Indigenous youth at the U.N. share environmental setbacks and solutions

This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.

For the last week, Indigenous leaders from around the world have converged in New York for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII. It’s the largest global gathering of Indigenous peoples, and the forum provides space for participants to bring their issues to international authorities, often when their own governments have refused to take action. This year’s forum focuses on how U.N. member states have, or have not, protected the rights of Indigenous peoples, and conversations range from the environmental effects of extractive industries to climate change and violence against women.

The forum is an intergenerational space. Young people in attendance often work alongside elders and leaders to come up with solutions and address ongoing challenges. Grist interviewed seven Indigenous youth attending UNPFII this year hailing from Africa, the Pacific, North and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Arctic.

‘We will keep pushing for solutions’

Joshua Amponsem, 33, is Asante from Ghana and the founder of Green Africa Youth Organization, a youth-led group in Africa that promotes energy sustainability. He also is the co-director of the Youth Climate Justice Fund which provides funding opportunities to bolster youth participation in climate change solutions.

Since the Trump administration pulled funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Amponsem has seen the people and groups he works with suffer from the loss of financial help.

It’s already hard to be a young person fighting climate change, he says. Less than 1% of climate grants go to youth-led programs, according to the Youth Climate Justice Fund.

“I think everyone is very much worried,” he said. “That is leading to a lot of anxiety.”

Amponsem specifically mentioned the importance of groups like Africa Youth Pastoralist Initiatives — a coalition of youth who raise animals like sheep or cattle. Pastoralists need support to address climate change because the work of herding sheep and cattle gets more difficult as drought and resource scarcity persist, according to one report.

“No matter what happens we will stand, and we will fight, and we will keep pushing for solutions,” he said.

Critical minerals in Greenland

Aviaaja Isaksen, 27, is Inuit and a member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Youth Engagement Program, a group that aims to empower the next generation of leaders in the Arctic. Isaksen is originally from Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, and this is her first year attending the UNPFII. Just last week she graduated from the University of Copenhagen with her law degree. She originally began studying law to help protect the rights of the Inuit of Greenland.

Recently, Greenland has been a global focal point due to the Trump administration’s interest in acquiring the land and its resources — including minerals needed for the green transition, like lithium and neodymium: both crucial for electric vehicles.

“For me, it’s really important to speak on behalf of the Inuit of Greenland,” Isaksen said.

Greenland is around 80% Indigenous, and a vast majority of the population there does not want the U.S. to wrest control of the country from the Kingdom of Denmark. Many more want to be completely independent.

“I don’t want any administration to mess with our sovereignty,” she said.

Isaksen said her first time at the forum has connected her to a broader discussion about global Indigenous rights — a conversation she is excited to join. She wants to learn more about the complex system at the United Nations, so this trip is about getting ready for the future.

Funding rainforest conservation

Cindy Sisa Andy Aguinda, 30, is Kichwa from Ecuador in the Amazon. She is in New York to talk about climate change, women’s health, and the climate crisis. She spoke on a panel with a group of other Indigenous women about how patriarchy and colonial violence affect women at a time of growing global unrest — especially in the Amazon, where deforestation is devastating the forests important to the Kitchwa tribe.

She said international funding is affecting many protect the Amazon Rainforest. As an example, last year the United States agreed to send around $40 million to the country through USAID — but then the Trump administration terminated most of the department in March.

“To continue working and caring for our lands, the rainforest, and our people, we need help,” she said through a translator. Even when international funding goes to other countries for the purposes of protecting Indigenous land, only around 17 percent ends up in the hands of Indigenous-led initiatives. “In my country, it’s difficult for the authorities to take us into account,” she said.

She said, despite that, she had hope for the future and hopes to make it to COP30 in Brazil, the international gathering that addresses climate change, though she will probably have to foot the bill herself. She said that Indigenous tribes of the Amazon are the ones fighting every day to protect their territories, and she said those with this relationship with the forest need to share ancestral knowledge with the world at places like the UNPFII and COP30.

“We can’t stop if we want to live well, if we want our cultural identity to remain alive,” she said.

 

Banner image: Top row from left to right: Averi Doxtator, Liudmyla Korotkykh, Toni Chiran, Aviaaija Baadsgaard. Second row from left to right: Cindy Sisa Andy Aguinda, Joshua Amponsem, Janell Dymus-Kurei. Image courtesy of Grist.

This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.

Indigenous delegates at the U.N. raise alarm on isolated peoples in the Amazon