Centring Indigenous Leadership at Climate Week 2025

September 18, 2025

By Valérie Courtois

Canada is experiencing yet another record-breaking fire season. About 8.8 million hectares have burned as of this month, making it the second largest on record. In Manitoba, where nine First Nations had to evacuate in the face of wildfire, the area burned is 11 times the province’s historic average. Hotter, drier conditions are fueling these fires: over 70 per cent of Canada was abnormally dry or in moderate to extreme drought in September.

From prolonged drought to high-intensity wildfires to earlier ice breakups to increased heatwaves, climate change is shaping life in Canada—especially in Indigenous territories across the North.

But another force is also making its presence known: Indigenous Nations are designing solutions for addressing climate impacts.

We see it in northern Manitoba where four First Nations are protecting the Seal River Watershed, an area that holds 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon in soils, wetlands, and peatlands—an amount equivalent to 8 years’ worth of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. We see it in my own Innu Nation, where Guardians help ensure sea ice in Labrador is safe to travel on in the face of warming temperatures. And we see it in the many First Nations expanding cultural fire practices that restore forest health and reduce the threat of high-intensity wildfires.

Indigenous-led solutions are essential to climate response. Indigenous Peoples know our territories, we see the changes, and we know how to help renew balance. In this time of global political division and economic uncertainty resulting in part from greater impacts of climate change, these local approaches rooted in Indigenous knowledge offer a way forward.

Indigenous Solutions in the International Arena

One of the ways to centre those approaches is to inject them into international climate conversations. That’s why members of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative team are traveling to Climate Week 2025 in New York City. This annual global summit attracts government officials, business leaders, advocates, and others committed to climate action. Because it’s held alongside the United Nations General Assembly, heads of state are in town too. And funders attend to accelerate investments in climate solutions.

Many Indigenous Peoples from around the world also come to Climate Week, and ILI is excited to connect with old friends. We want to build partnerships that ensure leaders are all levels centre Indigenous leadership in the fight against climate change and loss of biodiversity.

Together with our partners at Nia Tero, we are hosting a reception celebrating Indigenous-led stewardship and featuring a private screening of the short documentary Guardians of the Land directed by award-winning filmmaker Jennifer Podemski. ILI team members will speak on panels that showcase Indigenous-led solutions for caring for lands and waters. And we will help advance conversations around innovative financing, networks that support local action, and amplifying Indigenous women’s leadership.

One of the elements I’m most looking forward to is traveling with the two inaugural participants in the First Nations Women Transforming Conservation Fellowship: Mary-Jo Michell from Nlaka’pamux and Taylor Galvin Ozaawi Mashkode-Bizhiki from Brokenhead Ojibway Nation. Hosted by ILI and Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, this initiative is an expression of our responsibility to support and prepare the next generation of leaders. Our time in New York will be an opportunity to explore how to navigate international arena.

Tackling climate change is a complex, global challenge, but Indigenous Nations are showing how to make progress in our territories. With greater support, that leadership can inspire larger action.

We already see that transformation happening here at home. And after all, if there is a country on the globe that can and should model respectful partnerships between Indigenous Nations and nation states, it’s Canada. At Climate Week, we will help shine the global spotlight on the solutions emerging across the North.