Indigenous voices closer to permanent place in global nature talks

Indigenous peoples and local communities are a step closer to a permanent, formal voice in global nature negotiations, as delegates at the UN biodiversity conference (COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia, thrash out how a new standing body will run.

The Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) was agreed in 2024 at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, following roughly thirty years of negotiation. A meeting room packed with Indigenous representatives answered the decision with cheers and applause.

Now comes the practical part. The Yerevan talks cover how the body will be governed and how it will work from one day to the next. That includes choosing its co-chairs, moving forward a dozen planned tasks and agreeing how it will be paid for. COP17 is due to close on 30 October 2026.

Lucy Mulenkei, who shares the chairing of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, was among those who helped secure the body’s adoption. A Masai leader from Kenya, she runs the Indigenous Information Network. She spent 17 years as a broadcaster reporting on environmental issues in East Africa before becoming an activist. “It gives us a proper seat at the table,” she said, though she added that it had taken too long to get there.

The new body held its first meeting in Panama in October 2025, which Mulenkei attended. Some hurdles remain. Its working methods are not yet settled, and she says certain parties are still opposed to aspects of the negotiations. Cristiane Pankararu, an Indigenous leader from Brazil, said funding arrangements still need securing and that governments continue to disagree over governance.

Even so, Mulenkei is upbeat and believes Yerevan will end on a positive note. She expects the body to give Indigenous peoples and local communities space to look more closely at the issues affecting them as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is put into practice. It should also draw them more fully into discussions, decisions and funding opportunities.

She also made the case for joining science and Indigenous knowledge rather than keeping them apart. Where researchers draw on community knowledge, she said, benefit sharing under the Nagoya Protocol and mutually agreed terms should apply.

Why it matters

Global nature goals succeed or fail in the places where they are carried out, and many of those places are lands and waters that Indigenous peoples and local communities know well and look after. A permanent body with clear leadership, a defined workload and proper funding would give those communities a steady footing in the process, rather than a place they must win afresh at every conference. That would be a welcome boost for fairer, better-informed decisions about protecting nature.