On April 20, 2026, during the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), GARN’s Indigenous Council convened at the UN Church Center in New York for a dialogue on the Rights of Nature grounded in Indigenous worldviews.
The session opened with remarks from facilitator Sydney Males, who shared the context of territorial struggles in her community in Otavalo, Ecuador. She emphasized how territorial justice is inseparable from the protection of ancestral knowledge.
Throughout the discussion, Council facilitators including Quetza Ramírez and Julia Horinek brought forward personal and political perspectives on advancing the Rights of Nature. From cross-territorial identities, as in Quetza’s experience between Mexico and the United States, to the transmission of knowledge from generation to generation, embodied in Julia’s story and that of her mother, Indigenous leader Casey Camp-Horinek, this dialogue showed the strength of these struggles.
A key theme was the recognition of Indigenous cosmovisions as foundational to understanding Nature as a living being, beyond more reductive frameworks. Participants also engaged with challenges like how to confront the folklorization of the Rights of Nature, and resist narratives that essentialize or romanticize Indigenous peoples.
The session was open and critical. Participants also looked ahead to key upcoming spaces, including XII FOSPA in Ecuador and the conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, on territories free from fossil fuels.
