By Naomi Henry
Nicole Yanes
“We don’t see ourselves as a funder but we see ourselves rematriating this wealth that was built our of our lands, that was extracted from our lands, stolen lands, and so we’re rematriating it in a good way and resourcing it, and putting it back into our communities so we can create new systems, new economic systems and everything else, so we can defend our territories, develop our communities, and decolonize our people in the process.”
I met Nicole Yanes on a different coffee break at the Climate Forward. She is Opata, from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico on the United States-Mexico border. She is here to support the Indegenous movement and people here, and their positions. “What brings me to COP is to make sure that human rights, and our rights as Indigenous peoples don’t get violated in the programs and processes that are established from whatever decisions the states make here.” Branching off on this, she talked about the $1.7 billion promised after COP26, to go to Indigenous peoples, forest management, and local communities, and how a recent report stated that they only saw seven percent of that funding come through. “We’re here to push for direct access and funding,” she said. “We’re here to make sure that real climate finance and direct access to funding goes to our communities and is accessible to our communities.”
Nicole is the program officer with NDN Collective, a movement building organization, one hundred percent founded and led by Indigenous peoples, for Indigenous peoples. An overarching mission of theirs is “to build our collective power so that we can have a more just and equitable world for all of us. We know we need to take the lead in certain areas for there to actually be justice and equity for all the people on the planet.” Of the action they take, they have a climate justice campaign and a Land Back campaign, going to all means and manners whether it be through direct action, voting, purchasing land, or getting grants to Indigenous communities to get their land back. Nicole used the phrase, “more Indigenous lands in Indigenous hands,” to cement this cause.
Part of this mission additionally centers around creating more carbon sequestration spaces, and revitalizing stolen lands to create sustainable models and communities that can further preserve and conserve those lands. Since 2019 they have fundraised $100 million, and are actively “trying to close the wealth gap by resourcing our people.” Nicole noted, “we don’t see ourselves as a funder but we see ourselves rematriating this wealth that was built our of our lands, that was extracted from our lands, stolen lands, and so we’re rematriating it in a good way and resourcing it, and putting it back into our communities so we can create new systems, new economic systems and everything else, so we can defend our territories, develop our communities, and decolonize our people in the process.”
