At COP17, the UN biodiversity conference in Yerevan, Armenia, Indigenous representatives are negotiating the practical arrangements for a permanent body intended to strengthen their participation in environmental decision-making. The discussions concern how the Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) will operate, be governed, and receive funding.
Adopted at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024, the body emerged from three decades of advocacy and negotiations. Its purpose is to deepen the involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. However, operating procedures remain unresolved, and some parties continue to oppose aspects of the arrangements.
Lucy Mulenkei, a Kenyan Masai leader and co-chair of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, helped secure its establishment. Before becoming an activist, she spent 17 years covering environmental issues in East Africa as a broadcast journalist. Despite the remaining obstacles, she is optimistic that COP17 will produce a positive outcome.
Mulenkei argues that achieving the 2030 nature goals requires genuine partnerships with communities that protect natural resources. Government commitments alone, she says, cannot succeed without meaningful inclusion and recognition of Indigenous rights. The new body is intended to strengthen collective action and participation in decisions.
She also advocates closer cooperation between scientific research and Indigenous knowledge. Citing the Nagoya Protocol, part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, she emphasizes benefit-sharing when researchers or pharmaceutical scientists use community knowledge and resources. Such cooperation, she says, requires mutually agreed terms and recognition of the communities involved.
