Indigenous peoples have converged on Belém to participate in the COP30 UN climate summit, which opened on Monday – yet many of them will not be able to enter the part of the conference where governments make key decisions.
According to The Coalition of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), about 2,500 Indigenous representatives – the most ever at a COP – are expected to attend. Yet only 14% of those from Brazil (360 individuals) have secured accreditation for the Blue Zone, the restricted area for official negotiations.
The previous record for Indigenous participation was set in Paris in 2015 and matched in Dubai in 2023, with about 350 Indigenous attendees each, according to COP30 organizers.
This broader turnout results from Brazilian initiatives to include as many peoples as possible in climate discussions. These include the Peoples’ Circle – an umbrella group for Afro-Brazilian, Indigenous and traditional communities – a dedicated pavilion in the Green Zone, and the COP Village, a camp welcoming participants from Tuesday this week.
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Indigenous participants from Brazil attend as part of the party overflow category, which lets the country include additional representatives beyond its official UN delegation. The 360 credentials were transferred to APIB, which gathered nominations from regional organizations and submitted the final roster to Itamaraty, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Holders of this credential can enter negotiating areas but cannot contribute to discussions, vote or join closed meetings. Still, they can follow delegations closely, so they can interact with national experts, participate in side events and share their perspectives on negotiation priorities.
Blue Zone/Green Zone separatism
However, Indigenous people who took part in a demonstration that turned violent at the entrance to the Blue Zone on Tuesday said they wanted to catch the attention of the UN and the Brazilian government regarding their inability to participate in the proceedings.
They are critical of the Green Zone/Blue Zone division established by the UN, which separates most civil society from the spaces where countries’ negotiators and official delegations circulate.
The protest at COP30 took place in the evening, when a group of unaccredited demonstrators entered the restricted area and clashed with security guards. Videos recorded the moment when the group pushed doors and ran into the area.
Indigenous leader Gilson Tupinambá, from Papagayo village in the Tapajós Arapiuns Extractive Reserve area, explained that it was a way to take a stance against the UN framework. “Reflecting on this separatism, this ‘apartheid’, we don’t want this Blue Zone/Green Zone separatism,” he said.
In an interview with InfoAmazonia, Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara said she regretted what happened: “I’m deeply sorry about that because, if the idea was to guarantee participation, this COP already has the largest indigenous participation in the history of COPs.”
Toya Manchineri, coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (Coiab), believes participation is still insufficient. Indigenous leaders want to be included in Brazil’s official delegation, he said.
“Ideally, we would participate as negotiators within the official country delegation, right? That would make a real difference. In a conversation with [Indigenous Peoples] Minister Sônia [Guajajara], I told her: ‘Minister, let’s work together so the Brazilian government considers Indigenous leaders as part of the official delegations for negotiations.’ It would make this a different COP,” he said.
Dredging for minerals in the Amazon
Lucas Tupinambá, a young Indigenous leader from the Tapajós-Arapiuns Indigenous Council and resident of Santo Amaro village along the Tapajós River, spent two days traveling by boat to reach COP30.
He attended the opening plenary session on Monday, where he denounced the presence of dredgers – vessels extracting minerals from the river – around the Tapajós and demanded climate mitigation and adaptation measures.
At first, Lucas was struck by the COP30 venue but criticized its separation from the local community. “To be here, you need accreditation, and in my region, only two people received it. The process is also expensive. They are not interested in hearing from those who truly need to be heard,” he said.
He is particularly concerned about the oil agenda and resource exploitation in the Amazon. “We have to stay alert, because many events take place throughout the day. As a social movement, we must constantly monitor where these discussions are happening. Before any talks about oil, dredging Amazonian rivers, privatization or any measure that could harm the rights of Amazonian peoples, they must listen to us,” he said.
Land demarcation as climate policy
APIB, Brazil’s leading Indigenous organization, has a clear goal for the conference: to make Indigenous land demarcation an official climate policy, enshrined in the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).
This push, underway for two years, is led by the ‘We Are the Answer’ campaign, which has reached Indigenous communities worldwide. “Our core message is that demarcation and territorial protection are policies for facing the climate emergency. This needs not just to be acknowledged, but also implemented by global leaders – and in our case, above all, by Brazil,” says Kleber Karipuna, APIB’s executive coordinator.
APIB has championed this agenda at major events, including the Pre-COP in Brasília and Climate Week in New York. It was also presented during the COParente Cycle, an initiative under the Peoples’ Circle led by the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI) and the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI), which took place in various territories.
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At the opening plenary on Monday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva echoed APIB’s call, urging the international community to “recognize the role of Indigenous territories and traditional communities in mitigation efforts.”
His remarks suggest possible paths forward. For Toya Manchineri, the challenge now is persuading all participating countries to include this measure in the final COP30 agreement. “For us, it’s already a victory that the president recognizes this need. Now we’ll see if he can persuade other heads of state,” he said.
Indigenous programming
At COP conferences, Indigenous organizations participate in plenary sessions, debating issues such as territorial protection, extreme weather impacts, mining, adaptation strategies and health, among other topics.
For COP30, the presidency established the Peoples’ Circle, led by Minister Sônia Guajajara. This forum includes two main bodies: the International Indigenous Commission, with Indigenous representatives worldwide, and the International Commission of Traditional Communities, Afro-descendants and Family Farmers, bringing together delegates from 16 Latin American countries.
The Peoples’ Circle has its own pavilion at the conference, serving as a venue for climate justice debates and amplifying grassroots civil society voices who share insights from their territories.
In addition on Monday, the assembly of the COP Village, a camp at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), supported by the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI), began. There, plenary debates on climate change and its impact on Indigenous lands are being held. The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI) expects 3,000 attendees from Brazil and abroad.
“We worked closely with the COP presidency to ensure this level of participation and visibility for Indigenous peoples. I believe this will leave a legacy that extends beyond mere participation,” said APIB leader Kleber Karipuna. Securing such a large Indigenous presence at COP30 in Brazil is unprecedented—a historic achievement, both in the Blue Zone and other venues.”
This report was produced by InfoAmazonia as part of the COP30 Socio-Environmental Collaborative Coverage initiative. Read the original report here (this is an updated version): https://infoamazonia.org/2025/11/10/mesmo-com-presenca-recorde-apenas-14-dos-indigenas-brasileiros-devem-acessar-espaco-de-decisao-na-cop30/
The post Despite record turnout, only 14% of Indigenous Brazilians get access to COP30 decision-making spaces appeared first on Climate Home News.
Despite record turnout, only 14% of Indigenous Brazilians get access to COP30 decision-making spaces
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
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The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.