Biography 

Roberto Múkaro Agueibaná Borrero is an internationally respected human rights defender, cultural consultant, strategic advisor, writer, musician, and artist. His unique perspectives draw from multiple sources including his own Indigenous Taíno heritage, mentorship from Indigenous leaders and elders from around the world, and real-time experience in the arts, as well as verifiable frontline human rights and environmental advocacy.

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With over twenty-five years of experience working with non-profit/non-governmental organizations, including over a decade on staff as Senior Programs Coordinator for Public Programs in the Education Department of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Borrero maintains a vibrant, diverse resource network locally, nationally, and internationally among Indigenous Peoples, civil society, business, and governmental sectors.

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Whether speaking on human rights issues or focusing on policy development, organizational strategy, event production, or cultural protocols, Borrero has shared his professional expertise in various capacities throughout the United Nations system, as well as with numerous and prominent, non-profit and for-profit entities such as PBS; BBC; the Institute for American Indian Studies; El Museo de Barrio; Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources; Tribal Link Foundation; International Indian Treaty Council; Aveda Corporation;  Natural Resources Stewardship Circle; the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, Raindrop Games; Jamaica Center for Arts and Culture (JCAL), Estee Lauder Companies; Schaghticoke First Nations, PTM Foundation, Shift7, Center for Earth Ethics, and Microsoft, among others.

Borrero participated in and directly engaged in the multi-stakeholder negotiation processes of the United Nations and the Organization of American States Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; the World Summit on the Information Society; UN Conference on Small Island Developing States; and the United Nations Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

On behalf of the International Indian Treaty Council, he served as the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change's North American Indigenous Delegation Coordinator to the UNFCCC's COP21 held in Paris, 2015. In  2018, supported by Indigenous Peoples from around the world, he served as a co-moderator for the historic first activity of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform under the UNFCCC, an outcome of the UNFCCC's Paris Agreement. Borrero also served as co-convenor of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals from 2014-2018. At the request of the IITC, in 2021, he resumed this role. 

At the local and regional level, Borrero has and continues to serve on a select few organizational boards and community-based committees such as the United Confederation of Taíno Peoples (UCTP); International Indian Treaty Council; Indigenous Portal; Caribbean Amerindian Development Organization (CADO);  Caribbean Organization of Indigenous Peoples (COIP); Indigenous Peoples Day NYC Coordinating Committee; Peoples Climate March NYC, Indigenous Organizing Committee, 2014; Peoples Climate March, Washington D.C., Indigenous Organizing Committee, 2017; Indigenous Peoples March, Washington D.C., 2019 Organizing Committee; NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Friends of Brook Park, Urban Indigenous Collective, Sweet Water Cultural, and others.

His trail-blazing artwork and music continue to have international appeal and his 1994 album, Dance of the Mountain people was the first full-length traditional style, indigenous Taíno music recording to ever be released. Borrero has appeared on radio, television, and film. He was a host and producer on WBAI's Circle of Red Nations 1998-2000, part of the Pacifica Broadcasting Network.  He's been quoted in the NY Times, Mother Jones, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine; YES!, National Geographic News, Indian Country Today, and other prominent news media publications.   

Borrero is a citizen of the Guainía Taíno Tribe and is counted among the verifiable pioneers of the international Taíno cultural resurgence movement. His family lineage, paternal and maternal, comes from the island of Borikén (Puerto Rico). The traditional homelands of the Taíno extend through the Greater Antilles to the South tip of Florida in the U.S. Borrero is an active traditional ceremonial participant and leader, as well as the founder of the Kasibahagua Taíno Cultural Society and co-founder of the Consejo General de Tainos Borincanos, both established in 1994. In 2012, he was traditionally sanctioned a kasike (chief) of the Guainía Taíno Tribe of Borikén (Puerto Rico).

His educational background is in communications and cultural studies. In 2013, Dr. Borrero was awarded an honorary Doctorate, Philosophy in Humanities, from Kayiwa International University, Kampala, Uganda.

Dr. Borrero, honoris causa, is married to Joselyn Kaxhyêk Borrero, and they have three children, Nakota, Mainaku, and Kayaani. 

Resume or CV available upon request