russia and other post-Soviet states play a role in this process as political allies of the Tajik government. For Russia, the regime is an important partner in the areas of security and labour migration, so it tries to prevent the strengthening of forces that could threaten the status quo. As a result, it supports Tajikistan’s official position, including in international organisations, and often returns wanted political activists and opposition figures to Tajikistan.

Some post-Soviet states share a similar political logic, because they fear recognising ethnic or regional diversity within their borders. By supporting Tajikistan in suppressing Pamiri identity, they are consistent with their domestic policies of denying minority rights. Russia and the other member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – cooperate on security matters, exchanging data and coordinating operations against opposition activists, including Pamiris. This is a mutually beneficial practice that strengthens authoritarian solidarity and reduces the risks of alternative centres of political influence emerging in the region.

What role can civil society and the international community play in holding the government accountable?

In Tajikistan, civil society in the classical sense has practically ceased to exist. Even those organisations that continue to operate are forced to coordinate their activities with the government. Although on paper these organisations may address civic space or human rights issues, their activities are largely formal: they function more as a facade than a mechanism for protecting rights within an authoritarian system. Over the past decade, any human rights work has been effectively equated with political activity, which carries serious risks.

Outside Tajikistan, diaspora civil society is also underdeveloped, with no strong institutions yet in place. However, the main thing activists and the diaspora can do is to draw international attention to the problem, talking about it as often as possible in different forums and in different languages. Only then can we expect the international community to put pressure on the Tajik authorities.

Despite these efforts, the situation for Pamiri people in Tajikistan has remained virtually unchanged. Authorities continue to deny the existence of their distinct identity. In prisons, people continue to die from torture, disease and inhumane conditions, but these facts are silenced and their deaths are presented as natural deaths.

The international community must move beyond statements to tangible action by strengthening monitoring and reporting through the European Parliament, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the United Nations. They must impose personal sanctions on officials responsible for repression and torture, and condition aid, loans and grants on Tajikistan’s compliance with human rights obligations. Support for the diaspora and independent media is also essential to provide alternative information channels and prevent the regime isolating GBAO.

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Tajikistan: end systematic repression of Pamiri people CIVICUS 04.Aug.2025
Tajikistan: ‘Authorities silence dissent by accusing activists of extremism, terrorism and spreading false information’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Leila Seiitbek 20.May.2025
Tajikistan’s crackdown on dissent: erosion of rights and civic space CIVICUS Monitor 17.Feb.2025

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By Anna Naupa
Sep 8 2025 (IPS)

 
Globally, there is a 0.36% deterioration in average levels of peacefulness, as more countries are increasing their levels of militarisation against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, increasing conflict, and rising economic uncertainty.

But this statistic omits most Pacific island countries. In 2025, only three are ranked by the Global Peace Index (GPI): New Zealand in 3rd place, Australia in18th and Papua New Guinea ranking 116th out of 163 nations.

As regional dialogue about an ‘Ocean of Peace’ concept advances, a dedicated Pacific Peace Index—as suggested by Solomon Islands’ Professor Transform Aqorau at the July 2025 Pacific Regional and National Security Conference—might provide additional form to an evolving political dialogue amongst Pacific Islands Forum member states.

But, how is Pacific peace defined? How might our own Pacific measure of peacefulness complement existing efforts to safeguard peace and security in the region?

What is Pacific Peace?

Peace is more than the absence of conflict or violence; it is a global public good that enables people to live full, healthy and prosperous lives without fear.

“Peace must serve the people, not geopolitics, not elites in the region, not distant interests,” Professor Aqorau says, in articulating a vision for Pacific peace. Peace must also tackle broader factors affecting safety and wellbeing across the Pacific, particularly for women and vulnerable populations, says Fiji’s Shamima Ali.

Peace and development are two sides of the same coin. The Pacific 2050 Strategy for a Blue Pacific Continent places peace alongside harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity, as a key element for attaining free, healthy, and productive lives for Pacific peoples. Delivering Pacific peace, therefore, entails securing well-being; protecting people, place and environment; advancing development; and securing futures for present and future generations, the latter efforts entailing climate action and protection of sovereignty.

While global indices are variably critiqued for omissions of Pacific Islands data, unilateral development and indicator bias, poorly contextualized methodologies, or the significant resourcing required to produce Pacific datasets, indices can nonetheless usefully inform policy-makers.

What could a Pacific Peace Index measure?

The current starting point for measuring and monitoring peace in the region is found in the form of existing country commitments to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 (the ‘Peace Goal’).

The Pacific Roadmap for Sustainable Development has contextualised eight SDG 16 indicators for regional reporting that address experiences of violence, access to justice, civil registration and legal identity, transparency of public expenditure, and public access to information and views on participation in decision-making processes.

In 2022, a regional monitoring report led by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat found that limited data availability for SDG16 hampered measurement of progress in the Pacific. This is broadly reflective of global trends, where investment is needed in further data generation efforts and statistical capacity to measure SDG 16.

The report also found that the Pacific was regressing on advancing effective institutions, transparency, and accountability.

But are SDG16’s Pacific contextualised indicators sufficient to meet the expectations of the Boe Declaration on Regional Security and the Pacific 2050 Strategy’s Peace and Security pillar? Can this type of reporting serve as a potential proxy ‘Pacific Peace Index’?

While answers to these questions are both technical and political in nature, there are two things to keep in mind:

1) Peace has deep roots in Pacific social and cultural structures

Despite close alignment with regional strategies, the current SDG 16 contextualised indicators do not encapsulate the depth of a Pacific vision for peace.

Pacific Islands Countries’ policy commitments to aspects of peace are well-documented. Each year new initiatives are announced that respond to an expanded concept of security, ranging from traditional security cooperation to tackling gender-based violence, climate mitigation and humanitarian assistance or investing in democratic processes.

But, knowledge gaps remain about the contribution of locally driven peace initiatives to national and regional efforts, and how these contribute to overall Pacific well-being. Addressing these gaps allows for a more comprehensive telling of an aggregated Pacific narrative of peace, which could be factored into a Pacific Peace Index. For example, peace-building dialogues following the Bougainville crisis, Solomon Islands’ ethnic tensions, and series of Fiji coups have highlighted the important contributions of locally-driven approaches, including drawing on traditional dispute resolution.

2) Telling a story of purposeful peace

Yet, Pacific peace is more than a collection of discrete data points and time-bound security-related projects. Peace is an evolving process, it is future-oriented and a proactive, purposeful exercise.

Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa has stressed that peace must be “anchored in sovereignty, resilience, inclusion and regional solidarity.” Many Pacific scholars agree, arguing that there is no real peace without addressing longstanding issues of colonisation, militarisation, restricted sovereignty and justice, which continue to bear on many Pacific islanders.

To tell a regional story means connecting, for example, Tuvalu’s international statehood recognition, the recent landmark ICJ advisory opinion on climate change, the nuclear legacies in the region, political instability, elections, and well-being measures, to the region’s vision of peace. Combined, we can then begin to grasp all the elements that contribute to a cumulatively peaceful region.

So, where to from here?

Another tool is the Positive Peace Index which measures the ‘attitudes, institutions and structures that sustain and create peaceful societies’. It assesses socio-economic development, justice, good governance and effective institutions, inclusion, resilience and diplomacy. A Pacific Peace Index could adapt this to incorporate Pacific indigenous philosophies of peace and values of social cohesion, well-being and reconciliation that are absent from existing global indices, for example, and track the region’s journey, disaggregated by country.

Multi-country indices demand considerable capacity so a State of Pacific Peace assessment may instead offer a simpler option. This could entail a dedicated section in the existing Pacific Regional Security Outlook report produced by regional organisations. Alternatively, the region’s academic institutions (e.g. via Track 2 mechanisms) could be invited to assist. Investing in peace summits also provides the opportunity for ongoing regional peace dialogue.

The emphasis, however, must be on building, not duplicating, existing regional mechanisms.

The opportunity of a Pacific Peace Index would be in owning and telling a coherent peace narrative that: a) bridges security and development and, b) reflects how the peace interests and dignity of Pacific peoples are being upheld over time.

As political dialogue about a Pacific ‘Ocean of Peace’ evolves, Pacific peoples’ visions of peace must drive any framing and subsequent action. Professor Aqorau offers further wisdom: ” Our peace should not depend on choosing sides, but on asserting our needs, on our terms and on our collective aspirations.”

Related articles:
Peacebuilding: The Missing Peace in COP30 Climate Ambition

Climate Change in Pasifika Relational Itulagi

Anna Naupa is a ni-Vanuatu PhD candidate at the Australian National University.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

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Indigenous People’s Celebration in Canada. Photo courtesy of Chrystal Tabobandung

By Randa El Ozeir
TORONTO, Sep 2 2025 (IPS)

If European colonialism had never happened in Canada, matriarchy would still have been strong in Indigenous culture. Matriarchy was the backbone of society’s structure and line of dominance in Turtle Island (North America) before the arrival of Westerners.

In practice, Indigenous women in Canada have been victims of violence and discrimination. In theory, they were supposed, along with children, to enjoy full protection, as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) states in article 22.

“Traditional knowledge would be whole and complete. Our languages, ceremonies, governance systems, planet health, communities, cosmologies, land practices, water preservation, and harvesting practices would be alive and well,” says Anishinaabe Ancestral Knowledge Keeper Kim Wheatley, “Head/Leader of the Fireflower,” the Spirit name she carries.

The female role and influence in traditional Native American culture were powerful and pivotal. Wheatley cites how women’s main duty, “like all community members, was to live in harmony with creation, a life of committed purpose and passion based on the gifts they arrived with from the spirit world. Women were hunters, foragers, medicine folks, healers, educators, leaders, artists, fishers, ceremonialists, singers, dancers, artists, and governance holders—really the societal glue on how to provide for the greater good. They were the ones who made the big long-term decisions for the communities they were responsible for.”

Anishinaabe Ancestral Knowledge Keeper Kim Wheatley.

The story of Indigenous women in Canada is considerably incompatible with what Disney World tried to twist and distort in its popular animation “Pocahontas.” Chrystal Tabobandung, Founder of RAISE Indigenous cultural awareness and competence training with Ojibwe roots, sees the “hatred of white women towards us, as if we were less. We have been kicked out of our homes. We are suffering today and being sexualized by men and social media. Historically, white women envied us because of the roles we held in our communities and our traditional ways.”

This is where the impact of colonialism has come in, right from earlier contact, and changed over time. Women in Europe were not to be seen, not to be heard. They were in the background, and they were very resentful at the fact that, here, Indigenous women had a voice, a seat at the table to make decisions regarding safety, child rearing, politics, and even where to camp.”

Socio-Economic Inequality

The effect of the forced Western social and business model has shattered too many Indigenous communities, and the shift to a Western male-dominant lifestyle has altered the whole picture.

Wheatley believes that over the last 150 years, “The foundation of species became a risk. The destruction of lands and waters through endless resource extraction, racism, misogyny, the vulgarity of political decision-making on women’s bodies, the ever-rising violence against women and girls, and the list goes on and on. We see a dramatic disparity in the socio-economic realities. Our People have vast, complex political systems, governance structures, balanced leadership models, extraordinary, vibrant trade practices, endless creativity, and intimate relationships to lands and waters. Deep moral teachings that contribute to the greater good based on long-standing visioning practices.”

While women can and do run for leadership roles, the colonial system does not support traditional governance and practices. The Indian Act is still law in Canada and is one of the recognized leading racist legal documents in the world. This Act oversees how and what a First Nation community can do within reserve confines and what happens when you leave.”

Chrystal Tabobandung, Founder of RAISE Indigenous cultural awareness.

The differences among Indigenous women vary according to their distinct nations. In Canada, there are over 630 recognized First Nations communities.

“Our nations’ women do things differently based on nation-to-nation teachings that are tied to tradition and culture as opposed to roles,” explains Tabobandung. “There are so many divergent oppressive systems that disconnect them.

They do not necessarily work together, but regarding huge social issues, like murdered and missing Indigenous women and sex trafficking, they do come together. They are active in marches and rallies. They stand up against injustices and reconnect with their tradition and their culture. The more voices that are coming out, the more people feel courageous, strong, and able to come forth with their personal experiences.”

How does lack of access to safe drinking water affect Indigenous women? According to Wheatley, “The water crisis in First Nations communities is under-recognized as a continuous assault on a basic human right. Women who live off-reserve have greater opportunities for employment, housing, and other socio-economic possibilities that simply are not available on many reserves for a wide variety of reasons. Educational facilities are far more accessible, along with social services that are integral to supporting families.”

“The proximity of travel to/from work, social gatherings, support spaces, cultural activities, educational options, and greater social interactions are much more accessible in urban areas,” continues Wheatley. “This contributes to a greater sense of well-being. In small towns, racism may not support greater opportunities, but in cities with larger populations, the odds increase in a woman’s favor.”

Reconciliation and Preserving People’s Culture

In her opinion, Wheatley sees that the Truth and Reconciliation Report was a gift to Canadians, challenging their comfort in historic amnesia and continued ignorance of cultural genocide committed by the highest leadership in this country.

“Anytime we have a voice from ‘our people’ to say how we need to look at restitution and restoration of our sovereignty, it is the right path. We do not need to be told how to heal… We need to tell the country how to support our healing. This is what the report does beautifully. It is as comprehensive as the country can digest at this time and yet… few of the ‘calls to action’ have been addressed meaningfully to date.”

Ten years have passed, yet not much has changed, Wheatley adds.

“This country has continuously operated under the fallacy of the Doctrine of Discovery and theft of land that was never theirs to take.”

The Western Eurocentric perspective has been imposed even on terminology and on what an Indigenous person uses. Tabobandung says, “Only in the past couple of generations have we empowered our children to have voices and ask questions. I grew up in a smaller town where colonialism impacted us, but we were still able to carry down our teachings and our stories. People who have been removed from their culture or have become disconnected in any way wouldn’t know these teachings.”

In British Columbia, Indigenous people are knowledgeable about their culture.

“They really project the importance of their Indigenous women,” says Wheatley. “If there is any movement for any Indigenous or Aboriginal rights to change in the court system, it will take place in precedence in British Columbia and will set that precedent for all other nations across Canada.”

Is There a Way Out?

Wheatley believes the solution between the government and Indigenous people has not been prioritized. “

Hence, Third World conditions exist as a norm in many [Indigenous] communities. To reconcile the crimes of the past in Canada, the perpetrators need to take responsibility, but that continues to be a threat to colonial intrusion and imposition on lands that are rightfully ours!”

Everyone takes Reconciliation differently.

Tabobandung heard different voices; some people are more extreme than others. On the ground, the fait accompli is that Indigenous people, Westerners, and other immigrants are practically sharing their lives on Turtle Island.

Tabobandung finds herself in the middle

“You have this Western business, social, and political model, and your model. How would you balance this? Many First Nations people have had this difficulty, especially those who come from Northern rural, remote communities. You have to know who you are and have deep roots. It is really hard to make that transition, especially in the Western Eurocentric system, where they want to get rid of us; they want to integrate us into the Westernized society so that we don’t exist anymore. Some get to a point where they find peace and balance.”

“I am Anishinaabe. I am Ojibwe. I refuse to acknowledge myself as Indigenous, First Nation, or Aboriginal,” says Tabobandung. “Our people are older than the terminologies the federal government imposed upon us. I walk softly and gently upon the earth. Culture has saved me, knowing that I am First Peoples to this land, in this territory, and knowing that a system is trying to annihilate my people, and knowing that I am still here thriving and surviving.”

This is what motivates her.

“It is why I walk with my head held high. It is why I educate myself as much as I can on anything. I paint indigenous paintings and do indigenous art to pass that knowledge down.”

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A report ‘Oil and Gas Expansion in the Colombian Amazon: Navigating Risks, Economics, and Pathways to a Sustainable Future, warns oil and gas projects threaten over 483,000 km² of Colombian Amazon forest, home to more than 70 indigenous groups, and risk becoming stranded assets as global fossil fuel demand declines.

By Umar Manzoor Shah
BOGOTÁ and SRINAGAR, India, Aug 27 2025 (IPS)

A report has warned about the risks of expanding oil and gas exploration in the Colombian Amazon, which may undermine environmental goals, Indigenous rights, and long-term economic stability, unless the government pivots toward sustainable development pathways.

The study, “Oil and Gas Expansion in the Colombian Amazon: Navigating Risks, Economics, and Pathways to a Sustainable Future”, lays out the stakes for one of the planet’s most biodiverse and climate-critical regions.

Colombia’s Amazon region, covering nearly one-third of the country, is not only a biodiversity hotspot but also home to hundreds of indigenous communities and vast carbon-storing forests. Yet beneath its soils lie oil and gas reserves that the government and industry see as potential drivers of energy security and economic growth.

According to the report released by Earth Insight, the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), and the National Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), some political leaders in recent years have signalled openness to further exploration and production in the Amazon, despite its public commitments to environmental protection and the global push to decarbonise.

“The Colombian Amazon is at a crossroads. The decisions taken in the next few years will either lock in a path of fossil fuel dependency and ecosystem degradation or open the door to a sustainable, diversified economy,” reads the report.

Oil and gas operations in the Amazon, the report warns, could trigger cascading ecological consequences. Roads and seismic lines fragment forests; drilling operations risk oil spills; and increased human access often accelerates deforestation and wildlife loss. “Infrastructure associated with oil and gas projects tends to create long-lasting environmental footprints that extend far beyond the drilling sites themselves,” the authors claim.

The Amazon is already under stress from illegal mining, logging, and agricultural expansion. Adding industrial petroleum activity could push ecosystems toward tipping points, including irreversible shifts in forest cover and carbon balance.

Ignacio Arroniz Velasco, Senior Associate for Nature & Climate Diplomacy at Earth Insight, told IPS news that the Amazon is an integrated ecosystem. As of 2022, according to The Amazonia 80×2025 Initiative, preserving 80 percent of the Amazon by 2025 was still possible with urgent measures to safeguard the 74 percent (629 million hectares) of the Amazon that are Intact Key Priority Areas (33 percent) and with Low Degradation (41 percent); and restoring 6 percent (54 million hectares) of land with high degradation is vital to stop the current trend.

“Although still under threat from industrial expansion, ca. 80 percent of the Colombian Amazon is preserved; however, unless other Amazon countries do the same, the whole ecosystem could collapse. This would mean a shortage of food supplies, medicine (stable forest), and water (water productivity and headwaters). As well as the regulation of floods (aquatic systems) and areas with the highest carbon stock for climate stability,” Velasco told IPS.

Proponents argue that oil and gas projects could generate royalties, jobs, and infrastructure for remote areas. But the report questions whether these benefits outweigh the long-term costs. “Global demand for fossil fuels is projected to decline as the world accelerates toward net-zero emissions. New investments in oil and gas risk becoming stranded assets before they recoup their costs,” it warns.

According to Pablo Jamioy from OPIAC, enforcing environmental protections in the Colombian Amazon in the face of armed groups and illegal economies is a major challenge that cannot be addressed solely through repressive measures, as these tend to increase local tensions and negatively affect communities, especially indigenous peoples.

“The reality is that without first guaranteeing basic conditions for well-being—such as security, access to health services, education, and legal economic opportunities—and without strengthening local governance, particularly the leadership and territorial rights of indigenous peoples, any attempt at environmental control is likely to generate conflict and resistance.”

Jamioy told IPS that from a realistic perspective, a comprehensive, long-term strategy is needed that combines effective state presence with inclusive policies that respect and empower Amazonian communities. “Only in this way can illegal economies be discouraged and the influence of armed actors reduced without exacerbating social tensions,” he said, adding that in this sense, environmental protection necessarily involves strengthening local capacities, recognising the importance of indigenous knowledge systems in conservation, and promoting sustainable development models that link the care of nature with real improvements in living conditions in the region.

The authors stress that the volatility of oil prices and the finite nature of reserves make heavy dependence on fossil fuels a risky economic bet for Colombia. They also point out that historically, resource extraction in remote regions has delivered limited lasting benefits for local communities.

Beyond economics, the expansion raises deep concerns for indigenous peoples, who have constitutionally protected rights to their lands and resources. The report documents cases where extractive projects proceeded without adequate consultation, undermining the principle of consulta previa (prior consultation) required by Colombian law and International Labour Organization Convention 169. “Indigenous territories, when respected and supported, are among the most effective barriers to deforestation. Disregarding their rights for short-term gains would be both unjust and environmentally counterproductive,” the report notes.

Communities fear that oil and gas activity will disrupt traditional livelihoods, pollute rivers, and erode cultural heritage. Many have voiced opposition, warning that once exploration begins, social and environmental change becomes difficult to reverse.

Colombia has pledged to achieve net-zero deforestation by 2030 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. Yet the licensing of new oil and gas blocks in the Amazon appears at odds with these goals.

Velasco said that Colombia has not issued new exploration licences under the current government. It has also lowered its deforestation rate to record low levels, although this latter trend was recently reversed. “Both achievements place Colombia at the very top of the world’s climate and environmental leaders. However, millions of hectares of the Colombian Amazon are still threatened by oil and gas blocks that have not been licensed to investors yet. These “available” blocks would allow future Colombian governments to undo all the hard-earned progress and issue new fossil fuel licenses in the Amazon.”

According to Velasco, to avoid this economic, social and ecological risk in the Amazon, the current Colombian government could choose to permanently remove the unlicensed blocks from its official records. He said that the report suggests different pathways to achieve this, such as via new national legislation, administrative acts grounded on Colombia’s international commitments, expanding natural protected areas or legally recognising more Indigenous territories.

The report identifies governance gaps, including insufficient enforcement of environmental safeguards, lack of transparent data on exploration plans, and inadequate inter-agency coordination. “Without coherent policy alignment, Colombia risks pursuing mutually incompatible objectives — expanding fossil fuel extraction while professing climate leadership,” the authors write.

The report goes beyond merely calling for a halt to oil and gas expansion by presenting concrete alternatives such as expanding renewable energy in non-Amazonian regions, investing in sustainable forest economies, and directing state resources toward rural development that aligns with conservation goals. Key recommendations include strengthening land tenure for indigenous and rural communities to improve forest stewardship, redirecting subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy and low-impact livelihoods, enhancing environmental monitoring with community participation, and ensuring that all projects in indigenous territories prioritize free, prior, and informed consent.

Pablo Jamioy from OPIAC told IPS News that one of the fundamental mechanisms for strengthening free, prior, and informed consent in indigenous territories in Colombia is to guarantee the legal formalisation of territories requested for collective titling, as well as ancestral territories that have been subject to protection and recovery strategies from Amazonian indigenous peoples. These territories, according to Jamioy, must be recognised under special conservation categories and be subject to their own environmental governance systems. “In addition, it is necessary to implement and ensure the recognition and effective exercise of indigenous environmental authorities, in accordance with Decree 1275 of 2024, which recognises their environmental competencies to consolidate their own systems of administration and use of the territory based on ancestral knowledge.”

He added that it is essential to implement Decree 488 of 2025, “Which establishes the necessary fiscal regulations and others related to the functioning of indigenous territories and their coordination with other territorial entities,” a key regulation for the implementation of Indigenous Territorial Entities. “This decree strengthens their autonomy, both in the management of their systems of government and in dialogue with external actors for the implementation of public policies and the guarantee of the fundamental and collective rights of indigenous peoples.”

Colombia’s Amazon protection efforts receive significant funding from international donors, including Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as well as multilateral initiatives like the Amazon Fund. The report urges these partners to condition future support on clear progress toward phasing out high-risk extractive activities in sensitive ecosystems. “International finance can catalyse progress, but it must be coupled with genuine political will and local participation to be effective,” the briefing states.

Industry representatives contend that modern drilling technologies can minimise environmental harm and that oil and gas revenues are essential for national development. They also argue that Colombia cannot yet afford to forgo these resources given fiscal pressures.

Environmental advocates counter that the country’s long-term prosperity depends on avoiding the boom-and-bust cycles of extractive industries and capitalising instead on its unparalleled natural capital.

The report has predicted that the coming years will see heightened legal, political, and grassroots battles over new oil and gas blocks in the Amazon.

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Indigenous Peoples, like this girl from the K'iche' community in Guatemala, contribute their knowledge to combat climate change. Credit: UNICEF/Anderson Flores

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2025 (IPS)

Although the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) yields numerous opportunities for progress—such as improved efficiency, enhanced decision-making, and innovative tools for climate reform—it also poses new risks for Indigenous peoples. With AI rapidly transforming the world, it is imperative that there are ethical and equitable frameworks that prioritize inclusivity and work to narrow the gaps in the digital divide.

On August 8, the United Nations (UN) commemorated the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (August 9), for which the year’s theme was: Indigenous Peoples and AI: Defending Rights, Shaping Futures, which raised the question of how AI can be used to empower Indigenous communities. During last week’s event, Indigenous speakers, civil society groups and humanitarian experts underscored the new risks of “exclusion, marginalization, and appropriation” of Indigenous cultures, data, land, and identities.

“Indigenous peoples are guardians of ancient knowledge, defenders of cultural heritage, stewards of biodiversity, and essential to our shared future,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “AI can now preserve indigenous languages and oral histories, map ancestral lands, and amplify indigenous wisdom to fight climate change, but without the meaningful participation of indigenous peoples, these same technologies risk perpetuating old patterns of exclusion, misrepresenting cultures, and violating fundamental rights.”

Today, most AI systems are developed without meaningful involvement from Indigenous peoples and remain largely inaccessible to them, despite these communities often being among the most adversely affected. With the majority of AI systems developed on Eurocentric perspectives, they have the ability to misrepresent or discriminate against Indigenous identities, which can contribute to the loss of languages and cultures.

“AI trained on biased data can erase indigenous people’s languages, reinforce stereotypes, and misrepresent our identities. Digital platforms already spread disinformation and enable cultural appropriation without safeguards. AI risks becoming a new form of colonization, coded into algorithms that shape our lives,” said Aluki Kotierk, the current chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

According to the UN, AI systems that employ biometric technologies such as facial recognition software, risk misidentification and racial profiling of Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous activist Moi Guiquita remarked that “AI is not neutral”, and has been used to monitor indigenous communities, criminalize leaders, and favor “extractivist corporations and governments” that exploit indigenous resources.

“The question is not how we use AI but who designs it, with what ethics, and what participation of indigenous peoples”, said Guiquita.

Under international law, Indigenous peoples are entitled to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), which affirms their right to self-determination and to approve or reject any activities that impact their land, resources, or cultural heritage. They have also historically called for the right to govern their own data – an area that significantly overlaps with the development and use of AI systems.

Data sovereignty is of the utmost importance to Indigenous communities as it accurately reflects Indigenous culture, languages, and resources, all of which are at risk of being exploited by invasive AI-driven algorithms. This is particularly damaging to indigenous communities who speak endangered languages, which have been systematically erased from mainstream representation by state school programs. According to Danielle Boyer, an Ojibwe robotics inventor and indigenous rights activist, the only way to preserve and respect these languages is to have Indigenous representation in AI governance and development.

“AI language models are being built for indigenous languages without community consent, often with horrible accuracy and trained with data scraping off the internet,” said Boyer. “Non-indigenous authors are using AI to write children’s books about our languages and cultures, getting it wrong and misrepresenting us in the process. Even ChatGPT can generate fake words in my language, threatening to distort our knowledge rather than preserve it. We need to fight back by not only developing our own technologies through our own communities, but to stand up against the harm that can be perpetuated in our own communities as well”.

Additionally, AI systems require vast amounts of electricity and water, which threaten to deplete Indigenous lands of natural resources and exacerbate environmental degradation and climate change. The increased extractions of minerals in Indigenous lands for electronics also drive Indigenous peoples away from their home, threatening cultural heritage and livelihoods.

Recently, the Atacameño peoples in Chile have resisted AI-driven extractions of lithium and copper as these operations threaten to damage culturally important lands and water sources in the Atacamena Desert. Furthermore, AI-driven operations also generate substantial electronic waste. When data centers are situated near Indigenous settlements, they risk dumping hazardous substances such as mercury and lead, which can cause adverse health effects, particularly on Indigenous women.

According to Pyrou Chung, the director of the East West Management Institute’s programs on natural resources, land, and data initiatives in Southeast Asia, much of today’s climate change and environmental protection initiatives are not framed around Indigenous perspectives, making them largely ineffective in tackling environmental issues occurring on Indigenous lands.

“These agendas are often driven by larger powers. Therefore, some of these narratives reflect colonial power imbalances,” said Chung. “This leads to investments in technologies that represent reductionist views rooted in imperial western science…The re-appropriation of indigenous knowledge in ecosystems is leading to systemic harm.”

“While nature-based solution narratives legitimize these solutions as environmentally equitable and inclusive, at the heart of these nature-based solutions is the commodification of environmental systems through carbon financing, biodiversity credits, and other schemes, when the economic benefits are not equitable.”

Despite these risks, many speakers at the event underscored the potential benefits of AI-driven initiatives, so long that they collapse systemic barriers facing the indigenous community, establish effective frameworks that protect their cultures, and invite Indigenous voices to represent themselves in AI governance. Currently, Indigenous communities are using AI as a tool to monitor climate change and deforestation, and transfer knowledge through generations to preserve and revitalize their culture.

“We have a great opportunity,” said Fernando Marini, the Program Director of Justice, Inclusion and Equality at the NYU Center on International Cooperation. “I think that the implementation of the global digital compact and all the initiatives that we have ahead of us, we really need the participation of everyone at the table, including civil society, the private sector, the government, but in particular indigenous people and indigenous leaders and the UN is a great avenue to bring those forces to the table.”

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The first harvest of Amazonian fish from one of the ponds contributing to the food security of indigenous families, using solar energy. The initiative is expected to be replicated in a second phase, reaching more indigenous communities in two provinces of the Peruvian Amazon. Credit: Corpi-SL

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Aug 8 2025 (IPS)

“Our organization is showing that it is indeed possible to move toward energy transition and not depend on oil,” said Elaina Shajian, president of the Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of San Lorenzo (Corpi-SL), in the Peruvian Amazon.

Shajian is an Awajún leader, one of the 51 indigenous peoples of the Amazon in Peru, a South American country known for its multicultural and multiethnic diversity. With an estimated population of 34 million, nearly 17% speak a native language as their mother tongue."Due to oil spills, our people have nothing to eat because fish in the rivers are dwindling, and those that remain are contaminated. Now we have two ponds with over two thousand fish, which we manage using solar energy," -Elaina Shajian.

Despite stable macroeconomic indicators, poverty affects nearly a third of Peru’s inhabitants, with indigenous populations bearing the brunt. This includes the eight indigenous groups represented by Corpi-SL in the provinces of Datem del Marañón and Alto Amazonas.

These provinces are part of the eight that make up the Amazonian department of Loreto, the country’s largest region, covering 28% of its territory. Of its population of just over one million, 43% live in poverty, according to official data. In the two provinces where Corpi-SL operates, the poverty rates reach 52% and 56%.

Food insecurity in the area is worsened by water source contamination from spills in the Norperuano oil pipeline, which has crossed their territory for 50 years. This reality inspired an initiative to provide food for the population, generate income for the organization, and utilize solar energy.

“The idea of the fish farm arose from a need, in dialogue with the organization Mocicc. Because of the oil spills, our people have nothing to eat—fish in the rivers are disappearing, and those left are polluted. Now we have two ponds with over two thousand fish, managed through solar energy,” Shajian told IPS from San Lorenzo, the capital of Datem del Marañón.

Elaina Shajian, an Awajún indigenous leader and president of the Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of San Lorenzo in Peru’s Loreto region. Her organization leads a sustainable fish production initiative supported by solar energy. Credit: Corpi-SL

The effects of climate change and extractive industries are harming the well-being of indigenous communities in the area. Finding food is a challenge—fish, a staple of their diet, is increasingly scarce and expensive. It is harder to catch in rivers, and its market price is unaffordable, sometimes exceeding US$12 per kilogram, explained the president of Corpi-SL.

The impact on children’s health and well-being is direct. Official figures report that in 2024, anemia among children aged six to 35 months living in rural areas of the country, such as the two provinces mentioned, reached around 52%, exceeding the national average of 43%.

Beyond being an alternative to improve their nutrition through autonomous decisions tailored to their communities’ needs, the fish farming initiative is local proof that other energy sources beyond fossil fuels—which cause environmental damage and harm human health, as evidenced in the area—can be utilized.

“Corpi-SL is like the father of indigenous peoples, encompassing 579 communities that can now see that energy transition is possible. It’s not just talk—they can see real solutions to ensure our food security today and in the future, without depending on oil for the energy needed to develop and replicate our initiatives,” emphasized Shajian.

Solar panels installed by the technical team of the Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of San Lorenzo, in Peru’s Amazonian Loreto region, in partnership with the Citizens’ Movement Against Climate Change, to promote sustainable fish farming in their communities. Credit: Corpi-SL

Solar Energy as an Ally 

At the Yachaykuna farm (meaning “school of knowledge” in Kichwa, one of the Amazonian languages), a 51-hectare property owned by Corpi-SL near San Lorenzo, two fish farming ponds operate with solar energy as a key ally.

The initiative is supported by the Citizens’ Movement Against Climate Change (Mocicc), a Peruvian civil society platform with 16 years of experience promoting responses to the climate crisis and community development.

Augusto Durán, coordinator of its energy transition area, told IPS at the institution’s headquarters in Lima that it is crucial to link public policy proposals with on-the-ground work in areas affected by extractive industries like oil.

This is how the proposal with Corpi-SL came together to implement a pilot project that would make use of a space where fish farming had been attempted before but failed, partly because the farm lacked electricity.

“We agreed to install a small solar panel system to provide electricity to the fish farming center in its first phase. And to complete the energy transition experience, this renewable energy would serve as an alternative to oil,” Durán explained.

He explained that with the center energized and the first pond operational, they purchased 3,000 fingerlings of two Amazonian species: paco (Piaractus brachypomus) and gamitana (Colossoma macropomum). With the second pond, the fish were distributed in a larger space and fed balanced feed, allowing them to grow up to 600 grams.

After six months of stocking the fish in their two ponds, members of the eight indigenous peoples that make up a corporation in the Peruvian Amazon shared a lunch on June 14 at a collective farm, featuring the two harvested species: paco and gamitana. Credit: Corpi-SL

Their delicious flavor was enjoyed during the first harvest on June 14, at a communal lunch following the assembly of the expanded council of the 31 federations that form Corpi-SL. Six months had passed since the first fish were stocked.

Durán highlighted the system’s performance: six solar panels with 900 kilowatts were installed on a four-legged structure, while the farm’s security hut housed the batteries that store solar energy during the day and redistribute it at night.

“The system is automatic—as soon as the sun rises, it generates electricity, which is gradually stored in three large batteries that can power appliances, a freezer, TV, radio, lighting for the area, and maintain the two oxygenation units and other pond equipment,” he added.

He also explained that the lithium batteries have a lifespan of 10 years, extendable to 20 with proper care, while the panels can last over a decade.

“The kit of panels, batteries, converter, and cables cost around 6,000 soles (about US$1,675). It’s a significant investment because it provides low-cost energy to develop productive initiatives and replicate them,” Durán noted.

The farm previously had no electricity, and if they had to pay for the service, the cost would average US$28 per month—meaning they would recoup their investment in six years.

Augusto Durán, energy transition coordinator of the Citizens’ Movement Against Climate Change, believes it is a priority to advance toward an energy transition that considers the unique conditions of Peru’s territories, particularly its Amazonian indigenous communities. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

Round-the-clock Energy 

To make the initiative sustainable, Corpi-SL developed a plan that includes selling paco and gamitana in local restaurants and markets. The income will be used to purchase another 3,000 fingerlings to replenish and expand the harvest while strengthening the organization.

“A second phase of the project includes a fingerling breeding center that will also operate on solar panels,” Durán revealed.

The proposal also involves training the federations under the Coordinator so they can eventually establish their own fish farming centers, multiplying the initiative’s impact.

Alan Ruiz, a Corpi-SL technician, oversees fish production, pond preparation, stocking, monitoring, and harvesting, as well as training communities for technology transfer.

From San Lorenzo, he explained to IPS that the key is having 24-hour photovoltaic energy through the solar panels.

Regarding the organization’s plans, he stated that the goal is to establish an Amazonian fish reproduction center—not just for fattening—which will require upgrading the panels and batteries to meet new demands.

“Solar energy is an ally in aquaculture. The indigenous movement manages Amazonian fish, and it helps us improve processes at different stages of cultivation and production,” he emphasized.

One of the water sources where fingerlings of two Amazonian fish species were stocked for fattening and later harvest, in an initiative led by an indigenous peoples’ coordinator with solar energy support, in Datem del Marañón province, Loreto region, Peru. Credit: Corpi-SL

A Fair and Popular Energy Transition 

Moving away from fossil fuels and embracing renewable energy is part of Mocicc’s agenda, aligned with two priorities: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and halting ecosystem loss in the Amazon, which is harming residents’ quality of life.

Micaela Guillén, the institution’s national coordinator, explained this in an interview with IPS.

“A fair energy transition, driven by the people, is urgent. That’s why we call it a fair and popular energy transition. It’s a process to ensure communities have energy while also addressing remediation, reparation, and improving living conditions in impacted areas,” she said.

She explained that this is how the idea emerged, developed together with Corpi-SL, that the political demand for energy transition cannot be separated from economic issues.

“We’re talking about communities that have historically depended on oil extraction due to the economies built around it, and the state’s position that the only way to continue supporting them is by maintaining the current extractive model,” she stated.

Guillén emphasized that, like the fish farming center, other alternative economic initiatives exist in the Amazon to counter the precarious conditions faced by communities due to extractivism.

Given this reality, “it is shocking that the state denies the potential of these local economies and the revitalization of alternatives—even for something as basic as food security,” she said.

She criticized the government’s lack of political will, reiterated in the latest presidential address by Peru’s widely unpopular leader, Dina Boluarte.

“She spoke of further expanding extractive activities, even linking them to the Global North’s energy transition—where they’re changing their energy mix but not their consumption patterns,” Guillén noted.

She condemned how “they’re pursuing renewables, but to meet the energy demands of big corporations and cities, they need massive quantities of solar panels and wind turbines.”

By External Source
Aug 5 2025 (IPS)

 
Artificial Intelligence is changing how we live, learn, work – and who gets heard.

It holds promise for humanity but, without safeguards, it risks becoming a new tool of domination.

For Indigenous Peoples, the stakes are not abstract – they are ancestral, material, and urgent.

Indigenous knowledge, images, languages and identities are already being used to train AI systems.

Much of this is happening without consent, consultation, or benefit-sharing.

In 2023, researchers identified over 1,800 AI training datasets containing Indigenous cultural content.

Most without evidence of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

This is not inclusion – it is extraction in digital form.

When AI systems absorb Indigenous content without consent, they replicate colonial logic through code.

The dangers are not only cultural – they are also territorial and environmental.

AI requires data centers, rare earth minerals, and immense electricity – often sourced from Indigenous lands.

Over 54% of critical mineral projects worldwide are located on or near Indigenous territories.

In Chile, AI-optimized lithium mining threatens Atacameño water sources and sacred lands.

The environmental costs of AI include toxic e-waste, land degradation, and resource depletion.

When built without Indigenous participation, AI becomes a force multiplier for dispossession.

Meanwhile, Indigenous Peoples are excluded from decisions about AI governance, ethics, and policy.

They are rarely consulted – yet deeply affected.

But Indigenous Peoples are not passive victims in this story.

In New Zealand, Māori-led teams are using AI to revitalize te reo Māori.

In the Arctic, Inuit communities use AI to monitor ice patterns and adapt to climate change.

In Polynesia, Indigenous reef monitors combine traditional knowledge with machine learning to protect marine ecosystems.

These efforts show what AI can become – when rooted in rights, culture, and consent.

Indigenous Peoples have called for digital sovereignty, ethical frameworks, and funding for culturally-led innovation.

They must be co-creators of AI, not its collateral damage.

The future of AI is not just a technological question – it is a question of justice.

On August 8, join the global conversation. Defend rights. Shape futures

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TANGO (The Gambia), supporting communities in the North Bank Region, through distribution of improved cooking stoves. Credit: TANGO

By Christelle Kalhoule and Sarah Strack
NEW YORK, Jul 16 2025 (IPS)

As delegates gather in New York over the coming weeks for the 2025 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), we see this moment as a test. A test of whether world leaders are serious about rescuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – or content to let the promises of Agenda 2030 drift quietly into irrelevance.

For ten years, governments have pledged to “leave no one behind.” But that promise rings hollow when those at the center of sustainable development—civil society and communities—are excluded from decision-making, denied funding, and sidelined in monitoring processes. The credibility of the SDG agenda now hinges on one urgent question: will the world get serious about #UNMuting civil society and enabling it to fully play its role at all levels?

The evidence is stark. In 2024, Official Development Assistance (ODA) fell by 7.1% (16 billion USD approximately. Projections for 2025 suggest additional drops of up to 17% (38 billion USD approximately). Civil society organisations in many countries recently surveyed report funding cuts. At the same time, an enabling environment continues to shrink, especially in fragile or repressive contexts, limiting civil society’s ability to operate as showcased in most recent EU SEE alerts. And while global declarations reaffirm the importance of partnerships, local organisations—particularly feminist, youth-led, and community-based groups—continue to operate at the margins of power and resources.

From visibility to power

This year’s High-Level Political Forum focuses on the review of SDGs 3 -health, 5 – gender equality, 8 – decent work, 14 – life below water and 17 – partnerships for the Goals. But these Goals are not abstract targets—they are linked to everyday realities that communities and civil society across the globe confront and act upon for a better future.

In communities across the globe, civil society is not waiting for permission to lead. We are co-creators of solutions, watchdogs of accountability, and stewards of public interest. In Vanuatu, Fale mobilised rapidly after the 2024 earthquake, coordinating shelter, food and psychological support where institutional response lagged. In Mexico, local networks spotlighted how legal barriers and discrimination exclude indigenous and migrant communities from accessing public services. In Nepal, young activists from the NGO Federation of Nepal are working to make health, education and employment policies more inclusive of persons living with disabilities. These are not just stories of service delivery- they are blueprints for equity, agency and justice from the ground up.

Yet such models remain largely invisible in global discussions-not because they lack impact, but because they lack recognition, access and resourcing. Civil society’s role is routinely framed as consultative or complementary. It’s time to move beyond visibility and tokenism. Recognition must translate into resourcing, influence, and leadership.

As Silla Ristimäki, Adviser on Global Justice at Finnish Development NGOs (Fingo), puts it: “Concerning global trends of closing civic space must be countered at all levels. A free, diverse and independent civil society lays the foundation for lasting peace, stable societies and sustainable development.”

Localisation is more than a buzzword: it’s the only way forward

Communities, civil society, and their partners are advancing SDGs from the ground up. Forus’ newly released report, Unlocking the Power of Localisation and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships, reveals that over 65% of SDG targets rely on local delivery. Yet most global financing, planning, and monitoring systems remain top-down and disconnected from the realities of local actors.

The report highlights over 15 case studies—from Fiji to Morocco, Zambia to Argentina—where CSOs are driving Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs), engaging in budget advocacy and developing citizen monitoring tools that track public services. But without long-term, flexible financing and stronger multilevel governance, these efforts risk disappearing.

Centering local feminist leadership for systemic change

Despite being at the forefront of local action and deeply embedded in communities, civil society organisations -especially feminist and youth led groups – continue to operate at the margins of power and financing. The “March With Us” campaign, launched by Forus in 2021, has amplified powerful voices over the years such as Hala al Karib in Sudan, Dianah Kamande in Kenya and many more- women and civil society organisations who are peace builders and system changers.

If governments and multilateral institutions are serious about accelerating SDG progress, , then gender must be seen not as a standalone goal, but as a lens across all policies-especially financing. It must be mainstreamed across all SDG implementation and financing strategies—from public development banks to national budgets.

That is why Forus, on the occasion of the fourth international conference on financing for development (FfD4) in Seville, called for a re-imagination of financial architecture – one that recognises the legitimacy of civil society as both actor and agenda setter for transformative change.

Building trust through investing in civil society

Civil society is doing more than delivering services, it is building trust. At Forus, we are investing in storytelling, civic diplomacy, and digital governance to counter disinformation and revitalize democratic participation. Our Local Power Working Group and We Are Leaving No One Behind campaign uplift lived experiences that show not just what’s wrong with current systems—but what’s possible.

These are not “human interest” stories. They are powerful contributions to shaping policies for just and sustainable development.

What needs to change—Now

As the world moves into the final five years before 2030, the window for course correction is rapidly closing. At the 2025 High-Level Political Forum Forus urges governments, donors and international institutions to;

· Fund civil society through long-term, flexible, and core support—not project crumbs.
· Recognise community-led monitoring and data as legitimate contributions to SDG review and accountability.
· Invest in localization, not just through technical support but through the transfer of power and resources
· Embed civil society in financing and planning systems for development processes – including financing for development and public development bank strategies, and not as observers but architects of change.
· Shift power—not just through consultation, but through redistribution of voice, visibility, and resources.

In a world of growing polycrisis and democratic erosion, civil society is not optional. We are an essential part of the ecosystem for social justice, resilience and transformation. If the SDGs are to be saved, it won’t be through declarations-but through redistribution. Of resources. Of voice. Of power.

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Excerpt:

A garden of medicinal plants in Cali, Columbia. The Cali Fund, unveiled earlier this year, will ensure that companies that profit from digital sequencing will pay into a fund to protect biodiversity. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, Jul 14 2025 (IPS)

When the Cali Fund was unveiled in February on the sidelines of COP16.2 in Rome, the announcement sent ripples through the global conservation community. For the first time ever, companies that profit from digital sequence information (DSI)—the digitized genetic material of plants, animals, and microorganisms—will be expected to pay into a multilateral fund to protect the very biodiversity they benefit from.

The Fund, estimated to mobilize USD 1 billion a year, was immediately hailed as a historic breakthrough. Half of the money is earmarked for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs)—especially women and youth—in recognition of their role as stewards of the world’s genetic resources.

But three months in, as the launch celebration fades, hard questions begin to emerge: Will corporations pay voluntarily? Will money reach those who need it most? And can a fund that is built on goodwill deliver real-world impact fast enough?

How the Fund Was Born: From Cali to Rome

The Cali Fund was born out of Decision 16/2 at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Until now, companies could freely access and commercialize digital genetic data without any obligation to share their profits with the countries or communities the data came from.

The Fund seeks to end that free ride. With the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office serving as the administrator and with backing from UNEP, UNDP, and the CBD Secretariat, the Cali Fund promises strong institutional muscle. Its governance structure includes governments, UN agencies, and representatives from IPLCs—making it a test case for embedding justice into the global bioeconomy.

What the Cali Fund Pledges

New money for nature: About USD 1 billion a year from the private sector, not governments or traditional donors.

Corporate accountability: Businesses using DSI are expected to contribute 1 percent of profits or 0.1 percent of revenue.

Justice for IPLCs: A guaranteed 50 percent of funds goes directly to Indigenous and local communities.

Scientific and digital infrastructure: Resources will build DSI capacity, support biodiversity strategies, and close digital divides—especially in the Global South.

A Billion-Dollar Question: Will Companies Pay?

Despite the optimism, serious concerns are rising about its viability even as the Fund’s foundations are still being laid.

First, corporate contributions are voluntary, and there’s no mechanism to enforce them. Sectors like pharma, biotech, cosmetics, and synthetic biology rely heavily on DSI—but many don’t even track their usage. Expanding the Fund’s reach beyond willing participants could provoke resistance unless countries impose stronger regulations.

“The Secretariat continues to engage with business to ensure that intentions to contribute translate into actual payments,” CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker tells IPS News.

Accountability is another major issue. While the Fund pledges participatory governance, the specifics of auditing, public reporting, and oversight are still vague.

The Realities Behind the Rhetoric

The figure of USD 1 billion is impressive—but it’s not legally binding. Without transparency and enforcement, there’s a risk companies could treat the Fund as a PR checkbox rather than a true commitment.

“It’s crucial that disbursements align with the self-identified needs of IPLCs,” Schomaker says. “That’s the responsibility of the Steering Committee.”

The steering committee that Schomaker refers to was formed in April with 28-members representing National Focal Points, representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities, the scientific community and the private sector. The Steering Committee is expected to meet twice in 2025, once virtually during the second quarter of the year and once in person later in the year. Two meetings are expected in 2026.

But critics argue that’s not enough. Without robust systems for tracking DSI use, collecting dues, and allocating funds, the Cali Fund could become yet another initiative that sounds good but achieves little.

India: A Biodiversity Giant Watching Closely

India—one of the most biodiverse countries and a rising player in the DSI economy—is watching the Cali Fund closely.

“If the Fund is equitably governed and recognizes India as a priority beneficiary, it could support our protected areas, community conservation, and biodiversity research,” says Achalendra Reddy, Chair of India’s Biodiversity Board.

However, Reddy flags that for the Fund to truly benefit countries like India, three things are essential: 1) Transparent allocation mechanisms to ensure funds reach national and local actors; 2) Support for locally led efforts, not top-down programs; and 3) Complementarity, so the Fund adds to—rather than replaces—existing domestic and international investments.

If done right, the Fund could help plug chronic funding gaps and scale up conservation across India and the Global South.

Mrinalini Rai is the head of an advocacy organization that coordinates the CBD Women’s Caucus, a coalition of 300–500 women’s and indigenous rights groups that work to integrate gender equality into the CBD and related international agreements.

Speaking to IPS, Rai appears to agree with Reddy: “The launch of the Cali Fund is a promising step towards addressing that gap. However, for it to be truly transformative, the fund must be accessible, inclusive, and responsive to the realities of women biodiversity champions and defenders—especially those from Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Transparent processes, flexible funding, and dedicated support for capacity strengthening will be key to overcoming historic barriers and ensuring that no one is left behind, she says.

Speed vs. Sustainability: A Cautionary Note

Experts warn that rushing the Fund’s implementation could undermine its long-term credibility. “Genetic resources are national assets. So is DSI,” says Nithin Ramakrishnan, a DSI policy researcher with India’s Center for Public Policy Research.

“CBD and its member states must prioritize sustainability over speed and avoid reducing benefit-sharing to just a financial transaction,” he says, cautioning against letting corporations dictate biodiversity governance. “If countries are made responsible for reporting DSI usage to companies, we risk placing corporate interests above sovereign conservation agendas,” he adds.

Why the Cali Fund Still Matters

Despite its growing pains, the Cali Fund represents a paradigm shift. For the first time, the global community is acknowledging that genetic information has monetary value—and that value must be shared equitably, not extracted and hoarded.

As Vishaish Uppal—Governance, Law and Policy Director at WW India—notes, the Cali Fund “speaks to the third, often overlooked, pillar of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity: benefit-sharing.”

That matters deeply in today’s context of digital colonialism, where genetic data is extracted from the Global South and monetized in the Global North—leaving Indigenous and local communities out of the loop.

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Gereltuya Bayanmukh speaks about her motivations to become involved in climate activism. Credit:  Leo Galuh/IPS

By Aatreyee Dhar
ULAANBAATAR, Jul 9 2025 (IPS)

Youth activist Gereltuya Bayanmukh still reflects on the events in her formative years that inspired her to become a climate activist. When she was a child, she would visit her grandparents in a village 20 km to the south of the border between Russia and Mongolia.

She was happy to see each of the nomadic people in their traditional gers power up their settlements using solar power.

“I remember seeing my neighbors own a solar panel and a battery to accumulate power. They were turning on lights and watching TV using solar power. Nowadays, they even have fridges,” she says.

She thought the herders made a conscious choice about their lifestyles and understood the need of the hour in the face of the looming climate crisis. That is to say, switch to renewable energy and power a safer future.

“This was the reason I became a climate activist,” she says.

No matter how unwitting her notion about her community achieving self-sufficiency with renewable energy was, the findings about what entailed this system revealed something else.

“I later learned that the solar panels were partially subsidized by the government as a part of the nationwide government to equip 100,000 nomadic households with solar energy,” she says.

What she perceived turned out to be a nationwide renewable energy scheme by the Mongolian government for the nomadic herders.

The scheme, called the National 100,000 Solar Ger [Yurt] Electricity Program, introduced in 2000, provided herders with portable photovoltaic solar home systems that complement their traditional nomadic lifestyle.

At least 30 percent of Mongolia’s population comprises nomadic herders. Before 2000, when the scheme came into effect, herders had limited or no access to modern electricity. By 2005, the government managed to equip over 30,000 herder families through funds from several donor nations.

However, the full-scale electrification effort for herders was beginning to stagnate. The 2006 midterm custom audit performance report by the Standing Committee on Environment, Food and Agriculture of the Parliament carried sobering revelations.

The scheme in its initial phase was poorly managed: there was no control over the distribution process, with some units delivered to local areas landing in the hands of non-residents violating the contract, failure to deliver the targeted number of generators, misappropriation of the program funds, and inability to repay the loans within the contractual period.

However, in the third phase–2006-2012–the program was able to expand its implementation with the support of several international donors, including the World Bank.

“At first, I thought how great that we started out with the renewable energy transition, giving access to renewable energy at a lower price. And it was even in 1999. That was when I was just four years old. I believe we were on our way to building a future like this. Like we visualized here. The future of green nomadism. However, my optimism faded when I read the midterm audit report and discovered that the program had been (just as) poorly managed as the first part. It was only with the assistance of the international partners that the program finished well,” says Gereltuya.

Gereltuya is the co-founder and board director of her NGO, Green Dot Climate, which focuses on empowering youth as climate activists and raising awareness and practical skills for climate action.

One of the mottoes of her NGO is to change the youth’s and Mongolian people’s attitudes and practices around climate change issues as well as solutions.

In the past year, the NGO has been successful in reaching over half a million Mongolians, including nomads, helping them become more environmentally conscious and empowering the youth to be climate activists—makers and doers themselves.

“In the past year, we have reached over half a million Mongolians. Our Green Dot youth community has logged more than 100,000 individual climate actions, saving over 700,000 kg of CO₂, 25 liters of water, and 80,000 kilowatt-hours of energy. Next, we will aim for a million collective actions, a stronger community and a minimum of 50 collaborative climate projects in Mongolia,” Gereltuya said during her delegate speech at the One Young World Summit, a global event that brings in young leaders from around the world to discuss global issues, in 2023.

The state of Mongolia’s nomads in the current energy system

Mongolia as a country heavily relies on coal for energy production, which contributes to 90 percent of its energy production. Coming to just transition, the government aims for a 30 percent renewable energy share by 2030 of its installed capacity, as enshrined in the State Policy on Energy 2015-2030. Mongolia is also committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 22.7 percent by 2030 while the energy sector accounts for 44.78 percent of the total emissions as of 2020 according to Mongolia’s Second Biennial Update Report.

Gereltuya’s NGO, Green Dot Climate, has been mapping Mongolia’s energy systems for the past few years now. As of 2024, Mongolia’s electricity sector relies on CHP [combined heat and power] plants and imports from Russia and China to meet its electricity demands.

Only 7 percent of its total installed energy comes from renewable sources, with the Central Energy System accounting for over 80 percent of the total electricity demand. “We found that about 200,000 households remain unaccounted for in the centralized energy grid calculations. These are likely the same nomadic families or their later generations who likely adopted their first solar systems at least two decades ago,” she explains.

Gereltuya says that her organisation meticulously compared the recent household data cited by the Energy Regulatory Commission of Mongolia to that of the total  number of households as per the Mongolian Statistical Information Service to find the numbers that went missing

Mongolia’s backslide into fossil-fuel economy

Although Mongolia has promised to increase its renewable energy share to 30 percent by 2030, it is still far behind in the race to achieve its target.

In the 2020 Nationally Determined Contribution [NDC] submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], Mongolia set its mitigation target to “a 22.7% reduction in total national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030,” which can increase to a 27.2 percent reduction if conditional mitigation measures such as carbon capture and storage and waste-to-energy technology are implemented. Further, if “actions and measures to remove GHG emissions by forest are determined”, the total mitigation target would rise to 49.9 percent by 2030.

“Instead of focusing on decarbonizing its coal-based economy, Mongolia shifted to focus on carbon-sink and sequestration processes to reduce its emissions. This suggests that despite our many promises, policies and past efforts to mainstream renewables, we may still end up with business as usual. A case of bad governance, stagnation and vicious cycles,” she says.

Recommendations for Mongolia’s energy sector

Gereltuya’s NGO has been actively engaged in the survey ‘Earth Month 2025’ that is aimed at collecting specific recommendations from the youth voices in the country for the NDC 3.0 that the government is expected to submit in COP30. She shares a few recommendations that she believes can help improve the country’s energy systems.

On the demand side, households not connected to the grid should update and improve their solar home systems, especially now that the solutions are much cheaper and more efficient.

According to the 2024 World Bank ‘Mongolia Country Climate and Development Report,’ the average residential tariff for electricity in Mongolia was estimated to be 40 percent below cost recovery, and subsidies were worth 3.5 percent of GDP in 2022. The lack of cost recovery created hurdles in efforts to enhance energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy. In the context, those connected to the grid should pay more for their energy use to reflect the real cost of energy production and support renewable energy feed-in tariffs. There should be responsible voting of citizens demanding better policies and implementations and not trading in policies for short-term gains.

On the supply side, there is a need to stop new fossil fuel projects immediately: there are at least six such projects, including one international project under Mongolia’s current Energy Revival Policy, underway.

Secondly, Mongolia’s electricity infrastructure needs significant improvement. As the UNDP recently highlighted, Mongolia’s infrastructure is aging, inefficient and heavily subsidized.

Thirdly, fully utilize installed energy capacity, which is at only 30 percent, largely owing to the infrastructure inefficiency.

Fourth is to increase the overall renewable energy capacity five times to meet demand, which means 15 times the energy made in full demand. And phase out coal-based power, replacing it with fully renewable energy.

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Credit: Toya Sarno Jordan/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jun 30 2025 (IPS)

On 1 June, Mexico made history by becoming the only country in the world to elect all its judges by popular vote, from local magistrates to Supreme Court justices. This unprecedented process saw Mexican voters choose candidates for 881 federal judicial positions, including all nine Supreme Court justices, plus thousands at local levels across 19 states. Yet what the government heralded as a transformation that made Mexico the ‘the most democratic country in the world’ may turn out to be a dangerous deception.

Judicial independence under attack

The judicial election was the culmination of a controversial constitutional reengineering pushed through by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and embraced by his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party promoted the change as a bold democratic measure to eliminate corruption, increase transparency and make judges accountable to the people rather than political or economic elites. But this narrative masked a more troubling reality. The judicial overhaul was the final piece in a systematic assault on institutions that checked executive power during López Obrador’s presidency. Between 2018 and 2024, the National Electoral Institute faced repeated budget cuts and legislative attacks. The National Institute for Access to Public Information was eliminated in late 2024, leaving oversight of public information access in the hands of an executive-dependent secretariat.

The judiciary became a prime target after the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down López Obrador’s key legislative proposals as unconstitutional. The president responded with aggressive public criticism, accusing judges of corruption and cutting the judiciary’s budget. When the Supreme Court invalidated his attempt to put the civilian National Guard under military command, López Obrador declared the judiciary needed democratisation.

Following Sheinbaum’s landslide victory in June 2024, when she won with close to 60 per cent and Morena secured a supermajority in Congress, the outgoing government introduced constitutional amendments as part of ‘Plan C’, with judicial elections the centrepiece. Despite protests by judicial workers, students and opposition groups, the bill passed in September.

The new system replaced merit-based appointments with a process where candidates are pre-screened by Evaluation Committees controlled by the executive, legislative and judicial branches before facing popular election. Judicial terms have been shortened and aligned with political cycles, while judicial salaries are now tied to the president’s, effectively giving the executive control over judicial remuneration in violation of international standards requiring stable, politically independent judicial funding.

Another concerning development is the new Judicial Disciplinary Tribunal, whose five popularly elected members have broad powers to investigate and sanction judicial personnel through final, unappealable decisions. This tribunal threatens to become a tool of political intimidation against judges who rule against government interests, fundamentally undermining judicial independence.

Corrosive effect on rights

As it turned out, the judicial elections achieved only a 13 per cent voter turnout, light years from the 61 per cent who voted at the last general election. This suggested widespread public disconnection from the process, calling into question the democratic legitimacy its proponents claimed to seek. The complexity of choosing between so many unknown candidates appears to have deterred many voters.

Troublingly, dozens of candidates were identified as having potential ties to drug cartels, including the former defence lawyer for notorious drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, who got elected in Chihuahua state. Vulnerability to criminal infiltration is particularly alarming given Mexico’s context, where political violence has reached unprecedented levels – with at least 32 candidates and 24 public officials murdered during the 2024 campaign – and where criminal organisations exercise de facto governmental control in many territories.

The international community has responded with condemnation. The Rule of Law Impact Lab at Stanford Law School joined the Mexican Bar Association in filing an amicus curiae – friend of the court – brief before the Mexican Supreme Court challenging the reform’s constitutionality. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed ‘grave concern’ about judicial independence, access to justice and the rule of law. These concerns were echoed by United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers and the International Bar Association.

The judicial elections will likely have a corrosive effect on democracy and human rights. By making judges accountable to popular majorities rather than constitutional principles, the new system will likely weaken protection for excluded groups including women, migrants and Indigenous communities who depend on judicial intervention for protection against discrimination.

Early analysis suggests that judges aligned with the ruling party performed well in the elections, potentially giving Morena unprecedented influence over judicial decision-making. From the government’s perspective, the elections appear to have achieved their underlying political objective: consolidating control across all branches of government. This eliminates the accountability mechanisms needed to prevent authoritarian drift.

Mexico’s experience highlights the dangerous tension between populism and constitutional democracy. With fewer institutional barriers remaining to prevent further concentration of power, the country’s democratic institutions now face their greatest test. For the rest of the world, Mexico offers a cautionary tale about how populist claims to democratic legitimacy can systematically undermine the institutional foundations democracy depends on.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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