At this year’s UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), Indigenous peoples and organizations, and allied civil society organizations called upon financiers to create and implement policies that uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples globally. The Position Statement on Financiers’ Responsibilities regarding Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Biodiversity was read into the official UNPFII record on April 25, 2025, in New York City (full statement available below and in English, Bahasa Indonesia, French, Portuguese, and Spanish here).
This Position Statement, signed by 75 Indigenous peoples and organizations and allied civil society organizations representing over 34 countries and working globally expresses deep concern that financial institutions continue to fall short in respecting, recognizing, and supporting the rights of Indigenous Peoples. These shortcomings have serious and interrelated consequences for both biodiversity and the climate.
Indigenous Peoples play a critical role in protecting the world’s remaining biodiversity hotspots. Research shows that lands and territories managed by Indigenous Peoples yield the same or better biodiversity outcomes than government-designated protected areas. Nature and biodiversity decrease at a slower rate on Indigenous lands, yet these areas face growing threats from harmful development projects.
Banks and financiers significantly influence which sectors receive funding, directly and indirectly affecting critical ecosystems and the Indigenous communities that depend on and safeguard them. Despite this influence, many financiers—particularly in the private sector—have not developed, let alone implemented, adequate policies to protect Indigenous rights and nature.
To address these critical issues, the 75 signatories to the Position Statement call upon financiers to:
• Adopt and implement robust policies that uphold Indigenous Peoples’ rights;
• Conduct thorough and inclusive due diligence;
• Ensure Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is obtained from affected Indigenous Peoples.
Amid growing global attention to the responsibilities and impacts of financiers on Indigenous communities, the signatories welcome banks and financial institutions to engage meaningfully on the recommendations outlined in the Position Statement.
About the Banks and Biodiversity Initiative and Indigenous Advisory Group
Bank financing in ill-conceived infrastructure development, improper land use changes, fossil fuel energy development, monoculture agricultural production, and extractive industries are driving the disappearance of biodiversity and critical ecosystems.
Despite the significant role banks play in financing these sectors and activities, many financial institutions have yet to develop robust policies or practices to address the biodiversity impacts of their lending. This is why civil society groups, academics, and people’s groups across the world are calling on banks to adopt a No Go areas approach to categorically prohibit financing of harmful activities in or near sensitive areas.
The Banks and Biodiversity Initiative aims to hold banks accountable for their impact on biodiversity and critical ecosystems, and advocates that banks adopt our proposed No Go areas. It is led by a steering committee of civil society organizations which includes: BankTrack, Bank Information Center, Friends of the Earth US, International Rivers, and Rivers without Boundaries.
The Banks and Biodiversity Initiative is also guided by the Indigenous Advisory Group, a group of Indigenous experts who inform and advise the steering committee on the intersection of biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples issues.
Please see our Indigenous Advisory Group members here.
Position Statement on Financiers’ Responsibilities Regarding Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Biodiversity
This statement, signed by 75 Indigenous peoples and organizations and allied civil society organizations, is to articulate the rights of Indigenous Peoples globally and to express our deep concern that financial institutions are continuing to fail to respect, recognize, and strengthen the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and local communities, and in particular, the inherent cross-cutting impacts on biodiversity and climate.
The international financial services sector’s policies and practices overall fail to assess, monitor, and measure the impact of their financing on driving systemic, negative, and long-term unacceptable biodiversity impacts. Actors in the global financial sector are not doing enough to assess, disclose, avoid, reduce, or mitigate adverse impacts on biodiversity as established in the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) Target 15.
Indigenous Peoples play a critical role in protecting the world’s remaining biodiversity hotspots. Research shows that lands and territories managed by Indigenous Peoples yield the same or better biodiversity outcomes than protected areas. Nature and biodiversity decrease at a slower rate on Indigenous lands, and yet, these areas are facing increasing threats and pressures from harmful development.
In light of the recent Sixteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 16), Twenty-ninth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 29), and Twenty-fourth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, we call upon all financiers to create and implement policies that build upon the five key principles for banks to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Financiers must:
➔ Recognize and respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Fairly respect and implement institution-wide commitments to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, women, and local communities in line with international standards,[1] including their physical and intellectual property. These commitments should apply to direct and indirect clients, and to the “corporate group” as defined by the Accountability Framework Initiative. Commitments must be implemented appropriately across all the institution’s financial products and services. Financiers should further ensure that Indigenous Peoples and biodiversity policies or frameworks are complementary and mutually reinforced.
Such commitments must be memorialized in robust policies, implemented in a way that truly monitors and protects the rights of Environmental Defenders affected by financed activities, in line with Target 22 of the GBF, which aims to ensure access to justice, among other things, related to biodiversity by Indigenous Peoples, and local communities.
We demand financiers and the companies they finance to publicly maintain and fulfill their responsibility to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights in line with the highest international legal standards regardless of the political party in power in a host country, a lack of host country laws to protect those rights or, where such laws exist, the inability or unwillingness of the host government to implement such laws. The responsibility remains despite host government laws or efforts that seek to criminalize the efforts and struggles of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to protect their land and territories, livelihoods, and traditions.
When Indigenous Peoples’ rights are violated, we call upon financiers to take immediate action by establishing or actively participating in accessible, effective, and independent grievance mechanisms. These mechanisms must provide meaningful pathways for remediation, accountability, and justice for affected communities. Effective remediation includes reasonable and respectful timeframes, compensation, restoration of rights, or other forms of justice.
➔ Carry out robust due diligence that ensures the elimination of harmful financing, including, at a minimum in eight No Go areas and exclusion areas. No Go areas are those where direct and indirect financing for activities that are unsustainable, extractive, industrial, or environmentally and/or socially harmful should be prohibited, including in specific areas where the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of affected Indigenous communities has not been obtained.
Financiers should ensure that their own appropriate human rights due diligence and engagement with affected communities take place early and throughout the lifecycle of a project or financing relationship and make clear its expectation for corporate clients to do the same. At all times the respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights to participate in decision-making on matters that affect them should be guided by the principle of FPIC.
Financiers’ policies must embrace the fact that financing of corporate activities can infringe on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and lead to further marginalization of those in vulnerable situations. This includes women, girls, elders, Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation or initial contact, Nomadic Peoples, and others in vulnerable situations. Financiers’ engagement processes should recognize these risks, as well as require their recognition by clients, and involve diverse representation from the community, paying particular attention to the equitable participation of Indigenous women and others in vulnerable situations. Such engagement should be inclusive and fully consider impacts on people in vulnerable situations such that further vulnerabilities are not caused or exacerbated by projects. Financiers’ policies should be rooted in the principle of non-discrimination.
➔ Obtain affected Indigenous Peoples’ Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Protecting biodiversity cannot be separated from the protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples. To yield better biodiversity outcomes and as a critical condition to achieving these positive outcomes, financiers must establish or strengthen, and implement policies, including grievance mechanisms, that respect and uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples as prescribed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Project level grievance mechanisms should be fair, accessible, and effective.
Signed by:
Indigenous Peoples, including on behalf an Indigenous community or organization
Alexander Arbachakov, Taiga Research and Protection Agency
Anayanse Garza
Anna Maria Giordano
Carla Sofia Santos
Chantal Noa Forbes
Daniel Horgan
Emily Cook
Erika Rosales
Hussain Jarwar
Ieuan Owen
Jeanette Marie Degollado – Alarcon
Jynx Houston, SAFES
Mike Levy
Norman Jiwan, Lembaga Bentang Alam Hijau (LemBAH)
Paramount Chief Khaesen Maart, Aikonese Cochoqua Khoi Tribal Council
Pearl Shing
Rayyan Hassan
RICHARD ANTONIO FERNANDEZ CHAVEZ, COORDINADORA AYMARA DE DEFENSA DE LOS RECURSOS NATURALES
Rocío Becerra Montane, Seminario de Investigación sobre Sociedad del Conocimiento y Diversidad Cultural UNAM
Rodrigo Allegretti Venzon
Sirito Yana Aloema, Organization of Indigenous People in Suriname (OIS)
Sophia Vassilakidis
Stanley Stanis Kaka, Kasela Palu Group
Stephen R Wiley
Tom Tamplin
Umo Isua-Ikoh, Peace Point Development Foundation-PPDF
Organizations comprised of and representing Indigenous Peoples
AbibiNsroma Foundation
ALIANSI MASYARAKAT ADAT NUSANTARA (AMAN) Maluku
Amis de l’Afrique Francophone- Bénin (AMAF-BENIN)
Asia Indigenous Peoples Network on Extractive Industries and Energy (AIPNEE)
Batani Foundation
Chepkitale Indigenous People Development Project
Community Empowerment and Social Justice Network (CEMSOJ)
Consejo de Pueblos de Tezulutlan (CPT)
Femmes Autochtones pour le Développement et l’Environnement (FADE)
International Indigenous Fund for development and solidarity “Batani”
Lumah Parisaha Maluku (LPM)
North American Climate, Conservation and Environment (NACCE)
SIRGE Coalition
Society for Threatened Peoples, Switzerland
Allied organizations
Accountability Counsel
Bank Information Center
BankTrack
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Caroline Shipley, Abya Yala Working Group (The Ohio State University)
CEE Bankwatch Network
Centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED)
Cultural Survival
Decolonial Centre (DCC)
Deep Sea Mining Campaign
Dominican Sisters of Sparkill
Earthjustice
Earthworks
Environmental Defender Law Center (EDLC)
Environmental Paper Network
Facing Finance
Friends of the Earth Japan
Friends of the Earth US
Global Witness
Greenpeace
Greenpeace Indonesia
Jeanette Degollado Studios
Jubilee Australia Research Centre
Lembaga Bantuan Hukum ANGSANA
MELSOL
Milieudefensie
Profundo
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Foundation Norway
Repórter Brasil
Rights CoLab
Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition
Solutions for Our Climate
SURJ NYC
Urgewald
[1] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP); International Labor Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO 169); United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP); and International Finance Corporation Performance Standard 7: Indigenous Peoples (IFC PS7).