“How Can We Help?” COP31 Side Event Addresses Criminalization and Solidarity with Daria and Natalia
At a side event in Antalya, speakers discussed the criminalization of Indigenous Peoples, expressed solidarity with Daria Egereva and Natalia Leongardt, and shared experiences from other countries. A common question emerged: how can climate and biodiversity be protected when people defending their lands and rights face persecution?
On 10 November, the Indigenous Peoples’ Pavilion in COP31’s Blue Zone hosted “Indigenous Peoples on the Frontlines: Criminalization, Climate Change and Human Rights”. The event was moderated by Maria Michurova.
The discussion connected international experiences with the situation in Russia: pressure on independent representatives, restrictions on traditional livelihoods and the use of legislation against people defending their territories. Particular attention was given to Daria Egereva and Natalia Leongardt, who remain imprisoned in Russia.
Joan Carling: Climate Commitments Contradict the Persecution of Defenders
Joan Carling, Executive Director of Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI), opened her presentation by expressing solidarity with Indigenous Peoples in Russia. She supported the demand for Daria and Natalia’s release and emphasised Indigenous representatives’ right to speak freely and live safely in their own country.
Carling highlighted a contradiction at the heart of the discussion: Indigenous Peoples conserve biodiversity, protect ecosystems and offer their own solutions to the climate crisis, yet can face punishment for doing so.
Her presentation cited IPRI’s initial analysis covering 2021 to August 2026: 715 documented cases of criminalization, affecting approximately 777,000 people. Of the total, 204 cases were project-related. Within that group, 79 cases — 38.7% — were conservation-related, making conservation the largest documented project-related driver.
Criminalization, Carling explained, affects more than leaders and human rights defenders. Traditional ways of life themselves are at risk. Where community rights are not recognised, hunting, fishing and gathering forest products can be declared illegal.
Defending lands and resources is fundamental to Indigenous Peoples’ collective survival and well-being. Yet legal systems can be used against them: those resisting the appropriation of their territories become the accused. In different countries, national security, public order and counter-terrorism laws become instruments of this pressure.
“We cannot achieve climate justice while Indigenous Peoples are being criminalized for defending our rights and territories.”
This was a key message of Carling’s presentation.
Consultation Does Not Replace Consent
Carling also addressed rights violations carried out in the name of conservation and the energy transition. Protected areas, mineral extraction and energy projects can bring evictions, restrictions on access to resources and the weakening of Indigenous governance institutions.
She stressed that meaningful participation cannot be reduced to consultation. It requires free, prior and informed consent: communities must be able to make collective decisions about their future.
The persecution of leaders undermines that possibility. Fear of arrest and reprisals restricts participation in climate processes. Pressure on trusted leaders weakens communities’ ability to defend their territories, preserve knowledge and develop their own responses to climate change.
Viktor Sulyandziga: Who Gets to Speak for Indigenous Peoples?
Viktor Sulyandziga discussed the roles of RAIPON, Russia’s Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs (FADN) and Nornickel in shaping state-controlled international representation of Indigenous Peoples from Russia.
He drew attention to the School of Public Diplomacy, where, he said, new Indigenous participants in international negotiations are trained to advance positions aligned with the state. Sulyandziga connected this training with a broader process in which independent voices are replaced by representatives dependent on government structures and corporate support.
International forums may therefore retain the appearance of Indigenous participation while opportunities to express independent views narrow. Official accounts of support for languages and cultures cannot replace communities’ testimony about rights violations, industrial impacts on their territories and the persecution of activists.
His presentation raised a question about the substance of representation: can participants determine their own positions, criticise governments and companies, and speak about their peoples’ problems without fear of losing support or facing pressure? Our earlier analysis of RAIPON and control over representation examines this issue in more detail.
Irina Kurilova: When Traditional Livelihoods Become a Crime
Yukagir representative Irina Kurilova described four Russian cases involving hunters, a fisher, the head of a reindeer-herding community and a family exercising traditional fishing rights.
She recounted the experiences of Evenki hunters Stepan Pakhomov and Ivan Sosin, Yukagir elder Dmitry Begunov, Evenki leader Arsenty Nikolaev, and a case concerning fishing for Indigenous relatives in Khabarovsk Krai.
As Kurilova said, these cases expose the gap between formal recognition of rights and the ability to exercise them in keeping with traditional ways of life. Hunting, fishing and moving reindeer become matters of criminal prosecution, while people must fight for rights already recognised in law.
Recounting the experience of an elder prosecuted over four fish, she relayed his words:
“My state has turned me into a poacher.”
Kurilova emphasised that the consequences extend beyond individual cases: restrictions on traditional livelihoods threaten food security, the transmission of knowledge and communities’ futures.
“Protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights is not an obstacle to climate policy. It is a necessary condition for its fairness and effectiveness.”
Olga Kostrova: The December 17 Case, Daria and Natalia
The fourth speaker, Chulym representative Olga Kostrova, gave a detailed account of Daria and Natalia and the events of 17 December 2025, when 17 activists were targeted with searches and questioning on the same day.
Kostrova connected this wave of persecution with Indigenous representatives’ international work. In her words, the connection with UN events was clear: among those targeted were people who had just returned from COP30 in Brazil. Daria and Natalia were arrested.
Her presentation brought the human reality of criminalization into focus: individual lives, disrupted working relationships and the absence of people who spent years helping Indigenous Peoples participate in international processes.
As climate policy, traditional knowledge and Indigenous participation in decision-making are discussed in Antalya, Daria and Natalia remain in detention. Their absence affects the communities whose positions they helped communicate and the colleagues with whom they prepared joint statements and sustained international cooperation.
“How Can We Help?”
After the presentations, participants asked how they could help Daria and Natalia. Representatives from other countries described similar forms of pressure and persecution.
In response, participants encouraged people to use our website to send letters to both imprisoned women — a concrete way to express support and remind them that people beyond Russia are thinking of them.
Joan Carling also proposed collecting messages and wishes from members of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus: approaching colleagues and inviting them to write to Daria and Natalia.
The discussion of criminalization thus continued with practical solidarity. Personal letters and collective messages help maintain contact with people deprived of their liberty, while sharing information and consistently demanding their release sustain international attention to their situation.
Climate justice requires safety for those who defend nature. Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ contributions must be accompanied by respect for their right to determine their own positions and express them without fear of persecution.
For Daria and Natalia, this means, above all, freedom — and the opportunity to return to their lives and work alongside the international Indigenous community.
Photos: event participants.
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