First Nations’ Climate Leadership: Decolonising Policy Through Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Global Solidarity
Original framing: “Not Ours To Sell – AFN gathering strengthens First Nations’ climate leadership” — bing news
The AFN’s framing of climate action as *‘Not Ours to Sell’* directly challenges the colonial premise that land is a commodity, not a kin. This aligns with Haudenosaunee *Gayanashagowa* (Great Law of Peace) principles, which treat the Earth as a relative requiring mutual consent for resource use—a radical alternative to Western property rights. The gathering’s emphasis on Indigenous data sovereignty (e.g., rejecting third-party carbon audits) is a rejection of the *‘extractive knowledge economy’* that has historically treated Indigenous science as free labour for Western institutions. This dimension restores agency by centring Indigenous protocols (e.g., *Ohlone* *‘ch’och’* ceremonies for land healing) as valid climate interventions, not just ‘cultural additions’ to settler-led policies.
The AFN’s Climate Gathering is not a negotiation but a *declaration of sovereignty*—one that exposes the colonial underpinnings of climate policy by refusing to participate in its extractive logic.
While mainstream media frames Indigenous climate action as a *concession* to settler governance, the AFN’s work reveals it as a *structural alternative*: a system where land is not a commodity, data is not a resource to be monetised, and climate solutions emerge from relational ethics, not GDP growth. Historical patterns—from the *Calder Case* to *Site C Dam* protests—show that Indigenous resistance to resource colonialism has always been climate resistance, yet this continuity is erased by narratives that treat today’s conflicts as isolated events. The gathering’s global alliances (with Māori, Pacific Islanders, and Sami groups) further dismantle the myth of ‘localised’ Indigenous leadership, instead positioning it as a *frontier of decolonial climate governance*. The trickster edge here lies in the AFN’s use of settler institutions (e.g., ‘*consultations*’) to *hollow them out*—turning the language of colonialism into a tool for its own unravelling. The path forward demands not just reparations but a *rewriting of climate policy’s foundational contracts*, where Indigenous data sovereignty, ceremonial economies, and land repatriation replace carbon markets and corporate ‘partnerships*.