Beginning the Year With Ancestral Wisdom
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As billions around the world mark the beginning of a new year, many are pausing to ask the same questions: what do we carry forward, and what do we leave behind, as we cross from the old into the new? And as headlines fill with predictions about the rise of artificial intelligence, could a different kind of AI - ‘ancestral intelligence’ - offer insights equal to the depth of the climate and biodiversity crises we now face?
This year’s COP saw Indigenous and First Nations Peoples better represented than ever before; but it also showed how far there is still to go to include them in meaningful dialogue. In a conversation recorded at COP30, Christiana Figueres sits down with two Indigenous leaders from different continents and traditions: Mindahi Bastida, from the Otomí-Toltec peoples of Mexico, and Atawévi Akôyi Oussou Lio, Prince of the Tolinou people of Benin. Together, they explore a relationship with the living world grounded in belonging rather than dominance, continuity rather than short-termism, and reciprocity rather than extraction.
Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson then join Christiana to reflect on what it means to carry this wisdom into the year ahead. And if the challenges before us are not only technical and political, but also cultural and spiritual, how might that reshape the way we act, decide, and lead in 2026 and beyond?
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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Ravitt Carnac. I'm Christiana Figueres. |
| 0:06.5 | And I'm Paul Dickinson. Today, we bring you a special conversation on Indigenous leadership. |
| 0:11.6 | Thanks for being here. |
| 0:16.5 | Okay, friends, it's 26th, 1st of January. We have. |
| 0:20.6 | Happy New Year! Can you believe it? Happy New26, 1st of January. We're happy, if you believe it. |
| 0:22.5 | Happy New Year, everybody, may it bring a good deal more peace to humanity and regeneration |
| 0:28.5 | to nature than 2025 did, but there was some progress last year as well. |
| 0:32.2 | Next week, we are going to be kicking off the year with a bit of a look ahead as to what |
| 0:36.4 | to expect throughout the year and what's coming up. But today, we wanted to start by bringing you a remarkable interview |
| 0:43.2 | that Christiana took when we were in COP at the end of last year. So we'll get to that in just a |
| 0:49.3 | minute. But before we do, what would you both like to say to kick off the year? |
| 0:52.3 | How about to welcome the year instead? I don't like kicking off. |
| 0:57.9 | To welcome the year. To welcome us all into the year. |
| 1:01.5 | Paul. You know, I'm actually going to go straight to the interview, really, in a sense. |
| 1:05.8 | And kind of my personal story reflecting again, you know, listening to indigenous elders or experts. |
| 1:12.7 | I went to a conference in, I think it was 2000, and they said, write down what you are. |
| 1:18.0 | And I picked up this feltip, I went over to this thing on the wall. And I didn't have anything |
| 1:22.4 | to write. I'm not, I'm not identifiable to myself as a thing. |
| 1:28.3 | You know, my family are not interested in kind of genealogy. |
| 1:32.3 | Maybe some people, kind of, you know, my great-great-grandparents came from Ireland or something. |
| 1:37.3 | That's about it. That's the end of the story of me. |
| 1:40.3 | I just haven't, you know, I grew up in London, no more story. |
... |
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