Indigenous Amazonian Guardianship

Indigenous rights groups note that Indigenous peoples sustain 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity, including ecosystems essential to global climate, fresh water, and food security. This underscores the centrality of Indigenous thinking and action on a range of guardianship issues. In the Amazon, a vast, complex, and threatened eco and socio-system, Indigenous guardianship is indispensable to the future. However, states and the international community often marginalize, displace and threaten indigenous communities. This has a range of negative impacts, on both the natural environment and the Indigenous peoples who live in and with the Amazon. This panel will bring leading Indigenous Amazonian voices together to discuss the role of these peoples in guardianship, the challenges facing these communities, and action being taken by Indigenous actors to re-center Indigenous voices, perspectives and action.

Refreshments will be served. Thank you to our world-class event partners: NIA TERO, AC4, Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Institute of Latin American Studies, Kent Global Leadership Program on Conflict Resolution, MD-ICCCR, and SIPA International Organization and UN Studies Specialization.