COP30 pledges recognition of 160 million hectares of Indigenous land rights

At the COP30 World Leaders Summit in Belém, Brazil on November 6, 2025, governments announced the most significant global commitment to Indigenous land rights in the history of international climate negotiations. The Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment — co-led by Brazil, Norway, and Peru — pledged to formally recognize and strengthen Indigenous and community land rights over 160 million hectares by 2030. That is an area roughly the size of Iran. Fifteen countries signed on, including Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Fiji, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Alongside the commitment, more than 35 government and philanthropic donors renewed the Forest and Land Tenure Pledge with a five-year, $1.8 billion funding commitment to support Indigenous peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant communities in securing those rights.

• The Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment is the first global agreement to set time-bound, quantitative targets for recognizing Indigenous land tenure — a milestone that land rights advocates have sought for decades. Brazil alone committed to contribute at least 59 million hectares, more than one-third of the total.
• The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, also launched at COP30, secured nearly $7 billion in pledges from 53 nations and 19 sovereign investors to pay tropical forest countries $4 per hectare annually for verified forest conservation. At least 20% of those payments — more than double the amount communities received in 2024 — must go directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities.
• COP30 saw the largest Indigenous participation in the history of the U.N. climate conference series, with more than 3,000 Indigenous delegates registered. It also saw the largest Indigenous protest, with thousands marching in Belém under the rallying cry “Our land is not for sale.”

Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, called the pledges a signal that “advancing tenure rights and finance for Indigenous Peoples go hand in hand.” But Indigenous leaders were careful to distinguish between announcements and outcomes — Levi Sucre Romero of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests welcomed the commitment “with cautious optimism,” stressing that “promises alone cannot stop the deforestation, fires, and unprecedented violence we face today in our territories.”

Why land tenure is the most effective climate tool almost no one talks about

The scientific case for Indigenous land tenure as a climate solution is not contested. Peer-reviewed research consistently finds that deforestation rates are significantly lower in territories under Indigenous governance than on private or state-managed land. Indigenous peoples make up roughly 5% of the global population but steward approximately 80% of the planet’s remaining biodiversity. Their forests absorb carbon, regulate water cycles, and maintain biodiversity at a scale no managed conservation program has replicated.

The problem has never been evidence. It has been legal recognition. Currently, Indigenous peoples and local communities lack formal legal recognition for more than 1.3 billion hectares of their traditional lands globally, according to the World Resources Institute. Without legal title, communities cannot access capital, challenge encroachment in court, or participate in carbon markets on their own terms. Securing land tenure is not a soft social goal that competes with climate targets — it is one of the most cost-effective climate interventions available.

The ILTC is designed to change that at scale. Technical tools including the Rights and Resources Initiative’s Opportunity Framework helped governments identify where recognition is both feasible and most urgent, giving the pledge a concrete implementation roadmap rather than an aspirational declaration.

What Brazil’s own commitments meant for the summit

COP30 being hosted in Belém — the gateway to the Amazon — was not incidental. Brazil’s government, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, used the summit to announce the demarcation of 10 new Indigenous lands, the first new demarcations since 2018. With those additions, 21 Indigenous lands in Brazil now carry official recognition and clearly demarcated territorial boundaries, covering 117.4 million hectares — approximately 13.8% of Brazil’s total territory.

Brazil’s contribution of at least 59 million hectares to the ILTC is the largest single national commitment in the pledge and reflects a deliberate political choice to position the country’s tropical forest governance as a model for the Global South. Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples Ministry has also backed the Ywy Ipuranguete initiative, aimed at strengthening Indigenous-led land management across 15 territories covering 6 million hectares.

Those domestic moves carry weight precisely because Brazil is the summit host. Commitments made at home while presiding over global negotiations signal intent rather than performance.

The gap between pledges and delivery

Indigenous delegates at COP30 were explicit about what the summit did not deliver. The 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment found that deforestation reached 8.1 million hectares globally in 2024 — a record high, not a record low. Despite more than 90 countries calling for a deforestation road map and more than 80 calling for a fossil fuel phaseout, neither appeared in the final summit text. No mention of critical minerals — whose extraction disproportionately affects Indigenous communities — made it into the agreement either.

Of the prior $1.7 billion Forest Tenure Pledge from COP26, only around 10% reached Indigenous peoples and local communities directly. The rest was absorbed by intermediaries, NGO overhead, and government administration. Wanjira Mathai of the World Resources Institute said the renewed pledge “must ensure more direct access to finance and spur a power shift — from projects designed for communities to solutions led and owned by them.” That structural problem — pledges that flow to programs about Indigenous peoples rather than to Indigenous peoples themselves — remains the central obstacle to translating financial commitments into on-the-ground outcomes.

The 160-million-hectare target is achievable if governments follow through. The same evidence that makes Indigenous land tenure a climate solution also makes it a political target — the lands in question sit above mineral deposits, timber stocks, and agricultural expansion zones that extraction industries want access to. The Munduruku community made this tension visible at COP30 itself, blockading the summit entrance to press for demarcation of their own territories while world leaders announced global pledges inside. Other conservation wins are building alongside these negotiations — including Ghana declaring its first marine protected area after 15 years of deliberate effort and a landmark Alzheimer’s prevention trial cutting risk roughly in half. For more on what’s working across climate, justice, and conservation, browse the Good News for Humankind archive, sign up for the newsletter, or explore the Antihero Project.

This story was generated by AI based on a template created by Peter Schulte. It was originally reported by Mongabay.