12
Aug
Int’l Day of World’s Indigenous Peoples Calls for Food Security, Biodiversity, and Climate Resilience
(Beyond Pesticides, August 12, 2025) Last week on August 9, the United Nations observed International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, a critical acknowledgement of Indigenous “food sovereignty, food security, biodiversity conservation and climate resilience,” as outlined in the report of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Eighteenth Session (July 14–18, 2025).
As the report states, under Article 20 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, “Indigenous Peoples possess distinct economic systems rooted in traditional knowledge, practices and resources and have the right to sustain, strengthen and develop these systems in accordance with their cultures, traditions, values and aspirations.” It continues, “When deprived of their means of subsistence and development, this article provides that Indigenous Peoples are entitled to just and fair redress.” In a statement recognizing the importance of the day, Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Albert K. Barume, focuses on the need for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to recognize that, “Indigenous Peoples have long been stewards of knowledge, biodiversity, and sustainable living [and] [w]ithout their meaningful participation, AI systems risk perpetuating historical injustices and deepening the violation of their rights.”
Meanwhile, the current U.S. administration has shifted away from federal policies and is dismantling programs, including the termination of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Justice program, intended to address disproportionate harm associated with chemical exposure among Native Americans and people of color communities. (See EPA Launches Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History.)
Indigenous communities lead the charge in biodiversity protections and pollinator well-being, having thrived and lived in coexistence with nature long before the industrialized food systems and systemic separation from, and poisoning of, the land. The organic movement of the post-World War II era emerged with individual farmers selling pesticide-free produce to interested community members, eventually coming together to form networks with other like-minded environmental justice and public health advocates in the 1970s and 1980s to form voluntary organic standards that eliminate the need for toxic agricultural chemicals while creating a new, vibrant, organic economic sector. With the U.S. organic sector valued at $71.6 billion in 2024, according to the Organic Trade Association, advocates must recognize the leadership of Indigenous sovereignty and stewardship in laying the foundation for organic criteria and principles rooted in a precautionary principle that prioritizes nature, health, and sustainability before profits.
Recent Developments
Indigenous people around the world are playing a leadership role in challenging disproportionate harm from chemical exposure patterns associated with chemical-intensive agriculture.
Exposure in agricultural areas are often due to the chemical characteristics that influence leachability, solubility, and volatility of synthetic pesticides, which allow for movement off their target site, even when licensed applicators (for restricted-use pesticides) are being used at labeled rates recommended by the manufacturer and approved by EPA in the U.S. Chemical residues in air, land, water, and food result in aggregate exposure to multiple pesticides and their breakdown materials (metabolites), many of which bioaccumulate. Without adequate assessment of these complexities by pesticide regulatory systems, where they exist worldwide, Indigenous communities are on the frontlines of advocating for a more sustainable and just future.
In Brazil, there is an ongoing legislative battle over strengthening environmental governance at the expense of the safety of Indigenous communities. Panh-ô Kayapó, an Indigenous woman from Baú Indigenous Territory and director of the Kabu Institute, said in an August 7 press release issued by Amazon Watch: “This bill shows that Congress doesn’t care about the Brazilian people. They want more profits for agribusiness and foreign companies, while regular people pay more for toxic food and suffer through droughts, floods, and the climate crisis. President Lula must veto this bill – it’s a matter of life and sovereignty.” This “devastation bill,” as it is called, is the recently passed Bill 2159/2021, which would undermine regulatory agency authority by “exempt[ing] activities such as mining and soy and cattle production from formal licensing procedures by Brazil’s environmental agencies…despite the potential social-ecological consequences” according to an analysis by Federal University of Santa Catariana, Amazon Regional Observatory, Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ORA/OTCA), Juruá Institute, and University of Santiago de Compostela published in Science.
Irepoiti Metuktire, a Kayapo leader from the Kapot Nhinore Indigenous Territory and representative of the Ropni Women’s Department of the Raoni Institute, in response to the threat of chemical-intensive soybean production to Indigenous health and sovereignty, said: “This soy doesn’t feed our people. We don’t eat soy – it’s for export and corporate profit. Meanwhile, pesticides contaminate our water, our soil, and even the rain. It’s poisoning all of us, not just Indigenous peoples. And food in the cities gets more expensive every day. Defending the forest is defending life for everyone.”
Previous Research
Pesticide residues have been found to drift across surprising distances through the air, water, and soil, based on decades of scientific literature that continues to emerge this troubling trend.
There is published research identifying various current-use pesticides in urine samples of an Inuit population in the rural area of Nunavik, Quebec. Published in 2024 in International Journal of Circumpolar Health, researchers at Boston University, Quebec-based institution Laval University, and the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec compared the biomarker levels of various pesticides known to be “capable of long-range transport” in an Indigenous community to the general Canadian population. Even though they did not find conclusive evidence of higher risk for this specific Inuit population, this “… study was the first to document environmental exposures to pesticides in an Arctic community using a cost-effective and reliable method” of analyzing urine sampling of the Inuit population, according to the authors. Chlorpyrifos, parathion, and several other pyrethroids and their metabolites were detected in the highest concentrations, which is consistent with other research.
In a survey-based study published in Journal of Environmental Health in 2023, approximately 11,326 participants identifying as “American Indian and Alaska Native” shared their experiences with occupational and environmental exposures for the Education and Research Towards Health (EARTH) Study in the Southwest U.S. and Alaska. Pesticides and petroleum ranked first and second among the most commonly reported hazards for participants in the Southwest U.S. The goal of this study was to provide “baseline data to facilitate future exposure-response analyses.”
This research builds on calls from existing reports that emphasize the links between Indigenous communities’ environmental and occupational exposure to toxic chemicals, like pesticides, and severe health issues, such as cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic disorders, and chronic illnesses. A 2022 report published in The Lancet speaks to the systemic effects of pesticide policies in the U.S. and the failure of leadership in the United Nations to protect the Yaqui Nation in Mexico. The piece finds: “The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is a U.S. statute that allows “pesticides that are not approved – or registered – for use in the U.S.” to be manufactured in the U.S. and exported elsewhere. The UN Rotterdam Convention also allows the global exportation of “banned pesticides.” The ongoing exportation of banned pesticides leads to disproportionately high rates of morbidity and mortality, most notably in Indigenous women and children. (See Daily News here.)
Call to Action
It comes as no surprise that the focus of this year’s International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is on the impacts of AI on Indigenous communities, given the potential environmental implications as demands for data centers continue to mount globally and domestically. Organic, pesticide, and pollinator advocates stand in solidarity with the right of Indigenous communities to self-determination and advancing policies and systems that support their well-being, as much of the transformative change is inspired by the First Nations leadership in leading with nature, rather than in exploiting it to its inevitable destruction.
There are also the mounting concerns on artificial intelligence and pesticide development from scientists, bioethicists, and food sovereignty advocates in the European Union; Save our Seeds Foundation produced a report earlier this year warning of various threats that generative artificial intelligence would impose on the already flawed regulatory system, including data distortions and hallucinations, the lack of transparency in how AI agents or systems make their decisions, and the lower barrier that could lead to further unregulated and untested pesticide products. (See Daily News here.)
In response to the proliferation of dangerous pesticide products threatening Indigenous and general populations, you can take action here by telling EPA to ban the use of the herbicide dicamba and other drift-prone pesticides.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Sources: United Nations, Amazon Watch, Science, International Journal of Circumpolar Health
