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This summit is unlike any of its predecessors in at least one significant way: The Indigenous presence is palpable and strong.
Nov. 14, 2025Updated 12:26 p.m. ET
They came from the Andes in Ecuador and the Amazon rainforest in Peru. They were joined by activists from the Brazilian forests and savannas. Together, they numbered in the thousands, young and old, women and men.
Indigenous people arrived at this year’s international climate summit in Belém, Brazil, in greater numbers than ever before. They had one unifying goal: to make sure their voices are no longer ignored when nations of the world gather to figure out how to curb rising global temperatures.
They were there to draw attention to the destruction of their territories as a result of gold mining and oil drilling. And they were there to demand recognition for their work to protect some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, work that protects the rest of the planet from greater harm.
“Time is ticking,” said Katty Gualinga, 25, an Indigenous youth leader from Ecuador who traveled by bus and boat to Belém. “Forests are drying. Heat is rising. Nevertheless, we are the ones protecting life in the forest.”
Her journey took 31 days. It began on a glacier on the Cayambe Volcano in the Ecuadorean Andes and continued on a boat, picking up dozens of Indigenous leaders from Peru, Colombia and Brazil. They stopped in Indigenous territories along the way, sharing experiences of life on the front lines of climate change. They called their journey the Yaku Mama, a play on a Kichwa term that means “the mother of water.”
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Indigenous peoples’ presence was palpable at the United Nations climate summit in Belém, which sits on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.
They appeared in panel discussions. They organized debates and cultural programs at an encampment on the University of Pará campus near the city. At one point on Thursday, Brazilian Indigenous activists hoisted an enormous inflatable cobra in the middle of the venue, demanding climate finance for forest communities: Cobra means “snake” in Portuguese and is similar to a word for “demand.”
On Friday morning, dozens of demonstrators staged a peaceful sit-in at the venue’s main entrance, forcing delegates to use other doors. And a small group of protesters forced its way into the summit venue on Tuesday night, clashing with security guards and waving banners demanding land rights. Two guards were injured, according to the United Nations.
Indigenous leaders distanced themselves from the incident on Tuesday. The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, the nation’s largest umbrella organization, said in a statement it had not been involved in organizing the clashes but said it “reiterates its respect for the right to protest and for the autonomy of each people in their own form of organization and political expression.”
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Indigenous Protesters Clash With Guards at U.N. Climate SummitSônia Guajajara, the Brazilian minister of the Indigenous peoples, said in an interview that up to 5,000 Indigenous people were participating in various events around the city, with about 900 granted official accreditation to participate in events inside the main conference hall, known as the Blue Zone.
“There is no solution to avoid climate change without the participation of Indigenous people,” said Ms. Guajajara, a member of the Guajajara community, whose traditional homeland sits on the northeastern edge of the Amazon. “They need to be here.”
It’s a stark change from earlier United Nations climate summits over the past three decades, where national governments have made sweeping decisions on the future of forests and energy while representatives of Indigenous communities were mostly excluded.
“It’s unbelievable that there are climate conversations without Indigenous people,” said Lucia Ixchíu, a land rights activist from Guatemala and a member of the K’iche’ community who was also part of the boat journey.
Indigenous leaders arrived with a variety of demands, but foremost among them was the right to control the lands they live on. That is seen as more than just legal principle: A number of scientific studies have found that when Indigenous communities hold secure land rights, there tends to be less deforestation and lower biodiversity loss in those areas. Livelihoods are also improved.
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Ms. Guajajara said many Indigenous organizations were pushing for their land rights to be incorporated into national climate targets.
Brazil’s climate targets for 2035 currently do not incorporate those rights. And even though President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil openly acknowledged at the summit that Indigenous land rights are important, putting that into practice is more difficult.
“Guaranteeing our land rights should be recognized as a climate strategy,” said Dinamam Tuxá, a coordinator at the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil and a member of the Tuxá People of the Bahia region in Brazil’s northeast. “We’re often told that it’s a good idea, but then it doesn’t happen.”
Getting governments to recognize Indigenous lands, a process known as demarcation, can be arduous, filled with logistical and bureaucratic hurdles. In Brazil, where more than 1.7 million Indigenous people live, there are 107 Indigenous land demarcation processes awaiting a final government decision. Indigenous leaders hope that Mr. Lula will sign many of those into law during the summit, which is known as COP30.
“We want the COP outcome to include the demarcation of our lands,” said Angela Amanakwa Kaxuyana, a representative for Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon, another umbrella group. “We can’t leave this COP without acknowledging that Indigenous peoples are part of the solutions for climate change.”
Ms. Kaxuyana has been working for 22 years to have her land, an area of about two million hectares in the northern Amazon of Brazil, demarcated. That would provide legal protection against incursion by loggers, farmers, miners and ranchers. Many Indigenous people were forcibly removed from the area in the 1960s, during the Brazilian dictatorship, and later pushed to reclaim the land.
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Ms. Guajajara said the government was trying to ensure that its land demarcation decisions were properly protected from legal challenges, which have been common. She credited Mr. Lula for authorizing more land demarcation agreements in his three years in office than in the last decade. “They’re working on it,” she said. “It’s not so simple.”
Mr. Lula’s administration has also faced opposition in Brazil’s Congress, where lawmakers have pushed to weaken protections for Indigenous lands and roll back environmental reviews. And he currently faces the ire of many Indigenous leaders for his approval of an oil exploration license near the mouth of the Amazon.
In addition to government recognition, many Indigenous leaders have called for outside funding to help secure their lands. Communities typically need funds to conduct mapping and hire lawyers in order to claim land rights. Then, once the land is secured, it costs money to monitor the land, to provide security personnel to guard against illegal land grabs, and to prevent wildfires.
Governments are starting to respond. At a climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, four countries — Norway, Britain, the Netherlands and Germany — joined a number of philanthropies and pledged $1.7 billion to help Indigenous communities secure the rights to their lands. Last week, the donors renewed that pledge for another four years.
Nine countries at the summit have also pledged to recognize 160 million hectares of Indigenous land by 2030, although the details have yet to be announced.
Somini Sengupta is the international climate reporter on the Times climate team.
Brad Plumer is a Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming.
