Hear Out Native Voices

When indigenous peoples are mentioned in the context of climate change, my mind immediately goes to images of my grandmother’s roofless and flooded house, destroyed by a Category 5 hurricane and a Category 4 storm in quick succession.

- Eileen Mairena Cunningham

I also move beyond the personal, thinking of the extreme weather swings in the Andes that are damaging agricultural production; the Maasai families in Kenya and Tanzania watching their livestock die from droughts or, increasingly, massive floods; and the communities devastated by landslides in the Philippines’ Cordillera mountains.

For indigenous peoples, climate change is more than figures and charts; it is a wound that festers, eating away at our land, resources, spirituality, and culture. The extreme weather events that are growing more frequent and severe disproportionately harm our communities because we rely directly on natural ecosystems.

The decision to hold this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in the Amazon region has raised our expectations significantly. To be sure, the road to Belém has not been easy. We are hopeful about the proceedings, while also approaching them with the caution and clarity that come from having taken part in climate negotiations many times before, only to be ignored.