Indigenous Sovereignty: July 2025 Update
by Michael Lane
The Facilitated Working Group (FWG) was established to primarily foster the transmission of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge to the Conference of the Parties in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It sits in a bureaucracy as a constituted body under something called the Subsidiary Body on Science and Technology Advice (SBSTA). The thirteenth meeting of the FWG was held recently in Bonn, Germany.
The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) has been a part of this process since its inception, and Knowledge Holders like Great Grandmother Mary Lyons have been presenting to add their Knowledge and Voice along with many other Indigenous Knowledge Holders.
Over the last few sessions, IEN introduced a submission on an Ethical Protocol for the Protection and Use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge. It was adopted into the FWG three-year work plan and is slated for completion by June 15, 2026.
The Ethical Protocol is important. Indigenous Peoples have been coming to the United Nations since 1977, and many have shared Knowledge coming from their respective lands, based upon their spiritual and cultural ways.
Yet this Knowledge, once given, is used in any way the UN and its members choose to use it and interpret it without any Indigenous involvement. The principles of an Ethical Protocol for the Protection and Use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge include Ownership by the Peoples it comes from; Control over how it is used; Accessibility by those who shared it; and a recognition that it belongs to the Peoples who shared it. When applied to Climate Change work at the United Nations, full implementation would mean that what Knowledge Holders share would not be teased apart and used in non-Indigenous contexts and frameworks. Instead, the Knowledge would be viewed in its own right and context, in an equitable (same status) manner. It would not be used or harnessed with patronizing comments. This would eventually flow over to the various negotiations happening regarding Article 6, Adaptation and Mitigation.
Another significant issue is the conflation of Indigenous Peoples and Local communities. In the UNFCCC bureaucracy, the FWG sits in the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP). This is seriously undermining the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples have recognized inherent, distinct, collective rights by the nation-states, and as inherent, distinct, collective political entities, have a variety of protections relating to self-determination and free, prior, and informed consent, among others. Local communities are basically minority enclaves within nation-states, are not a constituted body within the UN system, and have no clear definition of what constitutes a Local Community.
When the phrase “local and Indigenous communities” is used, it places Indigenous Peoples in an ethnic minority frame. Anytime that the two are conflated, it allows the nation-states to bypass the inherent Indigenous Peoples’ rights and protections. It is important to note here that the nation-states, outside of the UNFCC, have been pursuing a Termination Agenda whereby the inherent rights and status of Indigenous Peoples are being extinguished in exchange for delegated rights from the nation-states. This is to create certainty for various energy development projects and infrastructure. From a nation-state legal perspective, this renders those subjected to this Termination Agenda as Local Communities. The desire seems to be for Indigenous Peoples’ political entities to have the same status of culturally distinct nation-state minorities, such as the Amish. So, the need for de-conflating the two terms is essential.
IEN fully supports the efforts to de-conflate Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities through the Indigenous Peoples Caucus at the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change. Four elements to this were approved during COP28 in Dubai. These are:
The IIPFCC reaffirms the distinct status and rights of Indigenous Peoples, as affirmed within the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (‘UN declaration’) and calls on States to use this language as a standard and a framework in the development of any documentation or agreement implicating the rights and status of Indigenous Peoples.
The IIPFCC agrees on the need to amend the current practice of combining the terms “Indigenous Peoples” and “Local Communities” in their decisions, names of bodies and programs within the UNFCCC.
The IIPFCC affirms the necessity to uphold and maintain the clear distinction between “knowledge of Indigenous Peoples” and “local knowledge” in all UNFCCC texts and cease the use of the term “Indigenous and local knowledge”.
The IIPFCC reiterates its call on State Parties to uphold the distinct rights and standing of Indigenous Peoples in their national-level programs and policies related to climate change, including the development of their NDCs, NAPs, and other relevant climate policies.
IEN also introduced the following fifth point:
Indigenous Peoples, irrespective of the status of recognition by their coexisting State government, are Indigenous Peoples and are afforded the minimum standard protections in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. All Indigenous Peoples are welcome in the Indigenous Peoples Caucus on Climate Change and in all areas addressed by the UNFCCC that include Indigenous Peoples.
The reason IEN introduced this fifth clause is that there are various reasons that Indigenous Peoples are labeled as Local Communities when they are not. On the one end, those like the Amish, Amazon gold miners, and such are not Indigenous Peoples. There are some Indigenous Peoples that nation-states label as Local Communities because they refuse to recognize them as Indigenous Peoples or have engaged in comprehensive land claim settlements that, as far as the nation-state is concerned, render them as Local Communities. In addition, there are some Indigenous Peoples’ political entities that do not seek recognition by the nation-state, such as the Traditional Haudenosaunee. If this fifth clause is not included but the de-conflation issue is advanced without it, it would further incentivize nation-states to expand efforts to extinguish inherent rights and render all Indigenous Peoples as Local Communities.
These two issues have a bearing on other problems in the UNFCCC relating to carbon trading, adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage, and grievance mechanisms, to name a few. It is essential in advancing this work that we, as IEN, are conscious of how the various aspects of the negotiations impact directly upon Indigenous Peoples. Our work needs to be guided by articulating these direct impacts upon our [Indigenous] Peoples when we carry out various activities.
At the recent session of the FWG in Bonn, Germany, June 10th-14th, 2025, IEN was successful in advancing the Ethical Protocol for the Protection and Use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge. It was agreed that there will be two distinct and separate Ethical Protocols—one for Indigenous Peoples and another one for local communities and other constituencies. From the discussions in which IEN representatives played a leading role, it was openly stated that Indigenous Peoples have inherent, distinct, collective legal and political rights and status. Thus, the legal underpinnings for Indigenous Peoples are outside the scope of the nation-states. Local communities on the other hand, although distinct enclaves, are under the umbrella of the nation-state. The FWG also suggested that local communities have a right to self-organize as a constituency. It was made clear, however, that it was their collective responsibility to do so. It needs to be noted that the Brazilian government representative present had tried to denounce the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples, likening us to something akin to special local communities, and also opposed the right of local communities to self-organize.
NOTES:
This links to an intervention by an IEN Staff Member at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in April, which conflates Indigenous Peoples and local communities, thereby undermining Indigenous Peoples’ inherent legal and political rights and status to create certainty for development (Termination Agenda).
At the International Indigenous Peoples Caucus on Climate Change, an IEN staffer was approved to be on the Working Group to implement the Ethical Protocol for the Protection and Use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge.by
