Global Cooperation

What message did Indigenous leaders bring to world leaders at Davos 2025?

Indigenous leaders are well placed to advise on climate change adaptation strategies given their long-standing stewardship of natural resources.

Elizabeth Mills
Writer, Forum Stories
This article is part of: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
  • Large amounts of knowledge – including that offered by Indigenous communities – is required to address the challenge of climate change.
  • Indigenous communities are well-placed to provide examples of adaptation strategies given their stewardship of the land for thousands of years.
  • “Indigenous intelligence is working,” said Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President of the Association for Fulani Women and Indigenous Peoples of Chad.

“We are the guardians of the world’s ecosystem.” That was the resounding message from a group of Indigenous leaders representing communities from across the world.

The World Economic Forum invited a number of these representatives of their communities to its Annual Meeting this year, asking them to offer their perspectives and contribute ideas to sessions ranging from digital risks to giving legal rights to nature.

During the course of the week, the group worked tirelessly to promote their ideas and voice their hopes and fears. They called on those present to work alongside them in the pursuit of climate change solutions, help support their cultures and particularly their language, and in the case of Fany Kuiru, General Coordinator of the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), collectively “get out of our comfort zone a little bit and look at what is seriously affecting humanity”.

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What was evident from not just these leaders’ presence, but also the reactions and interplay during the sessions, was the increasing realization of two things: first, that as much knowledge as possible is required to find the climate change solutions, and as arbiters of their local lands for millennia, many Indigenous groups are well-placed to provide key elements of this. Secondly, factors like colonialization, damaging policy and a long-running disregard for the rights of some Indigenous communities must be better acknowledged and lessons learned.

The leaders brought a strong message to their business and government counterparts at Davos. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President of the Association for Fulani Women and Indigenous Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), called on leaders to see Indigenous peoples “as a solution, not as a victim” and suggested that the knowledge they have is the “best technology of nature” able to highlight how to survive droughts, flooding and hurricanes.

Cristina Mittermeier, Co-Founder and Lead Storyteller, SeaLegacy, USA; Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President, Association for Fulani Women and Indigenous Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), Chad; Johanna Hoffman, Founder and Principal, Design for Adaptation, USA; Joyeeta Gupta; Justin Langan; Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Munoz, Coordinator, Earth Elders, Mexico; speaking in Open Forum: Making the Case for Nature session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 23/1/2025, 09:30 – 10:45 at Open Forum - Swiss Alpine High School - Auditorium. Open Forum. Copyright: World Economic Forum / Jakob Polacsek
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President of the Association for Fulani Women and Indigenous Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), who spoke at the Annual Meeting. Image: World Economic Forum

For Peter Lucas Kaaka Jones, CEO of Te Hiku Media, and Justin Langan, Curator of the Winnipeg Hub, their message was more focused on the value of the oral history of their communities. Justin, a film-maker and storyteller, called on leaders “to take the time to actively listen and engage with these unique voices,” while Peter urged leaders to help save Indigenous languages because in doing so this preserves the “Intergenerational transmission of culture and traditional knowledge,” concluding that if we save indigenous languages, we save the planet. Notably, Peter likened Indigenous languages to data, suggesting that they contained “the observations, the measurements, the information, they ways that our people have recorded data”.

This idea of considering life and the planet from a different viewpoint was a recurrent theme during the meeting. For Peter, Indigenous communities have a “whole philosophical worldview”. Justin warned against lumping all ‘Indigenous voices’ together, pointing out that an “inclusive and distinctions-based approach” is required because “not all indigenous peoples are the same”.

Deterioration perhaps summed up the sentiment of the situation facing Indigenous communities today. Those representing their communities at the Forum spoke of the threat of climate change, and the swift degradation of their lands as a result. Fany revealed her fears for food autonomy and biodiversity loss in her Amazon home as a result of the effects of the “longest drought in history”. While Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Munoz, Coordinator of the Earth Elders, suggested that: “nature cannot speak, but it is giving us lessons. It’s speaking, we’re not listening.” He called on everyone “to rethink our position in the world as human beings” and start “living with nature not from nature”.

Technology was another dominant strand to leaders’ messages. Peter broached the issue of deteriorating cultural identity. He suggested that: “if we don’t have digital real estate in the digital age, we will be landless there too.” While for Justin, the need to engage with new technologies, using them to maintain and preserve “the Indigenous past and traditions that we use today” was vital, not only in its own right but to ensure that Indigenous youth retain a connection to their culture and language.

Hindou added that although Indigenous peoples are diverse, a worldwide Indigenous community is working together to counter climate change, declaring that “Indigenous intelligence is working”.

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