"Indigenous advocates push for rights protections around AI data centers", 16 July 2026

...In July 2026, at a meeting of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), Indigenous leaders, government representatives and experts called for data center projects to comply with the principles of free, prior and informed consent, or FPIC. They also explored whether growing AI infrastructure can be developed in ways that advance Indigenous priorities and rights.

During a panel discussion on the second day of the EMRIP meeting, Indigenous delegates said that policies to ensure that AI does not harvest Indigenous knowledge without consent are of equal importance to protections for Indigenous lands and waters...

High energy demand, along with the copious amounts of water required to operate large-scale data centers and the racks of servers that provide the computing power, was frequently raised as a concern by sources at the Indigenous conference...

Extraction for AI data center resources can result in the degradation of sacred sites and threats to fragile ecosystems, Camila Vergara, a board member of the Forum for Real Economic Emancipation (FREE)...

At EMRIP, Indigenous delegates said there was a need for meaningful participation throughout the development, implementation and governance of AI initiatives that affect them...