Indigenous leaders at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues are grappling with artificial intelligence's potential to both aid and threaten their traditional lands. While AI tools help monitor deforestation and wildfires, the data centers powering the technology consume vast resources often extracted from Indigenous territories. A new study by former forum chair Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim outlines these opportunities and risks.
Indigenous communities worldwide are using AI to enhance stewardship of their lands. In Brazil's Katukina/Kaxinawá Indigenous Reserve in Acre state, agroforestry agents employ an AI tool developed by Microsoft and the nonprofit Imazon to detect deforestation risks. Siã Shanenawa, one of the agents, said, “It is very important to monitor the land, because we Indigenous people are safer when we can detect if someone is invading, if someone is taking wood from our land, if someone is hunting directly on our land, if someone is putting up a fire close to our land.” Similar efforts blend AI with traditional knowledge in Nunavut for fishing, in Chad for drought prediction, and by Rainforest Foundation US in South America for rapid threat response using satellite data. Lars Ailo Bongo of the Sámi AI Lab at UiT The Arctic University in Norway noted that AI can support data-driven modeling aligned with Sámi norms, though inclusivity remains limited. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, a Mbororo leader and former UNPFII chair, emphasized in her new study that AI can ally with Indigenous knowledge to track biodiversity and climate impacts if applied culturally appropriately. She told Mongabay, “For generations, Indigenous peoples have protected the world’s most intact ecosystems without satellites, without algorithms or technologies.” Yet data centers powering AI pose severe threats, guzzling water and energy while demanding minerals from Indigenous areas. Residents in Thailand's Chonburi and Rayong provinces, eastern Pennsylvania, and Mexico's Querétaro report shortages and pollution fears. Ibrahim warned, “AI is often perceived as immaterial, but it carries a very real environmental footprint,” risking land degradation and displacement. Experts like Kate Finn of the Osage Nation's Tallgrass Institute call for free, prior, and informed consent before data center projects. Bongo highlighted funding shortages for Sámi-aligned AI, urging state support from Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Cameron Ellis of Rainforest Foundation US stressed that technology succeeds only with community governance and data sovereignty.