Representative territorial organizations of indigenous peoples and local communities are of vital importance to the success of COP 26. The leaders of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (AGCT), Tuntiak Katan and Levi Sucre, and the British Ambassador agree on this. Designated for Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Ben Lyster-Binns.
The representatives of the AGCT held a meeting with the Ambassador in San José, Costa Rica, this May 18. At the meeting, they presented the AGCT as the representative organization of indigenous and local communities that administer 800 million hectares of forest. As Guardians of the Forest, the organizations that make up the AGCT seek to have an active participation in COP 26, to be held in Glasgow, United Kingdom, in November 2021.
Ambassador Lyster-Binns celebrated the space for dialogue, and highlighted that the opening of an equal space is one of the priorities of the Presidency of the COP, in London. COP 26 President Alok Sharma has called for “an inclusive summit, where all voices are heard, including the voices of developing countries, women, youth and indigenous peoples”. Along these lines, the Ambassador to Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
In this sense, the Ambassador called for joint work with the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests in the region, and with the AGCT at the global level.
The relationship of the indigenous organizations of the Red Indígena Bribri Cabécar (RIBCA), a member of AMPB, has opened a channel of conversations with the British mission in Costa Rica. In March, the young Azalia Calderón, from the RIBCA Youth Network, participated in a meeting with Alok Sharma, in which she exposed the relevance of indigenous youth in climate action.
On May 5, 2021, Heylin Sánchez, from the Association of Indigenous Women of Talamanca Cabécar, Kábata Könana, spoke with Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, and International Champion of the United Kingdom in Adaptation and Resilience for the Presidency of COP26, on the actions that women lead in their territory for resilience and food security.
