Indigenous Communities Demand Rights at COP30

As world leaders gather for the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, indigenous peoples adn local communities across the world are uniting to demand recognition of their territorial rights, direct access to climate finance, and stronger protection for environmental defenders.

Their call follows the release of a report by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and Earth Insight, which provides detailed global maps illustrating how industrial extraction-from oil and gas to mining, logging, and large-scale agriculture-is threatening tropical forests and the 35 million indigenous people who live within them.

“For the first time, we have global and comparable evidence confirming what indigenous peoples have been saying for a long time,” said Juan Carlos Jintiach Arcos, executive secretary of GATC and a member of the Shuar people of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

“They can no longer say that we made these things up. The data clearly shows the pressures and threats that our territories face.”

Mapping extraction

The report maps the locations where extractive industries are encroaching on the world’s largest tropical forest regions-in the Amazon, Congo Basin, Mesoamerica, and southeast asia-revealing the scale of environmental pressure on indigenous lands.

In Mesoamerica-a historic and cultural region that spans southern Mexico and parts of Central America-oil and gas projects threaten 3.7 million hectares of indigenous and community lands, while mining concessions cover another 18.7 million hectares, according to the report.

These pressures are compounded by deforestation, drug trafficking, infrastructure megaprojects, and weak governance in countries such as Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

In the amazon, 250 million hectares are inhabited by indigenous peoples and local communities, according to the report. It says 31 million hectares are threatened by oil and gas, 9.8 million by mining, and 2.4 million by logging.

Extractive industries are present in all Amazonian countries-Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana-though the type and intensity of threats vary across borders.

according to Florencia Librizzi, deputy director of Earth Insight, the new maps are “a powerful tool for visibility”.

“they make clear, urgent, and comparable what is usually hidden in technical reports or scattered databases,” she said.

Recognition and consent

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