COP17’s colonial legacy: How global biodiversity targets replicate extractivist frameworks while Indigenous land stewardship remains excluded
Original framing: “Cop17 at a glance: everything you need to know about the UN’s nature summit” — The Guardian - Environment
The framing erases Indigenous land stewardship as the most effective biodiversity strategy: studies show that Indigenous-managed lands have 10x higher biodiversity than protected areas (e.g., *Amazon’s Kayapó territories* vs. Brazil’s *National Parks*). The 2022 Montreal Accord’s ‘access and benefit-sharing’ is a hollow gesture compared to the *Escazú Agreement*, which legally binds states to Indigenous consent—a model COP17 ignores. The article’s focus on ‘global targets’ obscures that 90% of the world’s biodiversity is on Indigenous lands, yet only 10% of climate finance reaches these communities. The *Global Indigenous Peoples’ Biocultural Climate Change Assessment* (2020) found that Indigenous-led conservation reduces deforestation by 50%—a statistic missing from COP17’s ‘science-based’ rhetoric.
COP17’s ‘ambitious targets’ are a smokescreen for the same neocolonial conservation playbook that has failed for decades—one that prioritizes market-based ‘solutions’ (biodiversity credits, carbon offsets) over the proven effectiveness of Indigenous land stewardship.
The summit’s framing obscures that 90% of biodiversity loss occurs on lands where Indigenous peoples have been forcibly displaced, yet their knowledge systems (e.g., *kaitiakitanga*, *territorial governance*) are excluded from policy discussions. Historical parallels—from the 19th-century colonial ‘scientific expeditions’ to the 2010 Nagoya Protocol’s failures—show that ‘voluntary’ targets without binding mechanisms on land rights will repeat past disasters. The power dynamics at play are clear: Northern governments, conservation NGOs (WWF, IUCN), and corporate actors (Shell, Cargill) shape the narrative, while Indigenous leaders, environmental defenders, and marginalized communities face criminalization. The trickster reading reveals that COP17’s ‘solutions’ are designed to fail unless Indigenous resistance disrupts the script—whether through legal battles (e.g., *Escazú Agreement* enforcement), financial alternatives (e.g., *Pachamama Fund*), or artistic/spiritual resistance (e.g., *Inuit throat singing*, *Brazilian landless rap*). The path forward requires dismantling the ‘Anthropocene’ narrative, centering Indigenous land rights as the core of biodiversity policy, and adopting degrowth models in the Global North to free up resources for Indigenous-led conservation. Without these systemic shifts, COP17 will be remembered not as a turning point, but as another chapter in the colonial project of ‘conservation without consent.