How Two COP30 Words Weakened Indigenous Rights (And What We Did About It)
Real-time analysis from COP30: The damage hiding in 'as well as' and 'and of', plus the closing statement that became our declaration.
Good afternoon from Belem!
Closing plenary is about to start and I had to write this article.
Most people outside the room think we fight over big things.
Oil. Forests. Finance.
But…..most of the time, we are actually fighting over two or three words in a single sentence.
That is what happened with this human rights paragraph.
It looks harmless on a slide. It is not harmless in practice.
Let me show you why.
Why the previous wording was better for Indigenous Peoples.
And how we answered it in the room.
The Paragraph You Think is “Just Drafting”
The idea of the 1st paragraph of the Mutirão is simple.
The Mutirão compared on Draftable
When Parties act on climate, they should respect, promote and consider:
human rights
the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
the right to health
the rights of Indigenous Peoples
land rights and traditional knowledge
the rights of other groups
the right to development
gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity
Everybody nods.
Then the real fight starts on the tiny connective words.
Two of them changed:
“including” became “as well as their land rights and traditional knowledge”
the list now speaks about “and of local communities, migrants, children…”
That is where the damage sits.
How “As Well As” Weakens Indigenous Land Rights & TK
The earlier version did this:
“the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including their land rights and traditional knowledge”
This is clean.
It tells you that land rights and traditional knowledge sit inside the rights of Indigenous Peoples. They are not a bonus. They are part of the core package.
The new version says:
“the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as their land rights and traditional knowledge”
Legally, the word “their” still points back to Indigenous Peoples.
So we can and should insist that land rights and traditional knowledge belong only to Indigenous Peoples in this paragraph.
But the rhythm changed.
It now reads like:
Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Plus, on the side, their land rights and traditional knowledge
That gives more room for people to treat land rights and TK as a separate add on, not as the backbone of Indigenous rights.
So if you want a simple comparison:
Previous wording held land rights and TK tightly as part of Indigenous rights
Current wording invites people to see land rights and TK as something additional and easier to carve away
That is a step backwards.
How “And Of” Cleans Up The Wrong Thing
The new text also says:
“and of local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations”
This looks like a small cleanup.
In reality, it upgrades local communities.
It now clearly reads as:
rights of Indigenous Peoples
rights of local communities
rights of migrants
and so on
Before this change, the drafting was messy enough that you could still argue about what exactly was being recognised for whom.
Now the recognition of “rights of local communities” is neat and explicit.
It sits right beside the “rights of Indigenous Peoples” in the same legal frame.
That matters because later on:
States and funds can say that safeguards and participation rules must treat Indigenous Peoples and local communities as parallel categories.
Some will use this paragraph to argue that involving “local communities” is good enough, even where decisions affect Indigenous Peoples as Peoples.
So what happened overnight?
Parties weakened how tightly land rights and TK are tied inside the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
They strengthened how clearly “rights of local communities” are recognised right next to us.
From an Indigenous rights perspective, the previous iteration was better.
It held land rights and TK closer and did not give such a clean upgrade to “rights of local communities” as a parallel category.
How We Answered It In The Room
When the text came out this morning after hours of delay, we knew that the text would not reopen, the only move left was not theory.
It was action.
In the Indigenous Peoples caucus’ closing statement I suggested that we put one clear sentence into the text. Something that would stay in the record when the ink on the decision was dry.
The line was simple:
For the record, “as well as their land rights and traditional knowledge” applies exclusively to Indigenous Peoples as part of our rights in this paragraph.
No drama.
No footnotes.
Just a clean statement of how we understand that clause.
Inside the UN system, States sometimes adopt a decision and then enter an explanation of vote or an interpretative declaration.
We do not vote. But we can still do something similar.
By putting that one sentence into the Indigenous closing, we turned it into our own version of a declaration after the vote.
We said, in public and on the record:
this is how we choose to read this text
this is the interpretation we will carry into every board, fund and committee that tries to use this paragraph later
So even though the drafting moved in a direction we did not like, we answered it with what we could still control.
Our interpretation on the record that functions like a declaration in a system that pretends we do not vote.
The Real Lesson For Future Fights
The deeper lesson is not about this one paragraph.
It is about how we read any text that mentions Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the same breath.
Every time you open a draft, ask yourself:
Does this wording keep land, territory and knowledge clearly inside the rights of Indigenous Peoples
Does this wording quietly promote local communities into an almost parallel category
Are we cleaning language in a way that hurts us later
Usually the threat is not loud.
It hides in connectors like “as well as” and “and of”.
This time, the bad boy in the paragraph was only two words.
Next time it will be something else.
If we train ourselves to hear those little shifts in real time, we walk out of these rooms with fewer surprises and a lot more control over how the text is used on our lands, in our territories, and on our knowledge tomorrow.
That’s it for this week.
See you next time!
P.S.: Sorry if you expected a day-by-day play-by-play from me. Comment below what analysis you would like to see on the various negotiated texts and I’ll start sharing them.
P.P.S.:
What in the world is Mutirão?
In the Brazilian COP30 process, this Mutirão is basically their version of a cover decision. It is the big umbrella text that tries to scoop up all the political messages from COP in one place and tell a story about what the conference “delivered”.
So what is a cover decision in UNFCCC language?
A cover decision is:
The long, political outcome text that sits on top of all the technical decisions
The place where Presidencies add headlines, narratives and cross cutting themes
A mix of preambular paragraphs and softer operative paragraphs that “welcome”, “underline”, “urge”, “invite” or “call on” Parties and institutions
It usually does four things:
Tells the story of the COP
It frames the whole meeting. Mentions the science. Mentions the urgency. Mentions priority issues like just transition, nature, loss and damage, finance, rights. This is the text journalists quote first.Bundles and signposts other decisions
It points to the actual legally relevant decisions that live elsewhere. Article 6. Global Stocktake. Finance. Adaptation. It does not rewrite those rules. It wraps them.Sends political signals to Parties and institutions
It “urges” governments to align their policies. It “invites” funds and bodies to take certain things into account. These are not treaty amendments. They are political instructions and expectations.Creates an interpretive lens
Even if it is softer in legal terms, it becomes the frame that others use later to interpret more technical decisions. Boards, funds and committees quote cover decisions to justify their policies.
So when we say this Mutirão functions like a cover decision, we mean:
It is not where the hard rules of carbon markets are written
It is where the Presidency tries to fix the narrative about rights, just transition, forests and finance around those rules
It is the text that future actors will reach for when they want to say “this is what COP30 meant”
That is why two or three words in a paragraph like this matter.
They are not just language. They are the lens through which the rest of the machinery will later read our rights.