Indigenous Leadership at Climate Week: Amplifying Voices for Global Action
At New York's Climate Week, Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon demanded urgent solutions to the climate crisis, highlighting the destruction of the rainforest and calling for an end to fossil fuel extraction
October 4, 2024 | Eye on the Amazon
Climate Week ignited New York City in the final week of September, perfectly timed to coincide with the 79th U.N. General Assembly. Activists and climate champions from all corners of the globe converged in the city to demand urgent action to address the climate crisis.
Building on decades of solidarity with Amazonian Indigenous leaders, Amazon Watch stood alongside our partners to ensure that their voices, demands, and solutions were front and center at every event. Together, we amplified their calls for Indigenous land rights and climate justice on the path to the historic COP30 in Brazil in 2025.
While the Amazon rainforest burns in the worst fires seen in over 20 years, allies from Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador have sounded the alarm and demanded just solutions to the crisis. The ongoing extraction and destruction of the rainforest – driven by powerful corporate interests – are the root cause of these man-made fires. However, the crisis has intensified to unprecedented levels due to the rapidly changing climate. Record droughts over the past two years – driven by the continued global burning of fossil fuels – are pushing the Amazon past an ecological tipping point of no return.
“Nature is part of our culture – it is part of our way of life. It needs to stay alive so that we can all have a sustainable life. This is for all of us.” – Chief Raoni Metuktire
At Climate Week, Chief Raoni Metuktire – 92 years old and one of the most renowned Indigenous leaders from Brazil – called on non-Indigenous actors to take responsibility for their contributions to the crisis: “White people are contributing to the destruction of the forest. I’m very concerned with their way of life leading to the destruction of living beings and our planet.”
The Amazon on fire: Action demanded
Not long after the U.N. General Assembly began, Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon held a press conference to address the “Unprecedented Crisis in South America: Wildfires and Extreme Droughts.” Leaders at the conference included: Chief Raoni Metuktire, Toya Manchineri, Angela Kaxuyana, and Célia Xakriabá Federal Deputy from Brazil. Herlin Odicio from Peru, and Amazon Watch board member Patricia Gualinga of Sarayaku, Ecuador.
“This is an apocalyptic moment. Let’s not think only about Indigenous peoples. Yes, we are on the front lines – we are dying, we are suffering, we are burning – but those flames will reach you, too. That death will reach you, too. And if we don’t act in time, if governments don’t act in time, and if they just debate and try to profit from this crisis and emergency, we all will suffer the consequences.” – Patricia Gualinga of Sarayaku, Ecuador
The Brazilian Space Research Agency (INPE), has already recorded 346,112 fire hotspots so far this year in South America, surpassing the 2007 record of 345,322 sources in a data series dating back to 1998.
Most of the fires have been caused by human activities, including cattle ranching, mining, as well as oil and gas extraction promoted by the policies of the governments in the region. These have been exacerbated by the historic drought gripping the region, El Niño, and climate change.
At the conference, the National Indigenous Organization of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) announced a new report entitled The Amazon on the Brink of Collapse and called for immediate action by the international community.
Defending Indigenous defenders and amplifying Indigenous leadership
The global shift in climate policy that we need will only happen if leaders listen to the voices of Indigenous and frontline communities, and if we collectively push for action.
That’s why Amazon Watch accompanied and amplified the presence of Indigenous partners, particularly Indigenous women leaders, to New York, including: Olivia Bisa, first woman President of the Chapra from the Peruvian Amazon; Patricia Gualinga, Sarayaku Kichwa woman leader and defender; and Puyr Tembé, Secretary of Indigenous Peoples of the state of Pará, among many others.
“We all depend on the forest, not just Indigenous peoples. We all need the forest in order to continue our existence in this world.” – Herlín Odicio Estrella
Many of these leaders face great risks to their safety and that of their communities. As Global Witness reported, although Indigenous peoples make up just 6 percent of the world’s population, they comprised 43 percent of environmental defenders killed in 2023. This is why Amazon Watch’s solidarity extends far beyond a single event or week. Our long-term commitment to protecting Indigenous Earth Defenders has been central to our mission for nearly three decades.
We were honored to accompany numerous Indigenous leaders who face threats of violence for defending their Amazonian homelands, including Juan Bay, NAWE Waorani Peoples’ President; Olivia Bisa, President of the Chapra of Peru; and Herlín Odicio Estrella, a Kakataibo leader from the central Peruvian Amazon who has been threatened for speaking out against illegal economies destroying Indigenous territories.
In collaboration with the Alliance for Land, Indigenous, and Environmental Defenders (ALLIED), we facilitated Herlín Odicio Estrella’s participation in public events like the Amazon fires press conference and private advocacy meetings. In a powerful statement, he shared the threats he faces from criminal organizations and advocated for collective protection measures to Dafna Rand, the U.S. State Department’s top human rights official, and Senator Ben Cardin, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The presence of high-level global government officials at Climate Week provided key opportunities to address concerns about our threatened partners back home.
After a panel at the Ford Foundation, we met with Colombia’s Environment Minister, Susana Muhamad, to discuss the case of community leader Jani Silva from the Putumayo region of the Colombian Amazon who had recently received new death threats, as reported by Amnesty International. Minister Muhamad mentioned the creation of a new network for environmental defenders in the Colombian Amazon. Our next step is to facilitate a connection between the Minister and Jani at the upcoming biodiversity summit (COP16) in Cali, Colombia.
Rights of Nature Tribunal
Kicking off Climate Week was the Rights of Nature Tribunal convened by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN). The tribunal provides a platform for individuals from across the globe to advocate on behalf of nature, challenge the devastation of the planet that is often enabled by governments and corporations, and offer solutions for the protection and restoration of Earth’s ecosystems.
Juan Bay, President of the National Association of Waorani of Ecuador (NAWE), presented the historic case and the victory to leave fossil fuels in the ground in Yasuní National Park and Indigenous territories. Yet, he reminded the Tribunal and audiences throughout Climate Week that while this is a key milestone in the transition and phase-out of fossil fuels, it is also a stark reminder that governments must heed the will of their people and most affected communities. Ecuador has yet to fully withdraw oil drilling operations in compliance with the referendum.
“The Waorani people have been the guardians of the Yasuní, because it’s our land. Indigenous peoples are connected to nature, with the earth, rivers, and animals. If the rights of the Waorani people are not guaranteed, then the rights of nature can’t be either.” – Juan Bay, Waorani President
Nathaly Yépez, Amazon Watch’s Ecuador Legal Advisor and a key member of the legal teams that argued on behalf of the historic Yasuni referendum before Ecuador’s Constitutional Court and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, led the prosecution of four cases brought by Indigenous and frontline communities from Peru to the Philippines. A panel of judges, including Patricia Gualinga, Tom Goldtooth, Casey Camp, Reverend Yearwood, and other leaders from the environmental justice community heard the cases.
“We ask you to pursue not only climate justice but also justice for nature. A popular, critical, democratic, non-hegemonic, plural, and wise justice. One that allows us to shift from patterns of accumulation, competition, hierarchy, and war to patterns of solidarity, equity, and wholeness. This is essential if we are to truly protect ourselves and what remains.” – Nathaly Yépez
The Tribunal ultimately called for a phase-out of fossil fuels and exposed global violations of the rights of nature, from deep oil drilling in the Amazon to “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana.
Brazilian Indigenous movement land demarcation protest and projection
While much of Brazil was engulfed in smoke from raging fires in the Amazon and throughout the country, the agribusiness lobby and their allies in the Brazilian federal government have been working to erode Indigenous land rights. In response, the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB) delivered a powerful message to Justice Gilmar Mendes of Brazil’s Supreme Court: “Respect Indigenous Lands Rights!” and “The Future Is Indigenous!” projected on the historic New Yorker building.
Justice Mendes, who has a history of opposing Indigenous rights, has created a Special Commission composed of government, agribusiness, and Indigenous representatives, to “pacify” conflicts over Indigenous land rights. Indigenous leaders have denounced this commission as an attempt to negotiate away their fundamental rights, stalling the broad recognition of Indigenous ancestral lands guaranteed by Brazil’s 1988 Constitution.
Stop the flow of money to Amazon destruction
Amazon Watch and Olivia Bisa, the first woman president of the Chapra Nation in Peru, also spoke at a direct action in front of Citi’s headquarters in solidarity with Gulf communities in the U.S. south impacted by the fossil fuel industry. Citi is among the largest financial supporters of state-run oil company Petroperú, and the main funder of fossil fuel expansion worldwide in 2023. Several activists were arrested, adding to the over 700 arrests at Citi’s New York headquarters during the “Summer of Heat.”
“Citibank: We are asking you to stop financing Petroperú. You state in your policies that you respect Indigenous rights and the self-determination of Indigenous peoples, and yet you are giving money to a company that violates all of those principles. By financing Petroperú, you are an accomplice of the ethnocide and ecocide that it is carrying out.” – Olivia Bisa, the first woman president of the Chapra Nation in Peru
Rainforest Reception
Amazon Watch and our friends at the Rainforest Action Network held a “Rainforest Reception” at the Hope House to honor and feature our work and Indigenous women leaders from across the Amazon.
Indigenous women are leading solutions to protect biodiversity and our global climate amid ongoing and increasing threats to their rights and territories. Over 200 guests gathered overlooking the New York styline to hear heard from Nemonte Nenquimo, Waorani leader and co-founder of Amazon Frontlines and Ceibo Alliance; Puyr Tembé, First Secretary of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’s Pará state and co-founder of ANMIGA (Ancestral Indigenous Women Warriors of Brazil): and Brazilian Congresswoman Célia Xakriabá.
It was a powerful moment of hope and celebration of the leadership and joy we need to defend Mother Earth from extractivism and climate chaos. We are grateful to our event partners, co-hosts and sponsors including: Amazon Frontlines, Friends of the Earth, Earthrise, One Earth, If Not Us Then Who?, Time for Better, Sol de Janiero, One Small Planet, Farm Rio, and DJ Eric Terena.
As Climate Week came to a close, our collective path forward remained clear: true solutions to the climate crisis must prioritize Indigenous leadership and frontline voices.
Amazon Watch remains committed to ensuring that these essential voices are heard and that the call for climate justice continues on the path to COP30 in Brazil in 2025. Together, we can confront the forces of destruction and advance just solutions for our planet and our collective future, rooted in the wisdom of those who have long protected the Amazon and the Earth.
Let this week be a reminder that change is possible, but only if we stand united and act with urgency.
“Listen to Indigenous peoples, hear the clear vision of communities like my own, Sarayaku, on how to conserve the Amazon. We are not just talking about the life of the Amazon; we are speaking about the life and survival of the entire planet.” – Patricia Gualinga, Sarayaku Kichwa woman leader and Amazon Watch board member
Thanks to the courageous leadership of Indigenous women like Yarley and Lucila, and the continued pressure from Colombian and international allies, Lower Remanso is advancing its vision of justice and self-determination. But the path remains difficult.
April 17, 2025
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Amazon Watch is building on more than 28 years of radical and effective solidarity with Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin.
