What I’m Focusing On in 2026 (And What I’m Not)
A simple strategy: One campaign, four rooms.
Good morning team,
Most of you probably spend January making lists. Processes to track. Meetings to attend. Statements to draft.
I used to do the same thing.
But after years of watching Indigenous Peoples lose ground, not because we lacked arguments, but because institutional design hardened without us, I’ve changed how I think about focus.
In 2026, I’m running one campaign through four rooms, with a fifth lane running underneath everything.
The thesis driving everything
Indigenous Peoples don’t lose because we’re wrong. We lose because we’re late.
Late to the table where rules get written. Late to the informal where decisions actually happen. Late to the moment when “under discussion” becomes “locked in.”
So my 2026 job is simple: Build permanent Indigenous institutional leverage across the UN system before new regimes harden and before 2027 arrives.
That’s it. Everything else is noise.
The 4 Rooms
1. BBNJ (the new ocean governance regime)
March is a high-leverage window. The operational framework is being set now, before the first Conference of the Parties fully takes over.
I’m not chasing poetic references to traditional knowledge. I am architecting the wording attached to procedures and decision-making language that can be move the needle on Indigenous participation in practice, not just celebrated in statements.
Specifically:
A participatory category for Indigenous Peoples, separate from civil society (think UNPFII IPO category)
An Indigenous advisory mechanism (like EMRIP) within the BBNJ framework
A voluntary fund and a direct access to funding mechanism.
And reporting requirements that create accountability when rights are ignored. Reporting is the newest tool here. Because reporting turns “values” into accountability infrastructure.
2. Human Rights Council (the foundation)
If we lose on human rights in Geneva, we lose on everything.
That’s not rhetoric. That’s architecture. I don’t care what people say at the CBD or elsewhere.
Geneva is where Indigenous rights started and gets defended as a baseline. When we protect the floor in Geneva, other processes can’t create dilution through “technical” excuses.
My HRC work in about 45 resolutions is continuous: Track, intervene, socialize, repeat. Block dilution language. Prevent precedent-setting that migrates horizontally. Keep Indigenous Peoples positioned as political actors, not stakeholders.
3. UNDRIP20 in 2027 (the forcing function)
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted in 2007. That makes 2027 the 20th anniversary.
I’m not treating this as a commemoration. I’m treating it as a necessity.
A moment to move the needle. To mainstream Indigenous participation horizontally across UN bodies. To advance the unfinished elements of the World Conference outcome logic.
Three tracks:
Political: A declaration drafted through low-threshold online consultations
UN: Shape the General Assembly high-level panel toward institutional impact
Movement: A Festival of Ideas in Geneva in September 2027, tied to the deeper history of Indigenous Peoples entering the UN in Geneva in the late 1970s
4. Article 6 (the pressure lane)
The Paris Agreement’s Article 6 on carbon markets stays in my stack because it touches finance, implementation, and real-world incentives. It connects to rights enforcement questions that other processes try to keep abstract.
My approach: Track the pipeline consistently, and help the Indigenous movement protect their rights, navigate the maze of carbon markets, and build an evidence base that shows patterns and failure modes ready for the formal review in 2028 with receipts.
This is long-arc work. But, its necessary because its not only about green-grabbing Indigenous lands, territories and resources. But also about “project partners” turning Indigenous Peoples into peasants for sake of credits they don’t get.
5. Enhanced participation (on hold)
This runs underneath everything else. And I need to be direct about my traditional council’s strategy here.
As its about getting Indigenous Peoples’ traditional councils, assemblies, parliaments, etc. a separate status at the UN, enhanced participation is a structural change request. And structural changes don’t pass because they’re right. They pass when a minimum winning coalition is ready, when strategies are tight, and when opponents can’t exploit ambiguity.
Right now, continuing public debate in Geneva and NYC in the same format produces more risk than progress.
Here’s why:
A mandate is permission, not a strategy. Yes, NY has a mandate and it matters. That’s precisely why I wouldn’t waste it on a losing sequence. A mandate answers “can we.” It doesn’t answer “is this the best timing, format, and exposure level.” There’s no harm in put a pin in the mandate until next year.
Repetition increases opponent leverage when the middle isn’t consolidated. When the gray area countries is large, open debate becomes free intelligence for adversaries. They learn our red lines, our internal fractures, the swing States’ anxieties. Then they socialize counter-ideas quietly.
The longer something stays “under discussion,” the more it dilutes. Prolonged debate creates text drift, narrative drift, and coalition drift. That’s how institutional proposals die without ever being formally rejected. Look at the right to development process in Geneva, but also its something to be careful about in the current budget liquidity crisis of the UN and the rationalization process.
Momentum is not progress. Meetings and statements are not the same as vote movement, coalition consolidation, or text maturity. If the output is activity without shift, that’s not momentum. That’s burn rate.
Last week there was an Indigenous Zoom call, and this is what I suggested:
Let the process stabilize in GVA and NYC while intensifying targeted bilaterals with gray-zone States.
Returning to the formal track when you have new input into the process, or can count votes, not when you feel hope.
Btw. This isn’t retreat. It’s sequence discipline.
How these connect
This isn’t five separate projects. It’s one campaign.
HRC protects the floor
BBNJ designs new ceilings
UNDRIP20 is the political lever that shifts the whole building code
Article 6 is the pressure test that exposes weakness and forces accountability
Enhanced participation is the structural change that we need to pause for now.
When you see it this way, the question isn’t “which meeting should I attend?” The question is “which move advances the campaign?”
What I’m not doing
Ok UNPFII will be interesting, EMRIP as well. But, I’m not chasing every consultation. I’m not attending meetings designed to keep me busy. I’m not performing participation.
Strategic absence wins more than constant presence.
We’re all human, and I’m not a machine. If a process isn’t moving toward institutional change, I’m not spending time there. If a debate is giving opponents free intelligence about our red lines without consolidating the middle, I’m suggesting to pause escalation.
Before you go
If you’re navigating multilateral rooms, here’s what I want you to take from this:
You don’t need to track everything. You need to know which fights matter right now.
You don’t need to be in every room. You need to be in the right room at the right moment.
You don’t need more meetings. You need a map.
And sometimes, the smartest move is to stop debating and start building. Quietly, strategically, until you can count the votes.
This year, I’m building that map in public. I’ll share what I’m watching, what I’m learning, and what I’m getting wrong.
Because the game isn’t about being present. It’s about building power.
And power comes from knowing where the decisions actually happen, and being there when they do.
The institutions are being designed now. The only question is whether you’ll be in the room when it happens.
That’s it for now.
See you next week!