In December, Catherine Muruparanga-Ikenn used a power tool to erase the words on a museum display of the Treaty of Waitangi, an 1840 document that asserted British sovereignty over Aotearoa, also known as New Zealand.
For years, many Māori, like Muruparanga-Ikenn, have criticized their national museum for displaying the English-language agreement that their ancestors did not subscribe to, wrongly suggesting that the Māori people had agreed to give up their sovereignty. Activists have waited years for the museum to change the exhibit; when nothing happened, they took matters into their own hands. Her case is now in court.
Murupaarnga-Ikenn is now in New York City this week attending the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Affairs, the largest annual global gathering of indigenous advocates and leaders. There, speaking on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, she drew a connection between the disillusionment her people feel with their state government and the frustration indigenous people feel with the United Nations as a whole.
A decade ago, world leaders stood in the same room and agreed to respect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples. By the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples in 2014 they negotiated a 40-paragraph agreement – known as an outcome document — loaded with promises such as providing equal access to health care for indigenous peoples; respect their contributions to ecosystem management; and working with indigenous people to address the effects of extractive industries. To date, little has been achieved, and now many like Murupaarnga-Ikenn want the United Nations to urgently correct course.
“Ten years after the adoption of the outcome document, what I see is that the UN is suffering from a crisis of indigenous people’s distrust,” Murupaarnga-Ikenn said.
Wednesday’s meeting, where Murupaarnga-Ikenn spoke, was particularly important because it included Dennis Francis, the president of the General Assembly, a high-ranking United Nations official, alongside the secretary-general, António Guterres.
But unlike the conference in 2014, this conversation focused heavily on the climate crisis. The original outcome document contains the phrase “climate change” only once.
“It is thanks to indigenous peoples, as guardians of 80% of the world’s biodiversity, that the sophisticated traditional knowledge and practices they use, that we have seen gains in the conservation and sustainable use of our increasingly threatened biodiversity,” Francis said in his remarks to the participants. “We must utilize the potential of indigenous knowledge and innovations to mitigate the effects of climate change.”
A decade ago, the world did not experience month after month of record-breaking heat. World leaders did not meet in Paris to sign international agreements to prevent catastrophic warming. Far fewer people drove electric cars and relied on renewable energy. The European Union and the US have yet to sign their landmark climate laws.
Now, the United Nations Weather Agency was warned that the world is close to exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming. Scientists prove that climate change is exacerbates already extreme weather conditions such as heavy rainfall. And leaders say it is now more important than ever for UN member states to take seriously both the concerns of indigenous peoples and the potential for their traditional knowledge and practices to provide much-needed solutions.
“So many brothers and sisters have come to this meeting year after year to call humanity, states, multinationals, to ask them to comply with these agreements,” said Leonidas Iza Salazar, a Kichwa-Panzaleo activist from Ecuador , said. on behalf of Central and South America and the Caribbean region at Wednesday’s meeting.
In the 2014 outcome document, such promises include recognizing indigenous peoples’ knowledge when creating national climate change response plans and protecting indigenous rights, which include “free, prior and informed consent” to projects on their land. This would mean giving indigenous peoples the opportunity to agree to energy developments such as pipelines and lithium mining on their land before such projects get underway.
“After 10 years of the establishment of these mechanisms and with this declaration, the states – rather than creating conditions to fulfill the obligations they have made to the indigenous peoples of the world – have continued with economic policies, mining , exploitation, plunder. Mother Earth without limits,” Salazar said. “All of this had those terrible consequences.”
During Wednesday’s meeting, indigenous peoples took turns sharing their frustration and disappointment with the lack of follow-up from state governments, whose officials rose periodically to describe their progress and reiterate their commitments to indigenous peoples and nations.
Some state governments were more willing to accept reform than others: a representative of Colombia said the country would support increased participation of indigenous peoples in the UN system through the creation of a separate status for them. Currently, indigenous nations are co-located with non-governmental organizations in the UN system, such as advocacy groups, and cannot serve on key committees where important discussions take place between UN member states.
Many indigenous advocates spoke about the need for such increased participation in United Nations processes, which states promised to consider in the outcome document. Indigenous peoples’ status at the UN has still not changed in the past decade.
Ghazali Ohorella, an advocate of Alifuru indigenous rights from the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, spoke on behalf of the Pacific region and was one of several advocates who urged General Assembly President Francis for a high-level meeting in 2027 to schedule the 20th anniversary of the signing of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Those meetings, Ohorella said, are an important part of indigenous advocates’ efforts to hold states accountable to their promises. And while there’s no way to truly hold states accountable, a major event can help Indigenous advocates shine a light on failures, highlight any successes, and ensure their concerns aren’t forgotten.
“The thing is, with indigenous peoples, because we’re like a mighty mouse fighting an 800-pound gorilla, you have to keep the pressure on,” Ohorella said. “What we’re here to do is definitely challenge the status quo and make sure that we’re not just participating in the system, we’re changing it.”
That optimism resonates with Murupaarnga-Ikenn from Aotearoa. Murupaarnga-Ikenn regularly attended the Permanent Forum, but then became disillusioned with the lack of progress and stopped attending.
But recently she decided it was time to come back. A new right-wing government elected in Aotearoa last fall has promised to roll back many of the progressive indigenous policies Māori people have fought for for decades. The new government has already abolished the Māori Health Agency, despite entrenched health disparities, is reducing the use of the Māori language and is exploring withdrawing the country’s support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Thousands took to the streets to protest against changes.
Murupaarnga-Ikenn feels that this is the time to speak out again, and to find allies internationally. Yet, halfway through the first week of the Permanent Forum, she is already frustrated with how repetitive the gathering has been, as indigenous advocates repeatedly ask state governments to respect their rights.
“Do you just want to keep doing this for another 100 years?” she said. “Good for you, but not me. And certainly not our young people. Because there will be nothing left, nothing left to save if we keep doing this, and only that.”
