Indigenous Autonomy and Self-Determination in International Forest Financing Strategy: A Case Study from the Indigenous Bribri People of Cost Rica

Abstract

The efforts to protect the global environment, in principle, reflect Indigenous priorities through an appropriate cosmological perspective. However, international forest financing strategies through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are solely negotiated and agreed upon through state powers and governments, with nothing more than a symbolic gesture toward the essentiality of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Indigenous Peoples. The autonomy of Indigenous Peoples to negotiate their own financing models and forest conservation strategies are neglected in these international conventions, and are consequently relegated to the impulse of national governments. Despite Costa Rica’s adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the ratification of the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169, and the passing of the 1977 Indigenous Law legally demarcating Indigenous territories in Costa Rica, the failure to recognize Indigenous autonomy and self-determination is a blight on Costa Rica’s record. My research in one of the Indigenous Bribri territories in Costa Rica demonstrates that while international forest financing strategies are a contemporary hot topic and pertinent issue of international diplomacy, it is essential that Costa Rica and other nations codify Indigenous autonomy and self-determination within these strategy developments for climate change mitigation.