Indigenous delegation to London demands stronger action from UK government to protect forests and support Indigenous rights
“We are being excluded from COP30 negotiations, but it is our land that has been affected.”
Indigenous leaders from Brazil and Malaysia recently travelled to London to urge stronger action from the UK government to protect forests and support the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
The Indigenous leaders took part in meetings with Members of Parliament from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Deforestation. They called for funding to go directly to communities, for legal recognition of Indigenous territories, and for more ambitious legislation in the UK to address deforestation.
They also called for the UK to stop its focus on the carbon market.
On its website, Rainforest Foundation UK writes that,
The delegation raised particular concern over the impacts of forest carbon offset projects, warning that these schemes often bypass communities and enable land grabs by the same companies driving deforestation.
NGOs urge the UK government not to cut aid to protect rainforests
Before the visit, eight UK-based environmental and human rights organisations wrote to the UK government urging the government not to cut aid for protecting tropical rainforests.
On 15 May 2025, an Early Day Motion was tabled in Parliament on UK aid for global forests and Indigenous Peoples. It has so far been signed by 16 MPs from the Liberal Democrat Party, Plaid Cymru, and the Green Party.
It calls on the government to “protect existing forest programmes from aid cuts”, to “restore the aid budget to 0.7% of GNI [gross national income] at the earliest opportunity”, and to “ensure forest protection and Indigenous rights remain central to the UK’s international climate and development strategy ahead of COP30”.
“We do not support carbon credits”
Celine Lim is the Managing Director of the Malaysian NGO, SAVE Rivers. The organisation recently launched a petition against a carbon project in Sarawak together with Sahabat Alam Malaysia, Bruno Manser Fonds, and the Borneo Project.
The Marudi Forest Conservation and Restoration Project is being developed by SaraCarbon, a subsidiary of Samling, one of the most destructive logging companies in Southeast Asia. Communities say they have not been properly consulted and that the project infringes on their native customary land rights.
At the meeting with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Deforestation, Celine Lim said that,
“Indigenous Peoples are sidelined in national laws. Their forests are not recognised as their own. National laws are not enough. The British have a close relationship with Malaysia, and they should leverage this, they should leverage trade to put in place safeguards for Indigenous rights.”
She also said that,
“We do not support carbon credits. It is the same companies who destroyed our forests who are now coming to buy credits. There is no consultation. Credits are false solutions. They justify land grabs.”
“We are being excluded from COP30 negotiations”
Dinamam Tuxá is an Indigenous leader of the Tuxá people, Executive Coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) and Co-chair of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC).
At the meeting in the UK Parliament, Tuxá said that,
“We are being excluded from COP30 negotiations, but it is our land that has been affected. There needs to be a territorial pledge at COP for the legal recognition of Indigenous land, to ensure the recognition of territories. There are currently laws being passed in Brazil that are highly problematic. They criminalise us when we defend our land. They allow companies to pollute our land. They paralyse the demarcation process.”
He criticised the fact that despite the UK government’s promise at COP29 in Baku to provide £169 million to the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Forest Tenure Pledge by 2025, “We did not get access to any of the resources in the IPLC Pledge.”
Investigative journalist David Hill interviewed Tuxá before the meeting in London. Tuxá told him that,
“What we’re asking is that they ensure that the funding that is being pledged actually gets to Indigenous People and the other places it needs to, in order to make a real difference. Of the money that was pledged in Glasgow [US$1.7 billion], only two percent actually got to indigenous people on-the-ground. We need that to change.”
Tuxá said that he didn’t know how much money might be available for Indigenous Peoples at COP30, this year’s UN climate meeting to be held in Belém, Brazil.
He said that the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership is discussing a pledge about land recognition for Indigenous Peoples, which he described as “a global objective to obtain statements and actions supporting the protection and official recognition of indigenous lands throughout the world”. This will be announced at COP30.
In 2021, the UK introduced the Forest Risk Commodity Regulation as part of a larger law called the Environment Act. The regulation would force companies to monitor their supply chains for commodities linked to illegal deforestation.
But four years of government delays have ensured that the law still hasn’t been enacted. A recent report by Global Witness calculates that since 2021, 39,300 hectares of forest has been cleared for commodities imported to the UK.
“We’re pushing for that to be more ambitious,” Tuxá told David Hill. The regulation should cover all deforestation, he said, not just illegal deforestation. Tuxá also wants it to cover more commodities including gold and critical minerals.
And Tuxá told Hill that instead of respecting “local laws”, the legislation should cover international law and Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
David Hill finished the interview with Tuxá by asking if he had any final things to say. Tuxá replied by saying that,
“We’re fed up with greenwashing. What we really, really need are specific, effective measures at COP30 that can actually make a difference. And we really believe that the pledge for territorial demarcation is a way of making very specific, real changes on-the-ground. Another is about having a more ambitious deforestation law in the UK. And we think an essential part of that is for the UK to pressure the Brazilian government to not approve a package of laws currently being discussed that will weaken indigenous land rights and go against our Constitution, and which will allow agribusiness onto our lands.”
The local people in Malaysia stopped a mega-hydroelectric dam and a coal mine, and defeated one of the biggest logging multi nationals in court, and forced Samling Berhad off their customary lands. It’s a constant battle but they can and do win. The perception that there’s nothing they can do is not helping them
Thank you for this! The advancement of Progress always requires the Little People to be sidelined and ignored and absolutely have no place at the table. It's always been that way, but it's time for that to end. Will that cut into profits? YES!