Colombia – From August 14 to 16, 2024, the International Meeting of Indigenous Peoples and Governments of the Amazon Basin took place in Bogotá, in preparation for COP16 on Biological Diversity. The event, organized by the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC) and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, succeeded in defining work lines regarding indigenous knowledge systems and governance, the unity of the indigenous movement and its coordination path, coherent rights and actions, legal security, and financing.
At this meeting, the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples built a Strategic Regional Alliance and signed a pact for biodiversity conservation within the framework of the COP16 biodiversity negotiations, alongside the Ministries of Environment and Sustainable Development, Agriculture, and Foreign Affairs of Colombia.
In her speech, the Colombian Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, emphasized that Colombia, as the host country for COP16, will contribute to strengthening guarantees for the recognition of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. She highlighted that the Amazon Basin is home to more than 500 indigenous peoples and is vital for the protection and conservation of global biodiversity.
Freddy Mamani Machaca, the Coordinator of Indigenous Affairs at the OCTA Permanent Secretariat, highlighted that the International Meeting of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples concluded with a strategic agenda focused on COP16 on biodiversity and COP30 on climate change. He also invited participants to engage in the Amazon agenda included in the Declaration of Belém and the resolutions of the OTCA Foreign Ministers from 2023, developed within the framework of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, which consists of eight Amazonian countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
Furthermore, the future work of ACTO in establishing the Amazonian Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples, the Forum for Ancestral Knowledge, and the Amazonian Regional Platform for Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change was highlighted.
Within the context of the International Meeting, ACTO organized a consultation with indigenous peoples to address the topics of the mechanism, the ancestral knowledge forum, and the indigenous climate change platform. This event was held with the support of Euroclima and Amazonia+.
During COP16 on Biodiversity, the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples will have various spaces to reaffirm the vital role of Amazonian indigenous territories for life and the importance of indigenous knowledge systems in biodiversity conservation and the fight against climate change.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the governing body of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international treaty adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. COP16 will take place in Cali, Colombia, from October 21 to November 1, 2024, under the theme “Peace with Nature.”
