Foreign Secretary's speech on Indigenous Peoples and protecting forests

Can I just begin by saying what an absolute honour it is to be standing here as Labour's first Foreign Secretary here at COP after 14 years out of power. And what a pleasure it is to be here as Foreign Secretary sharing the stage with wonderful Indigenous peoples, wonderful philanthropists, ministers - all dedicated to dealing with the climate emergency.  

It's one of the privileges of my life to be back in power. Actually able to do something about this agenda.    

So let me just start by first saying, why do I care about forest tenure rights in the first place.

Second, why should the world care?  

 And third, working together, what we can do about it?  

The bottom line is I got into politics because I care about helping my community secure equity, equal opportunities and justice.  

I represent, in north London, the constituency of Tottenham. It's where I'm from and it would be described traditionally as an inner-city neighbourhood in London.  

So let me just tell you a bit about my story. My parents arrived from Guyana, just on the northeast corner of South America. My father came to Britain in 1956. He was part of what we talk about in Britain as the Windrush generation. Windrush because that was the boat that people first arrived on in 1948, bringing people from the Caribbean.  

Many of them had contributed to the building of Britain after the second World War and fought during the second World War, and they arrived determined, with a gleam in their eye, for a new prospect in life. Over the course of that period then, I'm thinking about the community I represent because many of them faced poverty, and their families have faced poverty. Education was key. Social justice was hugely important to those communities. And, of course, coming from Guyana and the Caribbean I'm thinking about what they left behind.  

In a lecture I gave very recently in Kew, I was reminded that my father used to take me to Kew Gardens in London. I had no reason why as a child he was taking me to the other side of London to hang out in a very large park. And, of course, it was because he wanted to be close to nature. I know that now to be true. And I have committed in my own life to support the rights of Indigenous peoples.  

My wife and I are founders of a conservation centre, it's called Sophia Point. We work on the Essequibo in the middle of the rainforest in Guyana. We work alongside Akawaio, groups of Amerindian people. Helping them preserve what is in their rainforest. Working with the University of Guyana. Helping them with their own rights. Assisting them - they are the custodians of the land. We have a long lease on the land. Working alongside them in a charitable effort. Understanding and wanting to be part of a community that I am originally from.  

But I guess that the other part to that story, of course, is recognising that I stand here as a Briton. We talk about Britain, the green and pleasant land. Think about Robin Hood. You're thinking about Epping Forest and Sherwood Forest, and those wonderful forests that we have in Britain. The point is that all of us have a connection with nature. All of us have a history, and that, in a sense, grounds me as I come to this event. So that's why I dedicated my first major speech as Foreign Secretary to tackling this crisis. 

And is why, I explained in that speech, my commitment not just to the issue and to Sophia Point but what more we could do.  

So how do we build an economic model that allows us to continue to live in harmony with nature. The most heartening aspect of what I've seen at Sophia Point is hearing how it works to give communities agency in their lives. And tenure security gives communities the right to object to environmentally damaging projects and it gives them alternative routes to sustainable livelihoods so that they can thrive as guardians of nature.  

So that's why I care about this issue. Why should you all care sitting there?  

Well, here are just a few statistics. 

Indigenous peoples and local communities manage and live in at least half of the world's land. 

This land contains much of the world's remaining biodiversity and over a third of intact forests.  

The world's forests are declining at an alarming rate – every year, we lose an area that is just a bit larger than Azerbaijan itself. 

But the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities are protected in just 10% per cent of the land in which they reside.  

And over a billion people worldwide feel insecure about their rights to property or land.  

Funding for forest tenure and management is sadly very low – it received less than one per cent of all climate finance in the previous decade, much of which went to governments and NGOs. Almost 2,000 land and environmental defenders were killed between 2012 and 2022, and research shows that these were disproportionately likely to be in Indigenous peoples.  

So the money they get to defend their rights, to be custodians, of our wonderful forest and the danger that they face in much of the world is serious and extreme. That's why it should alert us all.  

Now in recent years, we have seen some positive steps in the right direction. 

Extended rights, with Brazil acknowledging ten new Indigenous Territories since President Lula took office. 

We are seeing new legislation, indeed in Guyana we saw new legislation, but also places like the Democratic Republic of Congo's law on Indigenous peoples' rights. 

We're seeing greater implementation, such as Indonesia's rollout of its social forestry programme,  

And more focus from donors, with increasing engagement at events like this one.  

Still, we are starting from such a low base that there is much, much more that we need to do. 

Today's event is about what precisely we should be doing.  

There will be lots of ideas in this room, but I want to kickstart just some ideas about how we can play a role.  

If you are a donor – whether from a government like mine or a philanthropic foundation - this is about commitment, and it's about the long haul. Sustained commitment. 

Committing to funding for nature, committing to funding for forests, and committing for forest communities, particularly their livelihoods and their rights to protect that nature on our behalf.  

I am pleased to confirm that the UK will ensure that of our £11.6 billion in climate finance, three billion will be for nature and within that 1.5 billion for forests.  

With us today are key partners in that, our wonderful friends from Norway who have got a longstanding commitment in this area and of course the Bezos Foundation who have done so much amongst the twenty-five donors who, with the UK, made the IPLC Forest Tenure Pledge at COP26 in Glasgow, which assigned 1.7 billion dollars by 2025.  

I am delighted we are on track to meet that commitment and to confirm the UK will play its part, keeping our promise to provide over 10% of that funding.  

And I hope today we can talk about how we develop the next phase of that historic Pledge, next year in Brazil. To show our commitment beyond 2025, I can also announce a new 10-year programme. 

Which will provide initial funding of £50 million over two years to reduce illegal logging and benefit forest people.  

This builds on partnerships the UK has been forming in these communities for decades and generations, going almost back to when I first started in politics 25 years ago. 

And we are complementing this with new initiatives that invest even further in forest communities. 

A £94 million programme to strengthen forest communities' voices in governance processes particularly for the Amazon, and a project to train local scientists in the Congo Basin.  

Now if you are a partner government like Brazil, or many others who are here today, this is also about guaranteeing rights.  

As I have said, there are some really important examples of this happening around the world.  

And I hope countries like the UK can work with you to build on this.  

This year, for instance, we launched a Land Facility programme to partner with Global South governments to develop more effective and transparent land governance systems, that better protect rural and forest tenure rights and I hope this model is one that we can continue to build on.  

Last, but not least, for Indigenous peoples and local communities, I hope this can be about seizing an opportunity. 

I recognise you have been speaking up for decades. 

Fighting to be heard with your own heritage, and thanks to the many Indigenous communities that I have met over the last few years, I am all too aware that there can be a powerful sense that the system is rigged against you.  

But I hope that, as quickly as possible, we can turn things around. 

Ensure that your rights are protected under the law.  

And that you have the tools you need to make the right choices for you, for your communities and for your environment.  

This is our goal for the next IPLC Forest Tenure Pledge. Our goal for the new programmes I have announced.  

But I don't want you to take my word for it. 

We need, more than anything else, to listen to you, to hear you, and to hear how we can continue to make further improvements.  

Let me just end with one story. The community that I work with on the Essequibo coast in the rainforest of Guyana. When we were building the conservation centre, because of some of these rights issues, too often what was happening on their land is illegal mining, some of it very dirty, very disruptive to the environment.  

But communities from the Indigenous Amerindian communities finding that they had to do that because it was all they could do. The conservation centre brings new people alongside them into the environment. It brings scientists, academics, not doing helicopter science, flying in and flying out with the knowledge, but actually working with local communities on the IP, working with local university students on the IP alongside them.  

Again, that brings livelihoods to those communities. It brings documentary filmmakers and others because Guyana is a region of the top of the Amazon base and is less well known.  

So that's what I mean about coming alongside communities, able to give them livelihoods, livelihoods based on rights and purpose that helps us all in this global fight to make sure that our forests make that contribution to our desire to meet that 1.5 commitment.  

As I say it's a great, great privilege to be here for my first event as Foreign Secretary in the UK. Centring of course climate within broader foreign policy and I'm very pleased now that we're able to watch a video about why Indigenous peoples and local communities really matter. 

Thank you very much.