by Irina Kurilova (Northern Women)
COP17 is in full motion. Governments, international organizations, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society are discussing the future of global biodiversity policy. But two women who have worked to make the participation of Indigenous Peoples from Russia in international environmental processes possible are missing.
Daria Egereva and Natalia Leonhardt remain in detention in Russia since 17 December 2025. Their absence represents much more than two empty seats at the COP
Daria has helped Indigenous Peoples from Russia bring their voices to international climate and biodiversity negotiations. As a Co-Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, she contributed to coordinating Indigenous participation in the UN climate process, including at COP30, and has also been involved in processes under the CBD.
Natalia’s work was often less visible, but no less important. She helped with the practical organization that enabled Indigenous rights defenders to travel, meet, coordinate, and participate in international processes.
Participation does not happen by itself. Daria and Natalia were part of the infrastructure that turned the right to participate into the actual possibility of being heard.
That is why their absence at COP17 raises an uncomfortable question: What does “full and effective participation” of Indigenous Peoples mean when people who help make such participation possible are deprived of their freedom?
Delegates should remember that shrinking civic space and the criminalization of Indigenous leaders and human rights defenders directly undermine the very participation that international environmental agreements seek to promote.
This is not only about who is inside the conference centre. It is also about who has been prevented from
being there. Protecting nature must also mean protecting the people who defend it.