This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. On the second day of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, experts called attention to the ways Indigenous health is deeply tied to nature and highlighted how health inequalities are compounded by environmental degradation, extractive activities, and climate change. The forum’s focus on Indigenous health comes as a new study by former Permanent Forum member Geoffrey Roth, who is a Standing Rock Sioux descendant, argues that U.N. agencies’ fragmented approach — addressing health, environment, and land rights through separate mandates — has “consistently failed Indigenous Peoples.” The study, presented as the forum opened its 25th session, positions environmental degradation, climate change, and biodiversity loss not as external pressures but as “direct manifestations of injury” to Indigenous well-being. “For Indigenous peoples, health is deeply tied to the health of the land,” said Roth.…