'Tired of Your Lies': Indigenous Peoples Spoke Out, But COP30 Failed to Listen

As COP30 concluded, the outcome for forests and the Indigenous peoples most affected by their fate was bittersweet.

Protests outside Aldeia COP—a temporary village that saw 3,000 leaders from across Brazil camping in Belém during COP30—took on a different form.

(Photo: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

A lone woman, performing her protest through poetry right at the entrance to the COP30 venue, breaks down in the final verse.

"Indigenous peoples don’t need your money. We are completely tired of all the lies told inside there," says Djatchy Ka’a Tupinambá into a mic, making every passerby stop and listen.

"Shame to all the liars and cowards. Go home."

"Indigenous peoples don’t need your money. We are completely tired of all the lies told inside there," says Djatchy Ka’a Tupinambá into a mic, making every passerby stop and listen.

(Photos: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

Djatchy, 34, from the Tupinambá Indigenous community, is wearing a cape made out of hay, and a feathered headdress. Holding two maracas, or rattles, in one hand, she breaks into a protest song every now and then, undeterred by Belém's scorching sun.

A day earlier, on Monday, 17 November, protests outside Aldeia COP—a temporary village that saw 3,000 leaders from across Brazil camping in Belém during COP30—took on a different form. Here, a sea of Indigenous protesters draped in colourful capes and feathers, took to the streets in a long march of protest.

"We are the answer, not fossil fuels," they chanted in unison.

Protesters carrying a banner that reads, "COP30: The answer is us. Not fossil fuels."

(Photo: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

"We are nature," indigenous people,  who see "forests not as property, but as sacred, living territory," chanted in unison.

(Photo: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

Activists and local journalists at the protest site explain to non-Portugese-speaking reporters that for Indigenous peoples, "forests are not property, but a sacred, living territory.”

Their main ask is protection of their forests through land demarcation exercises promised in the Brazilian constitution in 1988, adds Uilton Tuxa, who works at the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil.

Protesters carrying a banner demanding indigenous leadership for climate justice on Monday, 17 November.

(Photo: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

Back inside the COP30 venue, an art installation, which uses paint made entirely from the ashes from forest fires in the Amazon, has a chilling effect, making it hard to ignore the artist and Brazilian activist Mundano's message to the powers that be at COP30—'Rise for Forests'.

An art installation, which uses paint made entirely from the ashes from forest fires, has a chilling effect at the COP30 venue.

(Photo: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

Land rights, fossil fuel phase‑out, and an end to deforestation—COP30's two weeks were marked by varied protests. Although the second week passed without incident, the first week saw dozens of Indigenous protesters clash with security guards in a rare outbreak of violence at the UN climate talks.

When Belém was selected as the site for COP30, questions were repeatedly raised about the rationale behind the decision. After all, Belém hardly had the infrastructure to host an event of this magnitude—the second-largest COP in history. But President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva time and again defended the decision, calling COP30 'the COP of the Amazon', and the one "to reflect what the summit stands for truly."

But as the world’s largest climate summit concludes, the outcome for the rainforest and Indigenous peoples most affected by its fate was bittersweet.

The 'Roadmaps' That Fell Short

At COP26, more than 130 countries had pledged to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. Yet, according to the latest edition of the Forest Declaration Assessment, which tracks collective progress toward the 2030 forest goals, "deforestation and degradation rates remained stubbornly high in 2024.”

"At the halfway point to 2030, the world should be seeing a steep decline in deforestation. Instead, the global deforestation curve has not begun to bend," the 2025 report released last month noted.

Going into COP30, there was growing support for a 'roadmap' to achieve the 2030 deforestation target. By the second week, at least 92 countries had backed the proposal, according to Carbon Brief.

A protester carrying a placard that reads 'Make polluters pay' at the Aldeia COP protest. 

(Photo: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

But the final outcome fell far short.

In the closing plenary of the UN summit, a ‘roadmap’ to end deforestation failed to make it to the final mutirão decision agreed at COP30. Instead, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago orally announced a "compromise", saying the 'roadmap' will sit outside the formal UN process. The same applied to the 'roadmap' to phase out fossil fuels, even though several countries had warned they would block the climate deal that failed to include it.

Even more troubling was the fact that an earlier draft of the mutirão decision had included optional language to establish a “high‑level ministerial round table” to help countries design national 'roadmaps' for both reversing deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels.

The final text, however, adds, "Mindful of being in the heart of the Amazon and emphasising the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems towards achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goal, including through enhanced efforts towards halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 in accordance with Article 5 of the Paris Agreement..."

"Despite the Brazilian presidency’s efforts and support from at least 86 countries, negotiators were unable to agree on any direct mention of the transition away from fossil fuels in formal texts. Likewise, while more than 90 countries backed an implementation plan to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030, wider political will to secure this in Belém was lacking, even with the Amazon rainforest as the summit’s backdrop," WWF said in a statement.

Carolina Pasquali, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil, added,

"President Lula set the bar high in calling for roadmaps to end fossil fuels and deforestation, but a divided multilateral landscape was unable to hurdle it. This was a crossroad – a properly funded path to 1.5°C or a highway to climate catastrophe – and while many governments are willing to act, a powerful minority is not."

Carolina Pasquali

A Bold Forest Finance Plan, With Uneven Backing

Even President Lula’s much‑hyped Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) was a mixed bag.

Ahead of COP30, experts told The Quint that the TFFF "looked like a good promise as it will be another way of securing funding for tropical forests".

However, the ambitious $125 billion fund specifically designed to reward tropical nations for keeping their forests standing got a lacklustre response, with only a handful of countries, including the host Brazil, pledging around $6 billion in total for communities working to protect rainforests. India was among those who backed the fund as an observer.

Speaking to The Quint, experts voiced concerns over its blended financial design, which aims to raise $25 billion from countries and leverage that capital to draw an additional $100 billion from private investors in the global bond market.

"The limp fundraising response shows a growing scepticism towards market-led forest protection schemes,” Amruta S, Climate Campaigner at Greenpeace India, told The Quint.

"The TFFF proposes to borrow money and invest it globally, hoping to generate returns for forest protection. This approach prioritises profit-making over ecological outcomes, with most of the gains likely to flow to banks, fund managers, and consultants, while the actual custodians of tropical forests, Indigenous peoples and forest communities, receive whatever remains."

The fund also requires countries to allocate 20 percent of the resources specifically to Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, something that has come under scrutiny for its transparency and effectiveness. Following its launch, the TFFF reportedly faced rejection from 150 civil society groups and Indigenous organisations, who argued that it does not put Indigenous peoples and local communities at the forefront.

Fiore Longo, coordinator of Survival’s Decolonise Conservation campaign, said in a statement,

"The TFFF is fundamentally flawed as it would rely on earnings from the very companies that have been responsible for destroying tropical forests. It would then direct only a derisory 20 percent of its funds to the people who have been most effective in protecting tropical forests, that is Indigenous peoples.”

Other experts, however, pointed out that the TFFF still has "real potential".

Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO, World Resources Institute, said in a statement, "Belém, gateway to the Amazon, was a powerful setting for nature to take center stage ‒ not as a side issue, but as core to climate success. The TFFF has real potential to be a breakthrough for the world’s forests, and now more countries must step up with the finance required to turn promise into progress."

Small Steps Toward Land Rights, Representation

COP30 saw the highest level of Indigenous participation, one of its big wins. However, Neha Saigal, Director, Gender and Climate Programme, Asar Social Impact Advisors, tells The Quint, "While visibility exists, there is a long way to go in truly acknowledging that their knowledge and leadership are critical to decision-making, especially in climate negotiations."

She adds,

"If their voices and demands had been taken into consideration, we would have seen stronger language, and at least a clearer decision, on both fossil fuels and deforestation."

Neha Saigal

COP30 also saw a modest victory for the Indigenous peoples on land rights, most evident in the Monday protest at Aldeia COP.

Protesters holding banners in Portugese with slogans like 'Indigenous rights are not negotiatiable' and demanding land demarcation.

(Photo: Shelly Walia/The Quint)

One of their key demands going into COP30 was progress on Indigenous land demarcation, a legal process that formally recognises Indigenous territories, granting them protected status, and ensuring that Brazil's original peoples have authority over their land.

During the second week at COP30, the Brazil government announced the demarcation of 10 Indigenous lands.

"In 2024, the Government of Brazil recognised Indigenous permanent possession over 11 territories. With the signing of the new ordinances, 21 Indigenous lands are now officially recognised," read the statement from the Secretariat for Social Communication of the Presidency, adding that there had been no new demarcations since 2018 until the Lula government returned to power.

"Each and every indigenous territory in Brazil is a reason to celebrate and is a reason for us to feel happy," Dinaman Tuxá from the group Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil told the BBC at COP30. "Indigenous peoples today protect 82 percent of the world's biodiversity. If you demarcate indigenous lands, you guarantee this area will be protected."