In Yerevan, the Brazilian Indigenous movement will advocate for turning global biodiversity commitments into action through territorial demarcation and protection, Indigenous participation in decision-making, direct access to funding, and guarantees of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
From October 19 to 30, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) will be in Yerevan, Armenia, to participate in the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 17). APIB will bring the priorities developed by the Brazilian Indigenous movement for the protection of biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples’ rights to international negotiation and advocacy spaces.
COP 17 will conduct the first global review of progress in implementing and monitoring the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. For APIB, this review must demonstrate whether international commitments are effectively reaching Indigenous territories, strengthening rights, and ensuring the conditions necessary for Indigenous Peoples to continue fulfilling their historic role in biodiversity conservation.
As with the climate and desertification agendas, APIB will argue that biodiversity loss cannot be addressed without guaranteeing the territorial rights of the Peoples who have historically protected it.
Indigenous territories at the heart of biodiversity policy
Land demarcation, protection, the removal of illegal occupants, and territorial governance must be recognized as fundamental conditions for achieving biodiversity conservation, restoration, and sustainable-use targets.
The position presented at COP 17 calls for Indigenous territories to be recognized as strategic areas for achieving global targets and for Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) to be guaranteed in territorial planning, licensing, the establishment and management of protected areas, mining, infrastructure projects, and other initiatives that may affect these territories.
One of the central debates will concern the implementation of Targets 2 and 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework, which address restoration and area-based conservation. APIB will advocate for the recognition of Indigenous and Traditional Territories as a distinct conservation category, respecting their systems of governance, self-government, and self-determination, without subordinating them to the conventional framework of protected areas or Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs).
COP 16, held in Cali in 2024, made progress by incorporating indicators related to Indigenous Peoples’ land use and tenure into the Global Biodiversity Framework’s monitoring mechanism. However, it did not establish clear, binding commitments on territorial demarcation and protection.
For APIB, it is not enough to count conserved areas: it is necessary to recognize who protects these territories, guarantee their rights, and ensure their participation in decision-making.
Indigenous participation must mean decision-making power
Another strategic issue at COP 17 will be the functioning of the new Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) and Other Provisions of the Convention, established at COP 16.
Article 8(j) recognizes the importance of the knowledge, practices, and ways of life of Indigenous Peoples and local communities for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. The creation of a permanent body dedicated to this issue represents progress toward Indigenous participation in the Convention.
In Yerevan, negotiations will address the body’s functioning, implementation of its Programme of Work through 2030, and guidelines related to Targets 2 and 3. APIB will advocate for these spaces to ensure the direct, meaningful, and effective participation of representative Indigenous organizations, with a genuine capacity to influence countries’ multilateral decisions.
Indigenous knowledge must not be treated merely as a tool for achieving conservation targets. It is intrinsically connected to territories, cultures, ways of life, and Indigenous governance systems and must be protected alongside the rights of the Peoples who hold it.
Funding must reach territories directly
Biodiversity financing will be another central pillar of APIB’s participation.
The Global Biodiversity Framework calls for the mobilization of US$200 billion per year. For APIB, however, increasing the volume of funding is not enough if Indigenous organizations continue to face bureaucratic mechanisms and intermediaries when trying to access it.
Our organization will advocate for Indigenous Peoples to move beyond the role of end beneficiaries of projects designed by third parties and exercise leadership in the design, governance, implementation, and monitoring of resources allocated to conservation and territorial protection. This position aligns with the direct-financing agenda that APIB has been advancing internationally.
At the same time, APIB warns of the risks associated with the financialization of nature, particularly through offsetting mechanisms and biodiversity credits that may turn the diversity of life into economic assets without addressing the structural causes of its destruction.
Biodiversity financing must mean new resources that are accessible and directly available to Indigenous territories, with transparency, safeguards, social oversight, and respect for collective rights.
Biodiversity, traditional knowledge, and the Cali Fund
APIB will also follow negotiations on Digital Sequence Information (DSI) on genetic resources.
The growing use of digitized genetic information poses risks when such data are separated from the territories and Peoples from which they originate. For APIB, digitizing biodiversity must not erase its territorial origins, associated traditional knowledge, or the rights of its custodians.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent, traceability, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits must therefore remain at the center of negotiations.
At COP 16, the Cali Fund was established in connection with benefit-sharing from the use of DSI, with provisions for directing resources to Indigenous Peoples and local communities in developing countries.
At COP 17, APIB will advocate for the operationalization of this mechanism to ensure that a substantial share of its resources reaches Indigenous territories and maretórios directly, accessibly, and without excessive bureaucracy. Maretórios refers to Indigenous territories and traditional spaces of life and livelihood associated with marine and coastal environments.
There can be no biodiversity protection without rights
The biodiversity agenda cannot be separated from the climate crisis and territorial conflicts.
APIB has been warning about the impacts of expanding agribusiness, mining, infrastructure, and other economic activities on Indigenous Lands and strategic ecosystems. The agenda developed for COP 17 itself identifies these pressures among the main threats to the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework.
Similarly, the transition to a low-carbon economy must not create new sacrifice zones. The expansion of mining for critical or strategic minerals, when carried out without territorial protection and FPIC, may reproduce the historical violations associated with previous cycles of economic exploitation.
In Yerevan, APIB will convey a central message: there can be no lasting solution to biodiversity loss without guaranteed rights.
Global conservation targets cannot be established while Indigenous territories remain under threat. Indigenous knowledge cannot be recognized without ensuring that its Peoples participate in decision-making. And billions cannot be mobilized for biodiversity while Indigenous organizations continue to face barriers to accessing those resources directly.
APIB’s participation in COP 17 reaffirms an agenda built from Indigenous territories and carried into international forums: territorial demarcation and protection, self-government and self-determination, Free, Prior and Informed Consent, direct financing, protection of traditional knowledge, fair benefit-sharing, and Indigenous participation with genuine decision-making power.
Protecting biodiversity means protecting territories. And protecting territories means guaranteeing the rights of Indigenous Peoples.