Indigenous people advocate for their rights at Asia-Pacific forum

Author: John Krich

Bangkok, Thailand – Representatives of the Asia-Pacific’s Indigenous peoples asserted their roles and rights in the green energy transition today, the final day of the 2026 Asia-Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development.

The 24-27 February forum at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok assessed the status of efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development agenda for 2030.

Asia is home to two thirds of the world’s Indigenous groups, approximately 350 million people more spread among 2,000 distinct cultures, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office.

While renewable energy capacity is expanding, many Indigenous communities have limited access to affordable and reliable energy, are unable to significantly participate in decision-making and are exposed to the social and environmental dangers of large-scale projects.

Indigenous activists were brought together today by the multi-group Right Energy Partnership with Indigenous Peoples, UN Women, United Nations Environment Programme, and Heinrich Boll Stiftung Southeast Asia for a discussion, From Voices to Action: Indigenous Leadership in Achieving Affordable and Clean Energy for All.

Athena Denise Galao, Programme Coordinator on Climate Change for UN Women, laid out the challenges still to be met: making financial mechanisms more accessible to Indigenous-led projects, integrating indigenous knowledge into policy designs, and above, all guaranteeing that “renewable energy expansion cannot come at the expense of territorial rights”.

Monika Chaudhary reported on the activities of the Tharu Women Upliftment Centre in Nepal, where Tharu people make up between 36 and 50 per cent of the population. There, training in cooking stoves and solar pumps have turned Indigenous women into technicians, income earners and decision makers. Still, she says, representation in energy projects is “barely there” and access to financing “nearly impossible”.

Joe Baxter Bernard of Malaysia spoke for TONIBUNG, an Indigenous-led non-profit group that develops sustainable alternatives for rural electrification while advocating for native rights. Centred in Sabah State in northern Borneo, the grass-roots organization has reached several dozen kampung (villages) on Malaysian Borneo island. These villages have set up their own energy committees, assessed needs, decided on charges, and have begun running their own maintenance funds – all aimed at “true community ownership”.

Shamah Silvosa Bulangis, co-founder of Girls Congress, a feminist organization in the Philippines, spoke of how “Indigenous lands are too often treated as sacrifice zones” for energy projects, where data is tied to corporate cycles. Bulangis said energy development should first serve daily life, for instance in maintaining refrigerator and communication lines when typhoons hit. “Indigenous women and youth are already leading” — it’s funders who need to catch up, she said.

The meeting set out a region-wide demand for Indigenous rights to become national law and for Indigenous women and youth to become equipped not just to participate, but to lead.

Romchat Wachirarattanakornkul, Human Rights, Climate Change and Environment Focal Point, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, South-East Asia Regional Office, said “Power imbalances need to be named and addressed,” and “We cannot speak about clean energy while silencing those who defend the lands where energy is produced.”