Standing with the World’s Indigenous Peoples: COP30 Day of Action for IP Rights

November 19, 2025

Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas stands in unwavering and rightful solidarity with Indigenous Peoples everywhere on the day of action for Indigenous Peoples’ rights at COP30.

We stand with the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, who, when denied entry to the climate negotiation rooms, courageously protested their way into the COP30 venue as an assertion of their collective demand for land rights and an end to the destructive operations violently imposed on their peoples. Their slogan is clear: “Our Land is not for sale.” Their protest is just and necessary, a rightful response to decades of exclusion, plunder, and repression.

It was a powerful reminder that after 30 years of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) negotiations, Indigenous calls for recognition, participation, and justice remain unheeded. Instead of addressing historical and ongoing injustices, global climate talks have allowed the escalation of plunder, displacement, and attacks against Indigenous communities worldwide.

Despite COP30 being touted as the “Indigenous Peoples’ COP,” the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil were denied meaningful participation and forcibly silenced in a space that claims to champion climate justice. The violence they faced at the gates of COP mirrors what Indigenous Peoples confront daily in our territories: militarization, forced evacuation, bombings, killings, abductions, and disappearances. These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a global system that prioritizes corporate profit over Indigenous survival and self-determination.

We in the Philippines know this struggle too well. For decades, our lands have been targeted for large-scale mining, dams, plantations, and so-called “green” projects that trample on our rights and destroy our ancestral domains. Like Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, we have been repeatedly excluded from decision-making spaces, even as states and corporations negotiate away our territories under the guise of climate solutions. These processes further commodify our lands while ignoring the root causes of the climate crisis.

Katribu asserts that no global negotiation about climate, land, and resources can be legitimate without the full, effective, and meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples. We reject any agreement that treats our territories as investment zones or profit-making ventures. Our lands are not commodities; they are our lives, our identity, our future.

We honor the courage of the Indigenous defenders in Brazil who stood firm in the face of repression. Their struggle is our struggle. Their resistance strengthens our determination to defend our ancestral lands, uphold our right to self-determination, and advance genuine, community-led solutions to the climate crisis.

Katribu calls on fellow Indigenous communities, advocates, and peoples’ movements across the globe to stand united. As long as these systems of repression and oppression persist, protests like this will continue. We will rise from the ground, from the forests, from our communities, wherever our rights and futures are threatened.

From the Philippines to Brazil, across the lands and forests of the world, our fights are interconnected. We will not be silenced. We will not surrender our lands. The future of our planet is in our hands.

Reference:

Beverly Longid

National Convener

Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas