Indigenous Health in Unexpected Places Plant Medicine, Economic Wellbeing, and Biodiversity Across International Agencies and Bodies: WEF, WIPO, CBD, UNESCO & WHO (UNPFII Side Event) Economic and Social Council Date: 23 April 2026 Language: English Transcript: https://transcripts.un.org/ar/asset/k1x/k1xw0yo4wx?lang=en Transcripts available through this tool are created by using automatic speech recognition and are not official records nor official documents of the United Nations. Official records and official documents are available on the Official Document System of the United Nations. --- NARF · Senior Staff Attorney; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Sue Noe [0:00]: Thank you for joining us. I'm Sue Noe. I'm a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund based in Boulder, Colorado. And for those of you who don't know us, the Native American Rights Fund is the oldest and largest nonprofit law firm in the United States representing Native American tribes and other indigenous peoples. Together with Kristen Carpenter, who is a distinguished university professor and counsel tree professor of law, as well as director of the American Indian Law Program at the University of Colorado Law School, I serve as co-director of the implementation project. And this is a joint initiative of our two institutions that advances advocacy and education around the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And everyone should have received a copy of our UN Declaration booklet. And if you don't, if you're sitting in the back and don't have one in your chair, please pick up one on your way out. We also have sign-in sheets available that are out here on the table. And so please sign up if you'd like to join our e-mail list for the implementation project. I want to start today by thanking our speakers and our co-sponsors, the National Congress of American Indians, the Native American Church State of New Mexico, the Indigenous Determinants of Health Alliance, and the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers. A special thanks as well to Dean Lolita Buckler Innis, Buckner-Innis, excuse me, who's Dean of the University of Colorado Law School and a fantastic support for the implementation project. We appreciate you so much. I also want to thank our help, our helpers that we've had who are incredible, our implementation project coordinator, Danielle Poyer, and Hannah Aders, who is the American Indian Law Program. fellow at the University of Colorado Law School. I would also like to thank DOSIP and our interpreters for all that they do to support indigenous peoples' participation here at the UN Permanent Forum. The title of our panel this morning is Indigenous Health in Unexpected Places, Plant Medicine, Economic Wellbeing, and Biodiversity Across International Agencies and Bodies. And I think one part, one point that's become clear during this permanent forum session is that all of us who are working to protect Indigenous peoples' rights are in a very real and practical sense health advocates. No matter what our issue area is or what forums we're working in, everything that we're doing has implications for Indigenous health. Improving health, as we've heard, is not just about improving healthcare delivery systems. Languages, cultural rights, land rights, self-determination, access to sacred sites, traditional medicinal knowledge, traditional economies, and other rights must be protected in order to support indigenous health. And one of the challenges that has been identified is the siloing and lack of coordination on health between UN bodies and intergovernmental organizations. Our panel today provides us the opportunity to consider these different but inextricably linked aspects of health and to look at how Indigenous participation and leadership in each of these various forums can contribute to better coordination and a more holistic approach to addressing Indigenous health. I'm now going to very briefly introduce each of our speakers and then invite them to make their remarks. Following our final speaker, Professor Carpenter will offer some reflections and then we'll have some time for Q&A and Professor Carpenter will moderate that. So our first speaker today is President Mark Macarro. President Macarro has been the tribal chairman of the Puyallup Band of Indians for more than 30 years and serves as president of the National Congress of American Indians. President Makaro has dedicated his career to the protection of tribal culture, language, and traditional lifeways, and we're honored to have him deliver opening remarks today. Next up, we have Mr. Jeffrey Roth, who is the board chair of the Indigenous Determinants of Health Alliance. A descendant of the Hunkpapa band of the Lakota Sioux, Mr. Roth was previously an expert member of the UN Permanent Forum, focusing on indigenous health, food systems restoration, and meaningful indigenous representation throughout the UN system and beyond. Following Mr. Roth, we have Ms. Linda Benally, who is an advisor to the Native American Church, State of New Mexico, serving as pro bono counsel in the protection and preservation of indigenous medicinal plants and associated traditional knowledge. A member of the Dine Nation from Shiprock, New Mexico, Ms. Benally also serves as the American Bar Association observer to the UN Economic and Social Council in Geneva. Next, we have Vice Chair Jen Proctor Andrews, who serves as advisor to the UNESCO Global Task Force for Making a Decade of Indigenous Languages, and who is Vice Chair of the Tribal Council for the Coquille Indian Tribe, and Chair of the Miluk Language Alliance. Since her work as a youth on passing the Cocol Tribes Restoration Act, Vice Chair Proctor-Anders has focused on indigenous rights and strategic reform through community engagement, cultural revitalization, indigenous healthcare, and language advocacy. Her inspiration comes from her family, tribe, and students attending her weekly language classes. Finally, we have Ms. Vaughn Sharp, who currently serves as council member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Natural Capital, among other significant board positions she holds. A leader in global innovation on climate justice and indigenous economic sovereignty, Ms. Sharp was also the 23rd president of the National Congress of American Indians and is a former president of the Quinault Indian Nation. With that, I'll invite President Makaro to offer his opening remarks. Thank you. NCAI · President · Mark Macarro [6:52]: Thank you. Good morning, everybody. It's good to be here with all of you. My name is Mark Macarro, and I'm the tribal chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians. I am here, however, in the capacity of being the president of the National Congress of American Indians, which it is in my honor to serve as. NCAI, for short, is the oldest and largest, most representative tribal advocacy organization in the United States, representing 280 sovereign American Indian and Alaska Native peoples in the United States. So I am grateful for the opportunity to open this side event, to join with the implementation project, the Indigenous Determinants of Health Alliance, and other friends to discuss the importance of our own voices in international conversations. So indigenous health. Indigenous health we think of as quality medical care, access to the healthcare that our people need to stay alive, to stay well. The proposition in this space though is it's so much more than that. Indigenous health is really a way of life. And so let me explain this. It is something that is, it's who we are, it's an identity, it's all-encompassing. And let me give you just a couple of examples. And I'll draw on, of course, on my own tribal culture. In our language we have just, for example, three words, the word for rock, the word for cloud, and the word for water, which is tota, towicha, and pala. Those words, there is no plural for those words in our language. In our language we say tota, it's a rock or it could mean rocks. Tovicha is a cloud, it could also mean clouds. And pala, you know, look at this water, look at the cloud, look at the clouds. And for the longest time in my adult lifetime, I wondered why is there no plural for these words? How do you not express that there is more than one cloud in the sky? And the answer is really a cultural one. Each one of these things is a piece of a whole. There's only one cloud. Each cloud is a piece of another. There's only one water, whether it's a spring, the ocean, the creek, a river, it's all from one source. All waters are from one source. All rocks come from the same place, deep inside our Earth Mother. And so these ideas, which I am certain are present in everyone else's indigenous culture and beliefs, are something that runs deep and it unifies us. So when there is illness, disease in our communities that come from climate change, that come from degradation of landscapes, our ability to harvest medicines, for or plant foods or the, our relatives that we, that are in the water, that are on the earth, that we use for food, that becomes, that makes, that makes things be out of balance. And so this concept of health is much bigger. It's tied into what we would call the environment. It's what people say is species protection, endangered species. water rights protection, but it really does all fall under the banner of health. So it is, there was a mention of siloing, and that's usually how we go about daily life in the societies we live in, but in our indigenous spaces, It is all, it's all unified and it's hard to separate these things from each other. So it follows that, you know, health is our world. It's a space around us. Food is medicine. Medicine is food. It nourishes the body, heals the body and the mind and our hearts. And so in doing, in so doing, we become, we become in balance or we stay in balance. And as we do this, we balance our families, we balance our communities, our nations, and ultimately the world around us. Not doing that also leads to being imbalanced or out of balance with all of those things ourselves or our communities or families, the world around us. In 2023, the World Health Organization resolution recognized that health is not and never has been simply a matter of our physical bodies. The continuing impacts of global colonialism and the ways that the social, economic and spiritual impacts of invasion and occupation affected and continue to affect the whole of a person's being. United States no longer considers itself to be part of the World Health Assembly or the World Health Organization. As long as our voice must speak through another polity, we are effectively silenced or muted at best. It is more important than ever that indigenous peoples be at every international table ready to advocate for themselves. As long as indigenous peoples are not able to directly represent themselves at these bodies, the words do not carry the force of their intended meaning. So it remains a relic of colonialism to assume that a colonizer will effectively represent the colonized, especially when their interests diverge, and especially when that has never happened. So, especially, no, we continue nonetheless. We will continue pushing. We will continue advocating. We won't stop doing these things until we create the change that we need and that we deserve. The panel today is very well placed to represent both the substance of our voice and how our voice can best be heard internationally. The speakers here represent the broad scope of what health and well-being mean to us. plant medicines, economic and financial stability, biodiversity, sustainability, and concern for future generations. NCAI is grateful for this chance to uplift indigenous voices here at the Permanent Forum and look forward to speaking with equal volume at all global opportunities. I thank you. May all be well. Thank you. NARF · Senior Staff Attorney; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Sue Noe [13:46]: Thanks so much, President McCarroll, for those words that get us started in a good way, I think, for the panel. So thank you, and I love that beautiful example from your language that really sets the stage for us. I also very quickly wanted just to make sure that everyone who needs interpretation has access to a headphone and that you're getting interpretation. Great. Okay, thank you. Well, with that, I'll turn it over to Jeffrey Roth. IDHA · Board Chair · Jeff Roth [14:17]: Thank you. Hello. Can you hear me? I really want to thank President McCarroll for those framing thoughts. It's heartening to hear all of that work. So thank you very much. My name is Jeff Roth again, and I know she introduced me. My family is from Standing Rock Reservation where actually interestingly, I also am Russian and German that were on the Standing Rock Reservation on my father's side and then also English on my mother's side. Again, I'm a former member of the Permanent Forum here. This is my first year off the Permanent Forum. I'm very excited to go home tomorrow instead of staying for two weeks. I'm ready to sleep in my own bed tomorrow, so that'll be nice. And I really want to thank you for the invitation to be here today. I want to start with just, you know, a simple point, which I think President McCall set up very well. You know, indigenous peoples are advancing our rights across many different areas within the UN system. Health, biodiversity, intellectual property, culture, and economic systems. And all of these areas directly reflect our health and well-being as indigenous peoples. For us, health is not separate. It is connected to land, water, food systems, culture, and governance. So in every space, we're looking at what protects our health and what puts our health at risk. Indigenous health is already discussed in many international spaces that we see, including WIPO, intellectual properties, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the WHO, WEF, and many other entities that are within the UN system. But these systems often work separately. They don't reflect how indigenous systems work or think about health as a connection together in a holistic way. Plant knowledge is often at the center of this issue. So for indigenous peoples, plant knowledge is not just about intellectual property, biodiversity, or medicine. It is a system that connects health and it connects governance, culture, and economic well-being. Because of this, agreements like the WIPO Treaty on Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge are extremely important. But their success really depends on one key question. Will they be implemented together with other systems, or are they going to be implemented in isolation? Today I want to focus on three separate points. One, how plant knowledge functions in indigenous systems. Two, the risk of fragmented policies. And three, wide coordination through frameworks like the Indigenous Determinants of Health are absolutely essential. And I'm sorry, I didn't tell you to change slides. So I think we go on to the next slide now, slide three. Thanks. For Indigenous peoples, plants are not just resources. They are our relatives. They are our medicines. and they're part of our governance systems. They are connected to land and territory. Plant knowledge is held and protected through collective stewardship passed down across our generations. Traditional medicine is not a product or sector. It is a living health system. It is sustained through relationships between people, land and knowledge. Plant systems are also support indigenous economies. They sustain livelihoods and biocultural economies, which are often not recognized in these global systems. When these systems are disrupted through biodiversity loss, restricted access, or appropriation, the impacts are not isolated. They affect health, culture, governance, and economic stability at the same time. The Indigenous Determinants of Health Framework helps explain this. It shows that land and governance and knowledge systems and economies all work together as a foundation of holistic health for Indigenous peoples. This means that control over plant knowledge is directly linked to health system integrity and to economic self-determination for Indigenous peoples. Many medicinal plants cross borders, we know this. And they're governed through relationships and responsibilities, not through ownership, which I'm sure Linda will talk more about. This does not align well with global systems that separate biodiversity from intellectual property, from health, and from economy, economic situations. So when biodiversity is lost, it's not just an environmental issue, it is the loss of health systems and economic systems for our indigenous peoples. This reality must guide how international agencies work with indigenous plants and indigenous plant knowledge. Okay, next slide. Today indigenous peoples, indigenous issues are addressed across many UN agencies, but often in isolation. For example, intellectual property is dealt with at WIPO, biodiversity at the Convention on Biological Diversity, health and pathogen sharing at WHO, as well as the Global Traditional Health and Medicine Center. There is economic systems within the WEF, which we'll hear more about as well. And these processes often move forward without coordinating between each other. For indigenous peoples, this creates a burden. We must engage in many separate systems, often without the resources to do so. In fact, President Sharp and I were talking right at the beginning of this very issue about some major things that are happening and spheres she's working on specifically that I haven't heard about but could be really affected positively by thinking about indigenous determinants of health as a holistic system. You know, we must engage in these separate systems without the resources to do it. And agreements like the WIPO treaty show both opportunity and potentially risk. If indigenous peoples are not included as decision makers, not just consulted, then our role is limited. There are also risks with new systems such as disclosure requirements and databases and traceability systems. Without indigenous control, these can turn our knowledge into data that others can use. This can weaken our protections that have been -- that have taken years to build. Fragmentation creates these gaps across systems. It also -- it allows weaker standards in one system to undermine stronger protections in another system. This can lead to what we call a race to the bottom. It can also result in legal compliance without real protections, continued appropriation without formal systems. There's also a risk to data sovereignty. If indigenous monitoring and controls are not included, we lose control over how knowledge is used. These issues directly affect our sovereignty, our economic equity, cultural continuity, and health systems. If agreements like the WIPO treaty are implemented alone, they may reinforce fragmentation instead of solving it. To prevent misappropriation, we need coordinated systems that reflect how indigenous knowledge actually works across all areas, not in isolation. Next slide. Coordination across agencies is not optional, it is absolutely necessary. Plant knowledge already connects many systems, including FAO plant treaty, the CBD Nagoya Protocol, the WIPO treaty, like we said, the WHO pandemic agreement, the law of the seas, the high seas treaty, the WEF, and the UNFCCC climate processes. The fourth study that we presented here on indigenous determinants of health shows that these are interconnected systems. Health sits at the center. When agencies work separately, it creates duplication, gaps, inconsistent protections. We need alignment across these systems, for example. WIPO must align with CBD frameworks like Article 8. Access and benefit sharing systems must work together. WHO engagement is critical, especially on traditional medicine and new global health agreements. We must also engage with institutions that may be difficult to work with. This includes areas where indigenous systems are not well understood, but engagement is necessary to protect our rights. Economic systems such as those discussed at WEF must recognize that indigenous plant systems are real economies, not informal or secondary. Climate and biodiversity finance must be aligned so they do not create new pressures on indigenous lands and knowledge. Across all systems, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must guide implementation, and this includes FPIC, self-determination, and data sovereignty. From our perspective, coordination is not administrative. It is protection. Without coordination, rights can be weakened through inconsistency. We cannot sacrifice consent for speed or innovation. The Indigenous Determinants of Health Framework offers a solution. It's already recognized at the WHO and in the CBD processes, and it provides ways to connect land, knowledge, health, and economic systems. This allows for implementation that reflects reality. In the end, the success of agreements like the WIPO treaty will depend on whether they are implemented within a coordinated system. Strong indigenous leadership is essential right now for the globe and at the indigenous determinants of health, we're here to help. So thanks. NARF · Senior Staff Attorney; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Sue Noe [25:31]: Thank you, Mr. Ross, for that wonderful presentation. Now I'd like to turn it over to our next speaker, Ms. Linda Benally. NACSNM · Advisor · Linda Benally [25:45]: Thank you to everyone who's present today. My name is Linda Benally. Thank you for the introduction, Sue. Thank you to my commenters who spoke just before I did. I'm really delighted to be here today. The opportunity to present in this international forum is taken quite a bit to get here, so I do tremendously appreciate the opportunity. With me today is the president of the Native American Church State of New Mexico, Mr. Leo Dayish, and his wife, Dr. Delfina Dayish, and I'm just extremely touched that they are here with us. Today I'll be presenting on indigenous health and plant medicines, And we can go to the next slide. As you've already heard from the speakers, indigenous health is often described as holistic, and it links physical, mental, spiritual, and environmental wellbeing. And fundamental to indigenous health are access to plant medicines and ceremonial knowledge. They are poor pardon me, a core part of cultural continuity, including the connection to land where these plant medicines grow, to the native language and how we describe these plant medicines and the ceremonies, the community in which we gather to participate and maintain our well-being in the ceremonies, and then as a tribal community, the self-determination. Next slide. So in the United States of America, the Peyote tradition or religion is commonly referred to as the Native American Church. It's considered a tribal religion and among one of the oldest human religious traditions with ancient origins among indigenous peoples of Mexico and it spread to tribes in the United States prior to the 19th century. The NAC reveres the medicine, a cultural medicinal plant in their ceremonial practices. Today there are an estimated 300,000 Native American church members across the United States, and many of the tribal citizens are members of what we refer to fondly our peyote tribes. Next slide, please. Like many other indigenous peoples' ways and life ways and practices, we also have experienced suppression and have fought for legal protection. We've had a number of different issues that we face, which I'll touch upon in a moment. The name itself even, the Native American Church, emerged in the early 1900s as a legal mechanism. The community was trying to find a way for the non-indigenous peoples to understand what the ceremony was about. And they had to put a moniker on it in order for the policy makers to understand that this was a revered practice and a way of life. And so it's much more than a religion. And I think President Macarro spoke it nicely when he said it's a way of life. It's been subject to US federal regulations since 1965. I will also say that the Native American Church has achieved recognition of the right to practice under the 1994 amendments to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. So that was a tremendous outcome that occurred. You'll also have heard earlier this morning and then you'll hear many times over that land dispossession and forced relocation disrupted the indigenous healing systems. The criminalization of ceremonies also undermined spiritual health and community health. And in the United States, the Court of Indian Offenses was established in 1883 to do just that. Government health systems have also dismissed indigenous medicines and the authority of traditional healers. And as a result of all of that occurring over the many years, there are threats to medicinal plant habitat and access to those habitats. So as a practical matter, the human right to practice the peyote religion cannot be sustained if the medicinal plant remains threatened. It's threatened sustainability of the medicinal plant habitat due to environmental degradation that was already mentioned as well as land development. And then the other is related to access limitations. A lot of the plant medicines, I would venture to say not only the peyote cactus, but other plants across the globe that indigenous people use are outside their realm of control. They are now owned by either private property owners or by the national government of the country in which they come from. And then more recently, a more contemporary issue perhaps that's made it into the forefront is the appropriation of plant medicine and ceremonial traditional knowledge. So what brings us to the United Nations is this year's theme, indigenous health holistic framework. You just heard from Mr. Roth and he did a tremendous job in explaining indigenous health and the determinants of health and all the framework around that. And I'm gonna narrow that just a little bit and talk about the fact that indigenous plant medicines are foundational elements of indigenous health systems and are inseparable from relationships to land, territory, and traditional knowledge. And continued access to these plant medicines depends directly on the health of the lands as well as the ecosystems on which they thrive. And again, if there is development that's impacting the medicinal plants, there's environmental degradation, it damages the places where they grow. And I will also state that as we're sitting here in this room today, the medicinal plant is being root plowed by its root where it can no longer thrive. And that's the experience that we're seeing in the United States. And because of that, indigenous health is directly and measurably harmed. So now I'd like to shift a little bit to the international rights and policy framework. Mr. Roth talked about how these need to work in concert. We have the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that affirm our rights, indigenous people's rights to culture, religion, and traditional medicines and plants. And you see on the screen there are a number of articles that I've listed. And I will tell you that when the client had me first arrive at the UN to do this work, I heard terms rights holder and duty bearer. And I think you can hear a little bit more about that with my other speakers on the panel, but that has a lot of meaning. I will say that I stood a bit taller as I heard that I had rights that were inherent because we are indigenous peoples. And the UN declaration is a stronghold for the work that we're doing. And then you also heard about the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol, focusing on fair and equitable benefit sharing and the use of prior informed consent, and then also the mutually agreed terms that come from that. You also heard about the World Intellectual Property Organization and what's referred to as the GRATK, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge Treaty, which really, the focus of that is to promote transparency in the patent systems that help reduce risk of patents being granted in error when those patents are premised on genetic resources that are traditional plants or the associated traditional knowledge. These international rights and policy frameworks are important along with the international safeguards that come with them. But in order for them to work, as you've heard very eloquently from Mr. Roth, they have to work in concert. They have to be supportive of one another. They have to harmonize. And in some instances, that doesn't happen. So for effectiveness and efficacy, these safeguards must be coordinated, and the free, prior, and informed consent is key. representative engagement. Guidance often emphasizes speaking with community recognized elders, ceremonial leaders, traditional practitioners, and other knowledge keepers. It's important that the safeguards advance representative engagement across all the platforms. And then you also heard about the indigenous determinants of health. What I'd like to do in just a few minutes that I have left is the next slide, please. So the Native American Church State of New Mexico has been applying these international instruments to protect medicinal plant and associated traditional knowledge. And I wanted to just give you one example. So if we go to the next slide. You'll see in the first column there that this is the initiative mission goal that the Native American Church State of New Mexico has, and it's the protection of plant medicines and associated traditional knowledge. And then we identified the UN body or the issue that we are wanting to address. So we have UNDRIP, which I talked about, the World Health Organization you heard about as well, and then the mandates of each one of these entities, and then the recommendation that is in the fourth column that the organization has brought forward so that the permanent forum can hear our concerns and try to employ, deploy some of the recommendations that we have been here amplifying. And if you go to the next slide, please, you'll see that we've got the WIPO instrument as an important document, and I think this is probably one of the key instruments that truly got this, that the Native American Church State of New Mexico engaged because there were two key terms that were used, genetic resources and traditional knowledge. And if you think about it in a ceremonial setting, you've got genetic resources being the medicinal plant, and then the traditional knowledge are the engagement that's happening within the ceremonial circle, the knowledge transfer that's going on in those ceremonial circles, a lot of those things are not written down and they're shared through practitioners and the delegation, if you will, and from generation to generation. Sometimes you have up to four generations in the ceremonial setting at one time, so you just have a wonderful passing of information. And because of the importance of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, the client felt like this was a really wonderful tool if it was implemented in its best light, that it could prevent the appropriation of medicinal plants and traditional ceremonial knowledge. with that, I'd like to just flip through a few more of the slides and we can keep, okay. And that's just a wrap up of what I've already discussed. And, um, one more slide please. These are a few resources that I wanted to leave you with. I think there's also a very comprehensive resource, takeaway that you'll have that also includes some of these resources. But a lot of the information that I've shared with you is coming from those sources. So thank you so much for allowing me to share the information with you today. NARF · Senior Staff Attorney; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Sue Noe [38:03]: so much, Ms. Benelli, for that very insightful and revealing example of the work that you're doing strategically to participate in each of these different areas. And I think it highlights, again, what Mr. Roth was speaking about with also the burden and the importance of indigenous leadership, but also the challenges of trying to cover all those different forms. So with that, we'll turn it over to Vice Chair Jen Proctor Andrews. Vice Chair · Jen Proctor Andrews [38:47]: Thank you. Thank you. Hello friends and cousins. It's fantastic to see you all here and it's wonderful to work together today. Thank you to the implementation project for holding this space for us to help each other and transmit this knowledge. It's so important to have this space. It's very rare to find this in our world with indigenous people. So I very much appreciate it and the comments of all the speakers and the time involved here. I'm going to provide some examples of work at the local level. And like President Makaro, I'm going to begin by teaching you a word that's important to me. The word in the Miluk language is mana'iyas. It means creator, ancestors, and family. And so in the Miluk language, mana'iyas that role of creator or active creation can also take the role of ancestors, those who gave us life and those who created and managed our environment and the world, the concentric ecosystem in which we live and which we thrive. Mani'iyas provides an example of how indigenous languages transmit belief systems related to how we view ourselves, are placed in the timeline of family, community, and our independent and collective responsibilities to our human and non-human relatives. At the Kokowail tribe, we're teaching children historical stories in language and words for our plants and foods to ensure the stronger protection of their future permanence. When we ensure that future of our culture, we ensure the future of our people and our sovereignty. the future of our rights is interconnected as well. And this is important because language loss and that knowledge of the power of medicine contained within indigenous languages, that medicine that Linda talked so eloquently about, that is all contained in indigenous languages. And the preservation of these languages is so important for that transmission. And Indigenous language loss has proven to be a bigger threat to biodiversity than climate change. And that development that Linda talked about, how a plant is being uprooted right now somewhere, the knowledge of that plant is also being lost with the loss of the language. The revitalization of our languages also provides sense of cultural joy in our community. We've seen joy in places that we haven't seen since colonization. identity and community to our people in a way we have not experienced in generations. We have children teaching elders language at our gatherings. We're placing our language revitalization efforts in the context of health. The practice of learning and speaking allows us to view our world through the eyes of our ancestors. And that reinforces our sense of identity in relation to each other and the world around us. And when our children learn that, they're building confidence, connections to their community in this unique Coquale knowledge base, which they will rely on later in life as they build their sense of identity and learn to navigate their complicated modern world as Coquale citizens. The sense of identity and community and continuity is an effective protective factor against adversity. one of those protective factors that Jeff talked about that really acts as a shield as we navigate this modern life and our children go out into the world. And when we teach this language revitalization, we teach them the history of our languages and how they were taken from us. We didn't lose our languages. They were taken from us through boarding schools and other assimilation practices. that violated our human rights. And our children don't learn about this part of history in schools, so it's important that we impart this knowledge to them. It enables them to understand how important it is to know the difference between rights, rights holders, and stakes, stakeholders. So I've heard that term stakeholders comes from colonization and people coming and putting stakes in the land and saying it's theirs. So this is not a place to be using that term stakeholders. So when we know what it means to be rights holders and know the history of our languages, we can all better understand the importance of speaking and advocating for the continuation of our languages in the future. The children feel empowered instead of helpless, are better prepared to live in a world that often does not understand or respect their unique rights as indigenous people. So recently, the Coquille Tribe passed Chapter 146 of our tribal code, the groundbreaking Indigenous Determinants of Health Ordinance, which we're very proud of. And we'll thank Mr. Roth for his work on this with us as well. So this is placing the healthcare of our people at the forefront to refine the vision of health of our people. through holistic initiatives that are designed to promote a healthy community. And this isn't really new. It is new in this place of law, in this area that we now work. And it provides a framework. The ordinance ensures that internal operations at our tribe, the outward facing actions, and external agencies whose decisions affect the tribe are in alignment with promoting the health and wellbeing of our citizens. In this grounded in self-determination, collective rights, intergenerational knowledge, and relational accountability within a kin-centric ecosystem. And this ordinance, I'll quote a section from the ordinance. It reflects the tribe's commitment to reassume responsibility for the health of its members and their families, exercising our rights to self-determination and self-governance, where individual and community needs are met while maintaining an equilibrium with lands and resources, where tribal citizens, families, and culture are resilient to adversity and grounded in spirituality, language, culture, and shared through generations. The ordinance helps us reframe healthcare as a right implemented through mobilization of resources to provide access to clean air and water, cultural activities, traditional food systems, and health outcomes that have been displaced or erased through acts of colonization. And we know that all of these components of indigenous life are directly related to our health outcomes. So what we're doing is placing this as tribal law. And I see language as a cornerstone of indigenous health. maybe because I learn and teach the language, but I see it as one of those cross-cutting elements. We all learn language, and once we have it, it's part of our education, and it's very hard to take away. So I'll go to some of my work on the Global Task Force for Making a Decade of Action for Indigenous Language. I'm deeply concerned about the effects of the conflation of rights holders versus stakeholders, and I'll read quickly the mandate from the Indigenous Language Global Action Plan. To ensure the equitable participation of all stakeholders in the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. So when I was first appointed to this group, I read this was the first thing I read, the mandate, and I knew right away where I needed to start my work. And so it was very evident. And I wanted to also add that it's unfunded, and so that is another place to do the work as well. Yeah. So So we're to provide guidance on the preparation, planning, implementation, and monitoring of activities in line with the objectives of the Global Action Plan. So starting in right away on the language that we use in our all of our different agencies and throughout the UN system, and then how that affects our work. And speakers of indigenous languages, as I've said before, are often referred to as stakeholders, and there are stakeholders who are involved as well. But it's important, I think, to remember that as rights holders, we're the people we're the descendants of ancestors who have shaped our languages through thousands of years of speaking in ceremony, and song and transmitting ideas and information about the lands, waters, and plants and animals and the stories that contain their cultural and practical and medicinal values. And our people have developed alongside our languages for thousands of years. And that's the difference to me between stakeholders and rights holders. So our status as rights holders should be explicit. and protected from commodification by outside actors who might profit from exploiting the language. And I'm happy to be starting this work. And thank you for the space here. We're still here. WEF · Council Member, Global Future Council on Natural Capital · Fawn Sharp [49:25]: Good afternoon. It is afternoon. I think it started out as morning. Good afternoon. My name is Fawn Sharp. I am so honored and happy to be here. I first of all want to thank the TIP team. This has been another extraordinary gathering. It seems like we had just in a short few days a very successful week in demonstration of leadership. And I also want to acknowledge Just take for a minute, as I was sitting here listening to everyone, it occurred to me that it wasn't that long ago that we were all on the outside of these power structures trying to get in. When you think about the fight of those that have gone before us just to be in this room and in these spaces, that I just pause for a moment to feel a deep sense of gratitude for all those for centuries that have tried to just be in these rooms. And that in and of itself is incredible. The second thing that really occurred to me as I was sitting here listening to everyone, the knowledge and the experiences and the voices that just those of us in this room bring, how many of us have done work in incredible places at home, across the planet, from different parts of the planet, but we all have this common foundation and we're here and we can speak a common language and nothing that any one of the speakers have said there's not a dissonance, it all resonates and it resonates deeply with me. And so I just wanted to open up with those few observations. The second point I wanted to make is when it comes to doing this work, the value that I've realized as a tribal leader is just the inherent not just sovereignty, but I want to say the inherent gifts, the inherent authorities, the inherent powers that we all carry from those that have gone before us, and the duty that we have. And we all honor and respect that duty. And we are at a moment in time where the entire world seems to be in chaos. and seems to be collapsing and conflict and all of the challenges that we know to be true about what the world is facing every time you turn on the news, every time you sit down and there's so much uncertainty and fear and doubt and division that when we come into these places, this is a safe place and this is a place where we know the answers to the most complex challenges facing humanity lie in our hearts and spirits and in our minds. And when we come together in sessions like this to bring it all together, there's no question that we are going to continue to do the work of our ancestors, make them proud and create a positive, prosperous, healthy future for generations to come. And it's the work that you're all doing here. So I just wanted to open up with those few observations and remarks before I get into my presentation. So I am bringing the perspective of finance, economies, and my work through the World Economic Forum. And it's quite a stark contrast to the 30 years that I spent as a tribal attorney and as a tribal leader. And it's interesting, a point I want to make is when I embarked on leaving politics and going into the private sector, it was in large part because my nation As many indigenous communities around the world are on the front lines of climate change, we're disproportionately impacted and we have little to no resources. And we have these global efforts to try to gain direct access to finance. But even with the world's best effort to provide finance and opportunity to us, we are still on the outside of those systems. The United Nations has a fund, I mean, for example, the Kali fund that was introduced at the biodiversity COP a few years ago, even with that best effort, 80% of that fund is to go to organizations that support indigenous peoples, not necessarily direct access to indigenous people. So we are still on the outside of those systems. But I want to make the point that as the world is starting to understand the apocalyptic nature of the climate crises, they are starting to recognize that we are indispensable to solving that crisis. They are starting to understand that no, indigenous peoples that are on the front lines, they are not impoverished, they are not poor, they are not weak and vulnerable. To the contrary, they're very strong, they're resilient, and they possess knowledge about these ecosystems that are invaluable. You can't even put a price tag on it. And so the more I delve into the world of finance and business, the more I'm starting to understand they are impoverished. They are spiritually bankrupt. They lack the knowledge to really bring this future that we all see, but we are the ones who possess the wealth. We are the ones who possess the knowledge, the wisdom, the inheritance. and the pathway to a brighter future. And so I think this moment in time where the work that I have been advancing embodies centuries of knowledge and wisdom and decades of tribal leadership. into a space like the World Economic Forum, I'm finding that while I initially had some pushback on the vision of indigenous peoples, the more that I do as I've been instructed by tribal leaders that have gone before us, our goal is to educate. We have to educate, educate, and educate others. We have to be respectful. We have to understand they don't know what they don't know, and while it frustrates us, And as we come to this work with a good heart and a good spirit, we educate and we can speak not only to their minds, but we can speak to that part of their spirit that knows that there is a better way, but we just don't know how to get there. And so I want to just highlight one of the projects that I'm working at the World Economic Forum to bring all those pieces together. So I was two years ago appointed by invitation to serve on the Global Future Council on the Future of Work. Future Council on Natural Capital at the World Economic Forum. The WEF has 37 of these distinct councils that work primarily on global frontier issues, things like quantum, like AI, like natural capital, cybersecurity, et cetera. And within this council, our task was to look at how we can mainstream natural capital into the current financial systems. And that question in and of itself to me was quite troubling because I thought, you know, how do you take our values and put them into these systems? And it took me about a good year of participating in the council in-person meetings in different parts of the world. We have our annual meeting in Dubai. We had our initial gathering in Bellagio, Italy. So I've been to different places to hear different perspectives. And it was a year ago at this session that I spoke in a way that was just a download of a vision that we subsequently have advanced this last year. And that download, if you will, was just a simple proposition that the status quo systems that are all around us, the New York Stock Exchange, the London Exchange, These systems by design are intended to maximize profit at the expense of nature, at the expense of humanity, at the expense of indigenous peoples. They're simply inherently incongruent with our values. So the next thing is, the next thought I had was we simply have to create our own. We have to create our own finance platform in exchange where we can bring together global scale, public, private, philanthropic capital, blended capital, to deploy directly to our communities on our terms. And when I talk about on our terms, I mean things like those investors that want to participate in our system, one of the prices of admission is FPIK. If you want to participate in an ecosystem, in a financial system where nature can be valued, where you not only have assets that are stacked in terms of public, private, philanthropic capital, but you have assets in which there's a financial strategy around the entire ecosystem. You can't look at Oak Flat in the copper mining without looking at the water implications. But these systems, they don't operate that way. They have carbon credits, and this is even under the best scenario. They have carbon credits, riparian credits, cultural steward credits, and all these investors are looking at these siloed asset classes. But there's really no large scale investment in the entire totality of the system, which is what we are bringing to the forefront at the World Economic Forum. And not only that, but to the point of the issue at hand here, healthcare and health metrics. Yesterday I had a meeting with some folks here in New York and JP Morgan just issued a report this last week on tipping points. And the financial system is trying to grapple with how do we financially calculate these tipping points? And they call them a black swan phenomena where there's a high, a low, low probability that something will happen. But when that low probability catastrophic event happens, it has massive financial implications that could actually disrupt global And so they're now starting to factor into these tipping points, investment strategies. What I've been advocating, we need healthcare metrics that come from indigenous voices. We need healthcare metrics not only looking at nature as an externality, but a healthy nature is part of us being spiritually healthy and a fully integrated system. And so when I've had pushback to say, fine, that's a good vision, but this is a real world, I push back to say there are healthy ecosystems all across the planet in indigenous communities where you'll see a full integration of spirituality in our relationship with our creator, with the natural world, and with each other. And that's just how we are as indigenous peoples. And so as we continue to make these advancements in the financial world and metrics, healthcare is absolutely a determinant and that is the path forward to leading these very complex global financial systems to better tomorrow, but it will be on our terms, with our vision, in a system that we design and we measure. Thank you. NARF · Senior Staff Attorney; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Sue Noe [1:01:00]: Thanks so much, Ms. Sharp, and also Vice Chair Proctor-Andrews for both sets of very moving and inspiring remarks. So thank you. Now I'd like to turn it over to my colleague, Professor Kristen Carpenter, for her reflections and to moderate the Q&A if we have time for that. Thank you. Professor; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Kristen Carpenter [1:01:19]: Good evening, everybody. After all these years, I have not learned not to follow Fawn Sharp. Next year, I'm sitting over there, just so you know. In any event, thank you all to the panelists and to my dear colleague Sue for this incredible and moving side event. We do have time for Q&A, but I'm just going to share a few reflective remarks before we do that. When we well, I should say, first of all, for the implementation project, you make our dreams come true. I mean, we came from a place where many tribal leaders weren't in these rooms, and one of our primary goals, along with advancing the implementation of the declaration, was to help make these spaces more accessible and appealing. And I think the fact that you're And also, as several of you have said, when you get together in these spaces and generate ideas, share information, the sense of being unstoppable in terms of realizing rights and a vision of well-being for Indigenous peoples becomes really tangible, I think. So thank you. When we thought about this event, I think we wanted to help make very meaningful to folks from the US tribal leaders this topic of health at the UN because there's always this question about well why would you go to the United Nations and it's far from your homes and your work and so on and as we started to talk to all of you friends and colleagues who are doing the work It occurred to us that the intuitive place to work at the UN around health is the World Health Organization. But actually, there are all of these agencies and programs where it's very important to make those interventions because the international statements and policies, even if they take a while to embrace fully in the United States, do have that potential to advance rights and worldviews in a way that sometimes, I teach federal Indian law in the United States, the doctrines of federal Indian law and the settler colonial state can't even imagine. But I think we can start to imagine here. One other point along those lines, and I also teach human rights law, is that you all, I think, have shared worldviews from your tribal communities. where health obviously is linked to land and to language and to culture and economy. And when I look at federal Indian law, those things are really siloed. You talk about the agencies of the United Nations, but we have whole federal statutory regimes and departments and so on. But This is one of those places where human rights is actually very consonant, I think, with indigenous peoples' worldviews, in that one of the fundamental principles of human rights is that all of these rights are indivisible, that you really cannot fulfill human dignity when it comes to health without language, without culture. And that's a baseline principle in this system. It's not a baseline principle in the United States, where we're used to advocacy and fragmented places. So I just wanted to offer a couple of those touchstones. I love the idea of the declaration as a stronghold for this work and this movement, and I'm going to borrow that among all of the other very helpful points that I've seen here. Because another aspect of our work vis-a-vis coming from the United States, and President Makaro mentioned this the other day, is that we're still working to implement the declaration in the United States. And we made a lot of progress recently in the last administration, but we have got a ways to go on this topic and all of the others that you have advanced. With that, I would like to open it up for some comments and questions. And if you raise your hand and take the floor, I would invite you to introduce yourself so that, you know, part of this is that we all get to know each other and form a cohort of folks working on these issues. And then address a question to the panel. And of course, a brief comment is also fine. And with that, I will open the floor. Morgan Radek. Director of Federal Government Relations · Morgan Rodman [1:05:55]: Thank you, Professor Carpenter, and to the esteemed panelists. Pleasure to be here. My name is Morgan Rodman, and I'm the Director of Federal Government Relations for the Cherokee Nation. And much of what was discussed on the panel was really reflective of Chief Hoskins' vision for our tribal nation, this kind of interconnected structure. And he has a focus on wellness that really resonates, I think, with the Indigenous Determinants of Health framework. And my question is, for tribal governments who want to incorporate elements of the Indigenous Determinants of Health Report in the way their government operates, what advice or recommendation would you have to get that going? And I'll pose that to any of the panelists there. I'll pose it to Vice Chair Andrews. Vice Chair · Jen Proctor Andrews [1:06:44]: Thank you. So I think the first thing is to get your council buy-in. talk to people about the benefits because there's, I mean, we have a lot of conversations about this before and how we were going to kind of form the ordinance before starting to work on it. But ultimately, we found there's really no loss here. It's a a restatement of our sovereignty and our rights as people to direct our inner and outward facing resources, departments, everything from how we act when we have visitors to our lands to how we implement our benefits and services. So I What really helped us was, first of all, was being here and working with Jeff Roth and understanding the framework. The honestly, we used a lot of the documents that he's created through the Indigenous Determinants of Health Alliance. And there is the set of risk and protective factors that we included as an annex to our ordinance. And just really talking about the concept of health as an overarching effect on indigenous health that is woven throughout everything we do. And for us, and I feel like this might apply to a lot of other tribal nations as well, that it's to conceptualize indigenous health and our ways of being. within that government structure that is not as familiar to us ancestrally. And that seemed to be the kind of factor, the squeeze, I guess you'd say, but that framework that's been developed is really helpful. And there's a whole lot of documents that we use, and we also have some pretty smart tribal lawyers who were able to write the ordinance. And then we did two rounds of public review instead of the usual 30-day. We came back and we had we realized we had some more work to do on it, and we worked on it again and then sent it back out. So it had more than a full 60 days of public review, and we did get quite a bit of input from tribal citizens. I think that input is an important part as well. If I just add two things briefly. One, with the movement that CMS is making right now with traditional health and traditional medicine waivers, sorry, this is very domestic in the US, but this is really helping us in the health department to be able to tie everything that we do with our elders and cultural activities to traditional health services and have them reimbursed. by Medicaid and potentially Medicare as well. So that's one really important way to do this. And the other thing that I would say to tribal leaders specifically when thinking about this is you're already doing this. is how you operate. You know, economic development is health for indigenous people. Everything that our tribal governments do is already in support of the health of indigenous people. This just gives a framework for us to talk about it that I think will make sense to other funding agencies and also to our people. But holistically, when we focus on economic development, we focus on language revitalization, that is ultimately affecting our health and wellness as indigenous people. So thanks. Professor; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Kristen Carpenter [1:10:44]: Thanks so much, Morgan, for the question and for Cherokee Nation's presence as well. We do like to talk quite a bit about the relationship between tribal, federal, and international law as being mutually informed. and also helping to advance well-being. So I appreciate the question in that regard. We have a few more minutes. I will first give the floor to President Dayish and then to the lady on my left. President. NACSNM · President · Leo Dayish [1:11:19]: Thank you, honored guests. I would like to begin by thanking the panelists for their time and for their insights. So greetings, my people, my relations. It is awesome, it is humbling to be amongst you. to be here, to have a seat at the table. And myself, my name is Leo, Leo Dayish, and I'm here with my wife, Delfina Dayish, and we are representing our indigenous peoples organization, if you will, the Native American Church, State of New Mexico. And Our organization has a lot of interest in the protection of plant medicines, and that's kind of our foundation. And it is just, again, just a lot of appreciation and a lot of hope, thankful to the implementation project for what you've done, trailblazing this space. at this place, at this venue, this part of Indian country. And it is awesome that everything that has come together up to this point. And moving forward, I look forward to more methods and ways to engage and to bring support and to bring voices through this mechanism. So just again, just wanted to take a few minutes and offer those words of appreciation. The panel, it is good to see each and every one of you here. The words that you expressed, I'm going to say that each and every one of you being here, you're a blessing to this occasion, to this gathering here. Your old people, There was mention of ancestors, and thank you for that comment. And I was thinking of my late father, who is my heavenly father today, my late mother. It was on their prayers, on their movements, on their gestures here while they were on this mother earth, the prayers and the songs that they laid out way before us, even for our own family, our own children that have yet, that they never got to see. They said a prayer for them. They uttered a song for them. They made a gesture towards this Mother Earth through this rock, sky, water. They made those motions and gestures so that we could walk in their footsteps. So I'm thankful each and every one of you that are here today, you have your own ancestors, your own forefathers, foremothers that said a prayer for you. And it's on those prayers that you're here today talking, moving, and making a difference. So that's what I'm talking about, you, each and every one of you, you are a blessing to this time and space. So I wanted to say thank you for this opportunity to say a few words. My sister, Linda, thank you again. Thank you very much. And then again, each and every one of us, my wife, Delfina, we're here with our family. So want to say that much. So thank you. Professor; Co-Director, Implementation Project · Kristen Carpenter [1:15:27]: Thank you, President, for those Beautiful words. I love the idea that United Nations is part of Indian country, so we're stealing that as well. That's a beautiful sentiment. I see so many hands around the room, and I did acknowledge people I wanted to call on, but we're unfortunately at time, and I cannot the room is booked and the interpreters are booked. I want to thank the interpreters very much. I especially want to thank our students who are here and they're doing the non glamorous work of picking up the coffees and the copies and so on. But they are the advocates of the future to Hannah and Danielle for also doing incredible work. And again, thank you to all of our panelists and my dean, we're going to adjourn. Thank you.