Sawt Falasteen - Indigenous leaders want same clout as world leaders at UN climate talks

Members of about 200 Indigenous communities from Latin American and Pacific territories, including Aboriginal Australians, were taking part in an annual gathering of Indigenous peoples in Brasilia.

Wearing brightly colored traditional dress and body paint, they insisted that Indigenous leaders be given "as much of a voice and power" as world leaders at the UN COP30 conference to be held in the Amazon city of Belem in November.

They also demanded direct funding for environmental protection and projects to help Indigenous communities adapt to the effects of climate change.

Despite living oceans apart, the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and Oceania all live on the frontlines of global warming, with rising sea levels threatening to submerge low-lying Pacific islands like Fiji.

"In the Pacific, we have our unique struggles but we also want to be here and show our peoples here in the Amazon, Indigenous peoples, that we can fight," a Fijian tribal leader, 37-year-old Alisi Rabukawaqa, told AFP in Brasilia.

In South America, meanwhile, a record drought last year laid the conditions for a particularly severe wildfire season.

In Brazil alone, fires wiped out nearly 18 million hectares of Amazon rainforest, according to the MapBiomas monitoring platform.

"For me it's important that Indigenous chiefs are invited to COP30... because leaders living in the villages are the ones who know the huge difficulties presented by the climate issue," said Sinesio Trovao, head of the Brazilian Indigenous Betania Mecurane community.

- 'We are the answer' -

Brazil has announced the creation of a Circle of Indigenous Leadership at COP30 to ensure that Indigenous people are given a hearing.

But Indigenous communities want to make sure their involvement is more than just show.

"We want to see how this can be done, tangibly," Rabukawaqa said.

The week-long rally in Brasilia, convened under the slogan "We are the answer," will include marches on government buildings.

On Tuesday, Congress will hold a special session on Indigenous rights.

By holding COP30 in the Brazilian Amazon, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva aims to highlight the existential threat to the world's biggest rainforest.

On a visit to the Amazon last week he praised the "important role" played by Indigenous communities in the fight against climate change.

While pledging to end illegal Amazon deforestation, the leftist president has come under fire from climate activists for pushing a major offshore oil exploration project near the mouth of the Amazon River.

L.AbuAli--SF-PST