COP30 Side-Event on 'Environmental Human Rights Defenders' and their neglect in the UNFCCC process
Fariborz Zelli
Dear colleagues,
See below for programme and a background note on a forthcoming side-event at COP30 in Belém, co-organised by Lund University.
The event focuses on unsung heroes of climate action under threat: i.e. the crucial roles of local and indigenous communities in climate mitigation and adaptation – and the considerable neglect which their climate action, and the violence against them, have been receiving in the UNFCCC process.
We inter alia present findings from our Lund-based project on Environmental Human Rights Defenders. Our partner organisations are environmental, indigenous and women’s rights NGOs from Colombia and Peru. Speakers also include two defenders from these two countries who talk about frequent threats they face when defending their lands against mining (including green extractivism), carbon piracy, narcotrafficking and other challenges.
The event takes place on Friday, 14 November, 16.45-18.15 local time in the COP 30 Blue Zone / negotiation zone, side-event room 7.
Please share this announcement in your networks. If you are in Belém, you are warmly invited to join us; if not, we hope that we can make available a link to a recording after the event took place (livestream may not be feasible, subject to a pending decision by the COP30 side-event organisers).
We hope the event and the info below can help draw more attention to this considerable blind spot in UNFCCC negotiations.
Best,
Fariborz
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Professor Dr. Fariborz Zelli
Department of Political Science, Lund University
Box 52, 22100 Lund, Sweden
Phone: +46-46-222-4764
http://www.svet.lu.se/fariborz-zelli
UNFCCC COP 30 – Side-Event
The Need to Recognise Environmental Defenders in the UNFCCC Process: Voices from Latin America
Friday, 14 November 2025, 16.45-18.15, Blue Zone / Negotiation Zone, Side event room no. 7
I. PROGRAMME
16.45-16.55 Welcome & Introduction by Organisers
Lorena Franco-Vidal (Fundación Natura, Colombia), Alejandro Argumedo (Asociación ANDES) & Fariborz Zelli (Lund University, Sweden)
16.55-17.10 Defending Territories, Protecting Climate: Lessons from Colombia
Libia Arciniegas (National Network of Interethnic Women Defenders of the Environment, Colombia)
17.10-17.25 A Perspective from Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples in Peru (working title)
Willian Ochavano (Confederation of Recently Contacted Peoples and their Families in Isolation, Peru)
17.25-17.35 Strategic Ecosystems and Environmental Defenders: The Invisible Pillars of Climate Action
Clara Solano (Fundación Natura, Colombia)
17.35-17.45 Biodiversity Law from Below: Why Defenders’ Agency Matters for Climate Action (working title)
Claudia Ituarte-Lima (Lund University, Sweden)
17.45-18.15 Open Discussion
II. BACKGROUND NOTE
Across the world Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), women and youth groups, both rural and urban, often act as biosphere stewards or Environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs). They protect their territories, lands and living spaces against degradation and simultaneously push for political, cultural, social, economic and environmental rights. Their actions are aligned with several Sustainable Development Goals on climate action (no. 13), no poverty (no. 1), gender equality (no. 5), biodiversity protection (no. 15) and peace (no. 16).
However, many defenders face intimidation and violence every day due to their work and activities. In a large number of countries across the globe we find alarming examples of the risks these defenders face, including threats and intimidations, but also escalating violence and assassinations.
The establishment of a new subsidiary body at CBD-COP 16 in Cali (2024) acknowledged the important role that indigenous and local communities play as defenders of biocultural diversity. Already two earlier, in 2022, the term "environmental human rights defenders" (EHRD) had found its way into the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, under Target 22.Similarly, Article 9 of the Escazu Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean calls for effective measures to recognize, protect and promote the rights of “Human rights defenders in environmental matters”.
Strikingly however, despite a generic preambular clause of the Paris Agreement and social safeguards under the REDD+ mechanism, the UNFCCC process does not feature a similar degree of institutional or legal acknowledgement of such communities. This contrasts with the crucial role they play in climate action, for instance, by safeguarding important terrestrial carbon sinks like tropical forests in the Amazon; or in protecting key ecosystems for adaptation to climate change like mangroves in the Caribbean, which provide protection against erosion and storm surges.
Against this backdrop, the side-event’s major objectives are:
- to highlight how these defenders contribute to both climate mitigation and adaptation (e.g. as defenders of important terrestrial carbon sinks);
- to discuss the mechanisms, but also the gaps of recognition of different types of environmental defenders in the UNFCCC process;
- to shed light – with the help of presentations by defenders from Colombia and Peru – on major political, legal, social and economic obstacles and risks these defenders have been facing, e.g. mining (including green extractivism), forest fires, floods, drought or carbon piracy;
- to explore options for an enabling environment for defenders to exercise their rights (including to information, public participation and access to justice in climate-relevant contexts).
The side-event targets delegates, representatives of intergovernmental organizations, UN agencies, civil society organizations as well as experts who work at the intersection of climate change, biodiversity and human rights. The event further contributes to discussions on nature-based solutions for tackling the climate crises and how environmental defenders can lead and inform these solutions.