At COP28, Indigenous women have a message for leaders: Look at what we’re doing. And listen

By UZMI ATHAR, Press Trust of India

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Indigenous women at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai are coming together to share some of their innovative ideas on how communities on the front lines of climate change can contend with it. Those include things like cultivating eucalyptus plants in Panama to help reduce salinity in soil — a major problem in coastal areas where seas are rising. And using a natural pesticide in India to avoid the chemical pesticides that climate change increasingly requires. Grace Talawag, a conference participant from the Philippines, said she and other Indigenous women would like to see a more inclusive summit that makes them a part of the dialogue.