The outcome of COP 30 in Belém marked a decisive shift toward centering justice and human rights in global climate action, a direction long demanded by frontline communities. Negotiators emphasized that emissions targets can no longer be separated from the lived realities of peoples who bear the heaviest burdens of climate change. This global direction resonates deeply in Mindanao, where Lumad communities have stood at the frontlines of climate injustice, protecting forests, watersheds, and biodiversity while enduring displacement, militarization, and the erosion of their social institutions. The Belém outcome underscored the importance of locally-led climate strategies that respect cultural identity and territorial governance, recognizing that forest guardianship, community-based resource management, and Indigenous knowledge systems are indispensable to global climate goals. The Lumad are among the most vulnerable communities in the Philippines, not because of inherent fragility, but because they live in territories rich in forests, minerals, and biodiversity. The Catholic Church has been a central moral voice in Mindanao’s climate justice movement, linking ecological destruction with injustice and the violation of human dignity. The Mindanao Climate Justice Resource Facility and the Samdhana Institute have sustained long-term accompaniment of Lumad communities, emphasizing support for Lumad schools, ancestral domain claimants, women leaders, and youth organizers. From a Mindanao perspective, the significance of Belém lies in the convergence of Indigenous and Moro insights on justice and governance, highlighting that climate impacts are never purely environmental and that vulnerability is socially produced. The challenge now is whether the Philippine government will translate international commitments into policies that protect ancestral domains, respect Moro self-governance, end violence against environmental defenders, and invest in community-led adaptation. For Mindanao, climate justice will not be measured by the language of agreements signed abroad, but by whether the lives, lands, and futures of its peoples are finally treated as central to the nation’s response to the climate crisis.
