What COP26 Reveals About the Importance of LANDBACK

Indigenous activists gather outside the white house for a climate protest, People vs. Fossil Fuel, 10/13/2021. Photo courtesy of Victoria Pickering.

For centuries, Indigenous communities have protected and cultivated the American landscape through ancestral knowledge and honored relationships to the land. Though only comprising 5% of the world’s population, Indigenous communities protect 85% of its biodiversity. However, Indigenous and other frontline communities feel the brunt of the climate crisis to devastating degrees. With shrinking food security, livelihoods lost in extreme weather, and at-risk traditional waters, Indigenous communities are often the most at-risk in climate disasters while the least to blame. These conditions, in combination with extractive environmental policies and lack of governmental accountability, have led to the emergence of Indigenous movements such as ‘LANDBACK’ that aim to protect Indigenous rights while fighting for proper land use. As agreements emerge from the UN’s climate summit—COP26—this fall, the importance of movements such as LANDBACK being brought to fruition on a global stage becomes clear. 

On November 3, 2021, the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFC) gave an opening statement at the Indigenous Caucus of COP26 concerning the importance of safeguarding human rights and the rights of Indigenous peoples within the Paris Agreement. One of the IIPFC’s major concerns was with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions through a global carbon economy. 

Dealing with national emissions goals, Article 6 creates a system of carbon credit, where nations that surpass their emission targets can sell their extra credits to nations that failed to meet their emission cuts. Article 6 has the potential to institute significant greenhouse gas emissions reduction through international cooperation, but if not properly implemented, it could actually weaken countries' climate pledges and worsen emissions. The IIPFC’s objections point to how this market-based solution of carbon trading and carbon offsetting displaces Indigenous people in the global south and is already leading to land grabs as countries grasp for ways to reduce emissions without considering Indigenous communities or land rights.

Drawing on the concept of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) outlined in the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the IIFPC’s objections emphasize a legacy of extractive policies being implemented on Indigenous land without the consent of communities there. The UNDRIP specifically recognizes Indigenous peoples’ rights to sustainable and equitable development and management of the environment, to conserve and protect the environment, and to mitigation of “adverse environmental, economic, social, cultural or spiritual impact.” The principle of FPIC, if written into Article 6, would require any actions taken by nations in the implementation of the carbon market to receive coercion-free consent from impacted Indigenous parties before any action could occur. Without the realization of Indigenous protections or objections, Article 6 will allow corporations and governments to continue business as usual with little actual reduction in emissions.

The necessity of the IIPFC asserting their voices at COP26 and in the Paris Agreement stems in part from the direct relationship between the stripping of Indigenous land and sovereignty to the implementation of extractive land practices such as coal mining and pipeline construction. The ability of changes in land management to lower emissions is largely recognized in conferences such as COP26, but by focusing only on biophysical or economic factors and not the agency of those using the land, these conversations often fall short of impactful change. 

From fire management to forest stewardship, Indigenous nations have amassed knowledge of caring for the earth essential in conversations of climate restoration or policy. Recent wildfires in California have become one of the starkest manifestations of climate change, but for thousands of years, fire was actually a tool with which Indigenous nations—including the Chumash, Hupa, Kuruk, and more in California—used to protect and shape the land. The intentional burns practiced by these tribes created habitats for animals while actually reducing the risk of wildfire. When land was restored to the Esselen tribe in California in 2020, the tribe immediately began efforts to conserve old-growth redwoods and endangered wildlife such as the California condor and red-legged frog, as well as protect the Little Sur River after 250 years of separation from the land. Their acquisition was the alternative to the land being split into five plots for housing development.

The documented success of environmental conservation when land is restored to Indigenous communities is what creates the pillars of LANDBACK and is what is so clearly missing from COP26. As begun by the NDN collective, LANDBACK is “the reclamation of everything stolen from the original peoples: land, language, ceremony, food, education, housing, healthcare, governance, medicines, and kinship.” While governments continue to try and find market-based solutions that factor in polluters for the climate crisis, LANDBACK and the movements like it represent Indigenous ancestral knowledge and intentions devoid of deriving profit from the land.  The decisions made at COP26, and the exclusion of FPIC in Article 6, rang particularly hollow with the power of oil and finance representatives in decision making. As Raul de Lima, a Brazilian climate activist from Climate Clock, noted, Indigenous activists comprised “the biggest Indigenous delegation in history [but] were being asked to attend panels but not make decisions.”

Calls for the return of stolen land have existed in the United States for centuries, as the federal government continues to act with negligence towards Indigenous land and rights. Within the context of the climate crises, however, LANDBACK becomes increasingly essential as an avenue for Indigenous people to care for the environment and survive. COP26 and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement only illuminate the harm and lack of progress made when Indigenous knowledge and consent are not at the forefront of protecting biodiversity, human rights, and land through climate action.

Claire Burke (BC’25) is a first-year at Barnard College looking to study Sociology and Environmental Humanities. You can find her serving coffee, painting at obscure hours, and looking for nature in NYC.