This is a critical year for the natural environment. Negotiations by world leaders in Montreal in December will determine the fate of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, a far-reaching agreement that will set the world’s environmental agenda for the next decade. The future of perhaps a million plant and animal species hangs in the balance, as do the lives and livelihoods of billions of human beings.
Biodiversity is not about simply counting trees, birds, fish, or insects. These certainly matter, but so too does the broader balance of the ecosystems on which we and many other species rely. Moreover, “we” must include indigenous peoples, who have a particularly important role to play in environmental talks.
I am one of them. My people, the Mbororo of Chad, are like many other groups that have ancient ties to ancestral lands around the world. We are proven stewards of much of the world’s precious yet dwindling natural inheritance. Deforestation on our lands is much lower than elsewhere. Vegetation is thicker, wildlife is more abundant, food chains are sturdier. Where we live, nature’s vitality has not yet been extinguished. As much as one-third of the world’s tropical forests, peatlands, and mangroves — carbon-dense ecosystems that account for 80% of global biodiversity — are found on indigenous lands.
