Our leadership has already shown the world what real climate action looks like: defending forests and ecosystems from extraction, restoring rivers, protecting biodiversity, and maintaining the balance between humans and the living world.
We are scientists, organisers, negotiators and leaders. Yet too often, our knowledge and governance systems are ignored because they do not fit within Western frameworks of conservation or finance.
We come from three continents and three different ecosystems, but our message is one: our territories are not carbon sinks or green investments. They are living systems of culture, economy, and spirit. When they thrive, humanity thrives. When they fall, the planet’s balance collapses.
At COP30, we will not come as symbols or stewards of someone else’s plan. We will come as the peoples of the Earth’s living forests and ecosystems: political actors, landholders and leaders of solutions the world urgently needs.
Listen to us, not as voices from the margins, but as equals.
Because if the world truly wants to protect these forests, it must start by recognising who governs them.
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