Voices for Just Climate Action Magazine - Issue 4

Issue 4 • October 2025

WOMEN IN NETWORK: STRENGTHENING GROUPS OF WOMEN AND AGROECOLOGY IN THE BABAÇU PALM TREES TERRITORIES (P. 25)

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES PRESENT THEIR NDC PROPOSAL FOR COP30 (P. 34)

AROUND THE WORLD:

VOICES

STORIES FROM BOLIVIA, PARAGUAY, TUNISIA, AND ZAMBIA (P. 33)

Vozes Magazine is a publication from Program Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) Brazil. The VCA is a global alliance created by civil society organizations (WWF, Hives, Fundación Avian, SouthSouthSouthNorth (SSN), Akina Mama wa Africa, and Shack Dwellers International (SDI)), and it is financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

In Brazil, the Program is coordinated by Fundación Avina, Hivos, International Institute of Education of Brazil (IEB), and Fundo Casa Socioambiental, and it has supported, since 2021, more than 120 organizations, movements, and collectives, articulated as 15 coalitions.

4th Edition

Outubro | 2025

WRITING

Adriano Maneo (IEB), Anaís Cordeiro (Comitê Chico Mendes), Andreia Bavaresco (IEB), Angélica Mendes (Comitê Chico Mendes), Amanda Martins (COP das Baixadas), Carlos Pereira (AQK), Cleonice Silva Soares (Grupo de Mulheres Josina’s de Fibra), Conceição Amorim (Centro de Direitos Humanos Padre Josimo), Danielle Almeida de Carvalho (Hivos), Eva Duarte (Avina), Francy Júnior (Movimento das Mulheres Negras da Floresta – Dandara e Ykamiabas Produções), Hannah Lydia (Comitê Chico Mendes), Horácio Antunes de Sant’ana Júnior (UFMA), Jakeline Carvalho Xavier (Hivos), Karim Benchaaban (GDA Tamaghza), João Paulo Serra (Tapajós de Fato), Jonaya Castro (Megafone Ativismo), Lara Vaz (Avina), Lucía Santalices (Instituto Eqüit), Noelia Díaz Esquivel (Revista Emancipa) Paula Moreira (Hivos), Raimundo Alves Silva (Acesa), Ramzi Laamouri (OSAE), Rodrigo Montaldi (Fundo Casa), Rogenir Costa (Avina), Ruth Ferreira (COP das Baixadas), Samela Bonfim (Coalizão Vozes do Tapajós), Sarah Tamiosos (Associação Onça D’água), Valdeniza Vasques (Coiab) e Vanessa Cristina Neco (Acesa).

COLLABORATIONS

Bruna Bastos (Estúdio Jambo), Dânia Silva Baré (COIAB), Eduarda Batista (Rede Jandyras), Graciela Rodriguez (Instituto Eqüit), Haydee Svab (Open Knowledge Brasil), Isabela Callegari (Instituto Eqüit), João Paulo Serra (Tapajós de Fato), Jonaya Castro (Megafone Ativismo), Kayo Moura (Decodifica & Gaia), Laura Torres (Decodifica & Gaia), Livia Santos (Decodifica & Gaia), Luísa Arancibia Arce (WWF-BO), Marcos Wesley (Tapajós de Fato), Moni Bareiro (Revista Emancipa), Nanci Darcolléte (Pimp my Carroça), Reg Coimbra (Estúdio Jambo), Trícia Oliveira (WWF-BR), Sayonara Malta (Casa Preta Amazônia).

EDITORIAL BOARD

Adriano Maneo (IEB), Danielle Almeida de Carvalho (Hivos), Eva Duarte (Avina), Paula Moreira (Hivos), Rodrigo Montaldi (Fundo Casa), Rogenir Costa (Avina) e Trícia Oliveira (WWF-BR)

EDITION

Adriano Maneo (IEB)

Revisão

Adriano Maneo (IEB), Danielle Almeida (Hivos), Eva Duarte (Avina), Jakeline Xavier (Hivos), Paula Moreira (Hivos), Rogenir Costa (Avina) e Trícia Oliveira (WWF-BR).

GRAPHIC DESIGN AND LAYOUT jamboestudio.com

ILLUSTRATION

Bruna Bastos (@brunenha), Reg Coimbra (@regcoimbra_), Rafael Melgueiro e Renata Segtowick (@enataseg.art)

PHOTOGRAPHY

Adriano Maneo, C. Durigan, ORE, Acervo Projeto Saúde e Alegria, Arquivo CPT Acre, Arquivo Coalizão, Jean Costa - Ookami Films, Leonor de Blas, Sarah Tamioso, Vozes do Tocantins e Pulsar imagem.

TRANSLATION

Emily Bandeira and Giovanna Valença.

Welcome, dear readers. We’re coming to the end of this journey by your side. The 4th edition of Voices for Just Climate Action Magazine is the final step of the nice trajectory of the VCA Program in Brazil.

We say heart-embracing goodbyes, sure that the built foundation of the last five years is a solid one. As a small tributary, our movement grew, merging waters, gaining weight, and becoming the beautiful and big river that flows into a sea of solutions, innovations, and connections that each one of the 120+ organizations supported offers to the world. These are proposals and actions that may not stop the course of Climate Change, but that contribute so that its effects are less unjust and unequal. It is the so-called Climate Justice, which this magazine tried to make known and recognized. Climate justice reminds us that Climate Change has main responsible actors and that they are not the most affected ones by the crisis. It makes us understand that it is precisely the populations that contribute the least to the problem and that offer the most solutions to mitigate and adapt that are the most affected and made vulnerable in these emergency times. The voices of these people need to be present at decision-making spaces, ever more. They need to be heard in all available channels. They need to win the world. Voices Magazine was a humble contribution to building this narrative that needs to cross people and frontiers and become a part of our daily lives. Throughout these four editions, which were collectively built, we gathered an enormous diversity of voices and visions of the world. We published 80 stories, 18 opinion articles by 80 writers. These contributions came from the entire Amazon but also from partners of other territories in Brazil and around the world. We received stories and articles from five countries of our allies from the Global South, which are in the section Voices Across The World. In the Artistic Climate Vibes section, we have also shared 24 artivism initiatives. These are actions that join art and activism, moving people and reaching places that only art could reach. At Xibé Climático, our space for feeding ourselves with climate content, we shared 28 initiatives and materials. All of it is available in Portuguese as well as in English, ensuring that the voices will echo overseas, aware that this needs to be a global movement. 3700 magazines were printed and distributed around the planet; the magazine also had 4000 online views, coming from 37 countries.

With only a few days from COP30 – the first Amazonian COP of history and one of the most important and decisive ones – we invite you to dive into our final edition. But not just that: We hope you can help us take our stories even further, so that the reach of them can be way bigger than the presented numbers. After all, they can be multiplied by your own voices, echoing the fundamental work done by each one of the VCA organizations and the importance of continuing to fight for Climate Justice, always.

A heartfelt thanks,

VCA Brazil Regional Team

INSTITUTIONAL

Solutions born from the territory

By VCA Brazil Regional Team

4 14 20 22 25 30 34 38 42 44 47

NETWORK ACTIONS

VCA Brazil Emergency Fund

By Fundo Casa and the VCA Brazil Regional Team

NETWORK ACTIONS

On the Bow of Canoes

By João Paulo Serra - Tapajós de Fato and Rádio Banzeiro Coalition

NETWORK ACTIONS

Network of Community Reporters

By Samela Bonfim - Vozes do Tapajós Coalition

NETWORK ACTIONS

Women in Network

By Cleonice Soares, Raimundo Silva, Vanessa Cristina Neco and Horácio Júnior

NETWORK ACTIONS

Climate Accounts and Their Challenges by women from the Global South

By Hivos Brazil, TdF, Jandyras, COIAB, Casa Preta, Equit, Pimp my Carroça, Decodifica& Gaia and Open Knowledge

VOICES around THE WORLD

Indigenous NDC

By Valdeniza Vasques - Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (Coiab)

From pain to hope

By Noelia Díaz Esquivel / Emancipa Magazine and VCA Paraguay Team

Ayoreo Communities in Bolivia Regain Control of Their Forests

By VCA Bolivia

Zambia, a Microcosm of The Future

By Zambia and South South North

CrossRoots

By IEB, VCA Brazil, Quilombo Kalunga Association, GDA Tamaghza and OSAE

51 55 58 60 63 69

NETWORK ACTIONS

Amazonian Youth play the main role at the 3rd Periphery COP in Belém do Pará

By Amanda Martins and Ruth Ferreira, COP das Baixadas

NETWORK ACTIONS

The Communicative Youth Network Flows

By Hannah Lydia, Angélica Mendes, and Anaís Cordeiro,from the Chico Mendes Committee and Comunic(A)tiva Youth Network Coalition

NETWORK ACTIONS / ARTISTIC CLIMATE VIBES

In Between Rage and Fear: Climate crisis and performative resistance in the city of Manaus/Amazonas.

By Francy Júnior

NETWORK ACTIONS

Mutirão Esperançar: Transformation flourishes in the Vila Nova Conquista Occupation

By Conceição Amorim

OPINION / ART MOOD

Where monoculture cannot take us:

An essay on the relationship between art and climate

By Lucía Santalices, Instituto Eqüit and Na Piracema das Mudanças Climáticas Coalition

ART MOOD

Artivism Initiatives to Raise Political and Social Awareness

By the VCA Brazil Regional Team

72

OPINION

Resilience in Times of Emergency: A Request For Rooted Responses

By Eva Duarte, Lara Vaz, and Rogenir Costa, Biome Programme of Fundación Avina

76 78 83 86

The value of memory: registering activism matters

By Jonaya Castro, Megafone Ativismo Coalition

NETWORK ACTIONS

Cuida! Take Care! Amazonian Youth finish climate advocacy formation during Chico Mendes Week

By the Regional VCA Brazil Team

NETWORK ACTIONS

Tocantins Voices: The Coalition Strengthening the Fight for Climate Justice in the Core of Brazil

By Sarah Tamioso, from Onça D’Água Association and Voices of Tocantins Coalition

CLIMATE XIBÉ

To Feed Yourself with Climate Justice Knowledge

By VCA Brazil Regional Team

Solutions born from the territory

5 years strengthening local voices and solutions to face the climate crisis: the impact of the VCA Program in the Brazilian and Global Climate Agenda

By the Regional VCA Brazil Team

Sowing Justice Climate actions since 2021, the Program Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) is coming to its end as a project. For the last five years, the Program supported the positioning of local voices in the Legal Amazon in regards to the climate agenda, calling attention to the protection of the Amazon forest, with a systemic view, considering the knowledge and experiences of traditional peoples and communities as vital solutions for the climate resilience of all humanity. The first lesson, learned from collective experiences, was that the protection and regularization of traditional peoples’ and communities’ territories is one of the main climate solutions. Without this, it is impossible to have any other climate solution, even if it seems viable, since these are precisely the territories that, when preserved, will continue to be an essential climate element. An altruistic element that not only benefits these peoples, but all of humanity, considering the potentiality that a standing Amazon forest represents.

“In the preparation of the VCA actions in Brazil, we identified that the majority of organizations that acted in the Amazon region didn’t position their actions as climate actions. With the work developed by the Program, organizations today recognize themselves as protagonists of the climate solution process and the leaders of an agenda that is directly aimed at generating climate resilience coming from the actions that happen in the daily life of the territories”, reminds us Rogenir Costa, Program coordinator of Fundación Avina. Right at the beginning of the VCA activities, the voice of a young Brazilian indigenous woman echoed globally, appealing for immediate and urgent climate action, critiquing empty promises, and highlighting the importance of indigenous peoples standing at the center of decisions regarding environmental protection and climate change. At the opening of COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland, Txai Suruí stressed how indigenous peoples are at the forefront of the climate emergency and, therefore, they should play a central role in decisions that affect the planet, questioning their absence in decision-making spaces, even though they are the most affected population by the crisis.

“I am very proud of seeing my dear ones participating in important spaces, going to COP, earning their places, organizations that became formal when receiving their first resources from the VCA, and that are already raising funds elsewhere.”

“I’m not saying that the VCA only changed my reality, but it changed the reality of an entire territory. Today, we’re able to reach many more people. Our voice is amplified”

Angélica Mendes, VCA coordinator at WWF-Brazil during the majority of the Program

Ruth Ferreira, from COP das Baixadas,

“While you close your eyes to reality, the forest guardian Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, my childhood friend, was murdered for protecting nature. Indigenous peoples are at the forefront of the climate emergency; this is why we must be at the center of decisions that happen here. We have ideas to postpone the end of the world. Let’s stop the emissions of irresponsible and insincere promises; let’s end with the pollution of empty words and let’s fight for a livable present and future,” said Txai, “We always need to believe that our dream is possible. I hope our utopia will be a future for this Earth.”

Over the last years, more than 120 organizations, collectives, NGOs, and networks participated in the Program. They were conducting actions that demonstrated, in practice, that the development of climate solutions in the Amazon is only possible when they originate from the territories. The answer to the climate crisis is in the territories and needs to part from those who are entitled to do so. The qualified participation of Amazonians in local, state, national, and international decision-making processes needs to be boosted and ensured. For Angélica Mendes, who was a VCA coordinator at WWF-Brazil during the majority of the Program, occupying these spaces is a great victory of the VCA.

“I am very proud of seeing my dear ones participating in important spaces, going to COP, earning their places, organizations that became formal when receiving their first resources from the VCA, and that are already raising funds elsewhere. So I am proud of seeing this social fabric, this Amazonian Civil Society organization present in those spaces, because we have a background in which all of Brazil speaks about the Amazon, but they’re not there. In this movement, the Amazon is the protagonist of its own story.”, she reflects.

Ruth Ferreira, from COP das Baixadas, is one of these voices, taking her voice from the periphery of Belém to the world.

““I’m not saying that the VCA only changed my reality, but it changed the reality of an entire territory. Today, we’re able to reach many more people. Our voice is amplified,” she celebrates.

Communication was a key element of actions from organizations, a popular communication that exposes challenges, that demands, that supports advocacy, and that, most importantly, mobilizes, engages, and gives hope. The creation of new narratives of the territory exposed the Brazilian Amazon in all of

its diversity: urban peripheries, young people, and women from many diverse extractivist, riverside, quilombola, and indigenous communities.

A story that was built and told by us, for us. One of the many examples of it is the Raízes podcast. “Through VCA and NÓS Coalition, we created in the Low Amazon region, a popular communication collective, a podcast about mining inside the territories using a popular, local language, so that those who are in the city of Santarém and Juruti can understand but, most importantly, so that the locals of traditional, quilombola, indigenous and riverside communities can understand what we’re talking about the mineral issues”, explain Alan Hills, from the Popular Sovereignty in Mining Movement - MAM.

Something else we learned is that what may seem like a small resource for big institutions, for these organizations, was the necessary push for transformations that were led locally. The examples are inumerous: building political instruments of territorial governance; strengthening the development of new skills of young people, women

and leaders; creating municipal forums for climate debates; implementing based-on-nature solutions where there’s not enough water for family farming; recovering, documenting and valuing traditional lifestyle knowledge; creating networks for the indigenous and extractivist youth for protecting the territory; amplifying access to decision-making spaces, among many others. Paula Moreira, partnerships manager of the Program by Hivos Brazil, reinforces this argument and reminds us of the challenge of promoting solutions that are truly led by locals. “It was very challenging at the beginning, but we learned to respect the rhythm of local organizations, which, many times, weren’t even officially legal. The principles of the Program were to strengthen local leaders and implement the model of adaptive management according to local needs, so the rules and rhythm were dictated by local organizations. It was also a process of institutional learning, from local to global,” she adds.

We end this Program with the conviction that, when seeds are sown in fertile ground, they flourish with abundance. And abundance is an ancestral skill of Amazonian populations. The VCA wasn’t just a project. It was an experimental field of a new support paradigm: those who recognize local protagonists not as complementary, but as the center of change, shared management, respect for the time and knowledge of territories, and a direct investment in small organizations – many of them led by women, young people, and traditional leaders. V

120

At least 5 received funding for the first time

15

coalizões organizadas

142

MORE THAN 3,000 PARTICIPANTS WOMEN 1.250 OVER YOUTH 1.690 OVER in capacity-building activities

BRAZIL’S LEGAL AMAZON supported organizations in international climate spaces

25,000 training processes supported mobilizations on climate advocacy agendas — from local to global levels 330

More than OVER OVER

89 8 YOUTH 11K WOMEN 13K direct beneficiaries

solutions strengthened municipal, state, and/ or national policies influenced

850,000 AT LEAST

from 4,500 traditional territories across 450 municipalities in all states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon indirect beneficiaries

5,000

50 participations communication products

reaching 6 million views, reads, or accesses

Maranhão

Pará

Amapá

Roraima

Amazonas

Acre

Rondônia

Mato Grosso

Tocantins

OUR NETWORK

Fundo

Casa

Avina

Hivos

IEB

Observatório do Marajó

Malungu

Comitê Chico Mendes

Casa Ninja Amazônia

Coletivo Varadouro

Conselho Nacional das populações Extrativistas (CNS)

Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Rurais de Brasiléia (STR)

Colônia de Pescadores e Pescadoras de Araguacema

Ass. Indígena Pyka Mex (Apinajé)

Ass Quilombola Kalunga do Mimoso Tocantins (AKMT)

Centro de Trabalho Indigenista (CTI)

COOPTER

Ass. Onça D´Água

vozes do tocantins

Colônia de Pescadores e Pescadoras de Araguacema Instituto Sociedade, População e Natureza (ISPN)

Fortalecimento do ecossistema de dados e inovação cívica na Amazônia Brasileira

Rede comunic(A)tiva de jovens

AMOPREX

Liga de quadrilhas Juninas do Acre (LIQUAJAC)

Mandí

Clima de Política

Coletivo Miri Rede Jandyras

APUAMA

Ass. Cultural Kyjre (Povo Krahô)

Ass. Wyty Catè (Povos Timbira)

Ass. de Mulheres do Cantão

Ass. Comunitária dos Artesãos e Pequenos Produtores de Mateiros – Jalapão

UMIAB advocacy dos povos indígenas pela justiça climática

OPIROMA

Casa Preta

Open Knowledge Brasil InfoAmazonia

INDIA/Coletivo Puraqué

ARPIT

megafone ativismo

FEPIPA CIR

Movimento de Pimpadores (Pimp my Carroça) Engajamundo

Instituto Socioambiental

Sumaúma Jornalismo

AIHHUAM

Tapajós de Fato

Guardiões do Bem Viver bambuim

FEAGLE

Floresta ativista amazônia

PSA - Projeto Saúde e Alegria

Escola de Ativismo

NÓS - Educação, comunicação e mobilização popular em defesa das bacias dos rios Juruena e Tapajós

Movimento Tapajós Vivo - MTV

Coletivo Tapajós de Fato

FPMM (Fórum Permanente de Mulheres de Manaus)

Dandara

na piracema das mudanças climáticas

Mídia Ninja

Articulação Nacional das Mulheres Indígenas Guerreiras da Ancestralidade - ANMIGA

Conselho Nacional das populações Extrativistas (CNS)

Sindicato dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras Rurais de Santarém (STTR)

vozes do tapajós combatendo as mudanças climáticas

Movimento pela Soberania Popular na Mineração - MAM

Rede Juruena Vivo

Instituto Equit

Coletivo de Mulheres do Xingu

Coletivo Maravaia

CPCDDH Padre Josimo

Agroecologia para a Proteção das Florestas da Amazônia

Conselho Indígena Tapajós-Arapiuns (CITA)

Sociedade para Pesquisa e Proteção do Meio Ambiente (SAPOPEMA)

Associação de Mulheres Indígenas Suraras do Tapajós

Conselho Indígena Tupinambá (CITUPI)

Coletivo Audiovisual Munduruku Daje Kapap Eypi

Associação Comunitária de Educação em Saúde e Agricultura (ACESA)

Rede de Agroecologia do Maranhão (RAMA)

Associação Justiça dos Trilhos

Associação Agroecológica Tijupá

Grupo de Estudos: Desenvolvimento, Modernidade e Meio Ambiente (GEDMMA)

Other strategic supports

Gueto Hub • COP das Baixadas • LACIGS+ Liga Acadêmica de Cuidados Integrais a Diversidade Sexual e de Gênero • Na Cuia Produtora • Kanindé • Coordenação das Associações das Comunidades Remanescentes dos Quilombos do Pará (MALUNGU) • Abayomi - Grupo de Juventude Negra Quilombola de Salvaterra • Associação das Mulheres Indígenas do Rio Negro em Manaus - NUMIÂ KURA (AMARN) • Instituto Democracia e Sociedade (IDS) • GT Infra pelo Movimento Tapajós Vivo (MTV) • GTA pelo Instituto Madeira Vivo (IMV) • Mulheres Negras Decidem (MND) • UMIAB - União das Mulheres Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira (Amazônia Legal) • Instituto TJNS - Todos Juntos Ninguém Sozinho (Petropólis) • Guerreiras da Floresta da Terra Indígena Caru (MA) • LabJaca (RJ) • Youth Climate Leaders

Support Through the Environmental Defenders: Voices forJust Climate Action Open Call

1. Associação das Famílias da Transamazônica e Xingu (AFATRAX)

2. Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra MST-Roraima

3. Associação de Educação Socioambiental do Tapajós – AESTA (Tapajós Vivo)

4. Emaranhadas - Maranhão

5. Rede Cuira – Jovens Protagonistas dos Manguezais Amazônicos e Associação de Usuários da Reserva Extrativista Marinha Chocoaré Mato Grosso - AUREM/C-MG

6. PALMARES LABORATÓRIO AÇÃO

7. Colônia de Pescadores Z-03 de Oiapoque

8. Organização das Aldeias Marubo do Rio Ituí - OAMI

9. Grupo Quilombando E Semeando Arte - Associação Comunitária de Educação em Saúde e Agricultura - ACESA

10. Coletivo de Juventude Guardiões do Bem Viver - Sociedade Para Pesquisa E Proteção Do Meio Ambiente -Sapopema

11. Rede de Mulheres das Águas e das Florestas- REMAF

12. Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens - Associação de Educação e Cultura Agroecológica Zumbis – AECAZ

13. Associação de Mulheres Trabalhadoras Rurais do PDS Brasília – AMTRAB

14. Instituto de Formação Juvenil do Maranhão

15. Associação da Comunidade Quilombola e Indígena Gibirié de São Lourenço

16. Rede dos Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais de Rondônia - Comissão Pastoral da Terra Regional Rondônia

17. Associação dos Povos Indígenas do Rio Aneba - APIRA

18. Coletivo Pororoka - Instituto Teko Pora Amazônia

Climate Emergency Support

1. Comissão Pastoral da Terra - Acre

2. Associação de Seringueiros, Produtores e Artesãos Kaxinawá de Nova Olinda-ASPAKNO

3. Organização das Lideranças Indígenas Mura de Careiro da VárzeaOLIMCV

4. Associação Sóciocultural Yawanawa ASCY

5. Associação Brasileira de Juristas pela Democracia - ABJD

6. Associação de Moradores Agroextrativistas do Lago do Capanã GrandeAMALCG

7. Organização do Povo Indígenas Tenharin do Igarapé – Preto – APITIPREOrganização dos Povos Indígenas do Alto Madeira

8. ASSOCIACAO DO POVO PARINTINTIN DA TERRA INDIGENA IPIXUNAAPPTI

9. Rede de Trabalho Amazonico - GTA - Instituto de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Amazônico - IPDA

10. Centro de Estudos Avançados de Promoção Social e Ambiental

Support through the Climate Agenda and Local Solutions Call

1. Associação de Mulheres Indígenas Suraras do Tapajós

2. Federação das Associações de Moradores e Comunidades do Assentamento Agroextrativista da Gleba Lago Grande

3. Megafone Ativismo - Movimento de Pimpadores (Pimp My Carroça)

4. Coalizão Vozes do Tocantins por Justiça Climática - Associação Onça D’água

5. Rede Jandyras - Associação Coletivo ParáCiclo

6. Coalizão Floresta Ativista Amazônia - Associação Coletivo Cultural

7. Tapajós de Fato

8. Coletivo Mirí - ASSOCIACAO CULTURAL SOCIAL DA ETNIA QUILOMBOLA PERPETUAR - ACSEQP

9. Rede de Agroecologia do Maranhão (Rama) - Associação Comunitária de Educação em Saúde e Agricultura - ACESA

10. Coletivo Varadouro - Comitê Chico Mendes

11. Coletivo de Mulheres Pretas Marias - Coordenação das Associações Remanescente de Quilombos do Pará - MALUNGU

12. COP das Baixadas - Associação Perifaconnection

13. Centro de Promoção da Cidadania e Defesa dos Direitos Humanos Pe Josimo

Emergency Security and Protection Support for Human Rights Defenders

• 22 apoios

• 18 para pessoas físicas*

• 4 apoios a pessoas jurídicas

• Associação Folclórica de Bumba Meu Boi dFlor do Brasil do Quilombo Onça

• Associação Indígena Ka’a Iwar Federação das Organizações Quilombolas de Santarém-FOQS

• Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Trabalhadoras Rurais de Timbiras

*For security reasons, the names of individuals receiving support will not be mentioned.

VCA BRAZIL EMERGENCY FUND

A fast, flexible, and locally oriented financing mechanism supports resilience and response to climate emergencies, and the protection of environmental defenders.

By Rodrigo Montaldi Morales, program manager at the Casa

Fund and the VCA Brazil Regional Team.

the Voices for Just Climate Action program (VCA) in Brazil has played a fundamental role in strengthening Amazonian civil society representation in local, regional, and global decision-making on the climate agenda. The strategic objective of the VCA Program is to empower diverse groups and sectors of local civil society to assume a central role as innovators, facilitators, and advocates for just climate solutions by 2025.

As part of the strategy to consolidate this objective, the VCA Global Alliance, which operates in seven countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Indonesia, Kenya, Tunisia, and Zambia), created the Next Level Grant Facility (NLGF), an acronym for the VCA Emergency Fund. The fund seeks to empower grassroots organizations, activists, and vulnerable communities

by providing fast, flexible, and locally oriented financing mechanisms to support resilience and response to climate emergencies, as well as advocacy and protection for environmental defenders facing risks and threats.

Launched in 2024 and with a total budget of €3.5 million across seven countries, the NLGF (VCA Emergency Fund) is managed regionally by local funds that, by understanding the specific contexts of each country, are able to be more agile and flexible in financing local organizations and communities. In Brazil, the VCA Emergency Fund is managed by Casa Socio-environment Fund. About to complete 20 years of operation, the Casa Fund has extensive experience serving as a crucial bridge between financial resources, capacity building, and the communities that lead the preservation and promotion of socio-

Photo: Health and Happiness Project Archive

environmental and climate justice in Brazil, demonstrating that local solutions have the power to generate global change.

The Casa Fund’s partnership with the VCA Brazil Alliance stems from Casa’s longstanding support experience, but also from the Support Program for Environmental and Climate Justice Defenders and the “Rapid Response Fund”. This program, established in 2019, has already allocated approximately R$4.3 million to over 330 emergency grants for individuals and groups at risk or threatened due to their activities protecting biomes and collective rights.

In total, the Casa Fund has been managing, through the VCA Emergency Fund, R$2.5 million in direct donations to organizations, activists, and communities in the Legal Amazon during 2024 and 2025.

Through Axis 1 (Rapid Response Emergency Fund), 22 grants were made to activists and groups of human rights and environmental defenders at risk or threatened, focusing on actions to protect life, physical integrity, and safety, as well as legal protection. Of this total, 41% of the activists supported (support to individuals) identified as male and 41% as female, while 18% of the support went to collectives and legal organizations.

Also within the scope of the 22 emergency rapid response grants, 41% were provided to individuals who identified as black, 32% to indigenous people, 18% to people of mixed race, 4% to individuals who identified as white, and 5% to collectives and organizations that did not disclose this information. Indigenous peoples represented 32% of the beneficiaries of the support provided, 27% went to quilombolas (descendants of quilombolas), 23% to farmers, 14% to extractivists, and 4% to LGBTQIAP+ activists. Pará was the state that received the most support in this

THIS SUPPORT IS PROVIDED THROUGH THREE STRATEGIC AXES:

Axis 1

Emergency Rapid Response Fund (via spontaneous demand)

Focus: Provide emergency support to human rights and environmental defenders (activists and collectives) affected by the climate emergency in an urgent/emergency context who are suffering human rights violations as a result of their socio-environmental activities.

axis 2

Call for Projects for organizations working on the environmental defenders’ agenda (via project selection process – public notice)

Focus: Strengthen organizations and support networks that work with human rights defenders on environmental issues affected by the climate emergency through the following lines of support: i) Access to decision-making spaces; ii) Evidence generation; iii) Communication and awareness campaigns; iv) Training, development, and capacity building; and v) Legal Protection

axis 3

Invitation Letter to organizations working on local solutions and strengthening the climate agenda (via invitation letter addressed to organizations in the VCA Brazil Coalitions)

Focus: Strengthen ongoing actions toward local climate solutions in territories severely impacted by climate change (intense droughts and severe floods), as well as ongoing actions to strengthen the climate agenda, focusing on advocacy, participation in decision-making spaces, evidence generation and knowledge production, in addition to campaigns and communication.

modality, representing 64% of the transfers, followed by Maranhão (23%), Amazonas (9%), and Tocantins (4%).

The actions in this modality for threatened or atrisk environmental defenders involved supported activities for personal and community safety, communication expenses, travel expenses, temporary relocation, permanent relocation, transportation, medical expenses, physical and mental health, and other alternative forms of selfcare and collective care, as well as expenses for legal assistance and protection.

Since support in this modality focuses on sensitive issues that require the anonymity of the individuals and groups receiving support for security reasons, below are some accounts from those receiving support without citing their authorship:

“The support fulfilled the purpose of installing a security system in the defender’s home and in the other lots in the settlement, but also provided legal counseling for the defender regarding her current situation of risk and threat”.

“The support was important because it allowed me to have quick access to communication. In addition to helping me communicate with my relatives who live in another city, it also allowed me, if necessary, to contact partners and agencies responsible for my safety”.

“The support helped me financially, but it also had a direct impact on my personal safety and mental health. Although I still feel a sense of danger and posttraumatic stress, the solidarity and concern from my allies have been reflected in my daily life and work”.

“The support I received for rent payments during the period I had to relocate to another city was essential to ensuring my personal safety. Working alone, the risk of exposure to threats was even greater. This resource allowed me to temporarily relocate to a safer location. This was crucial for reducing stress and removing me from situations of immediate risk, ensuring a protected space where I could recover and plan my next actions with greater peace of mind. Without this support, it would have been much more difficult to maintain focus on my work, as insecurity would be a constant concern”.

Rapid Response Emergency Fund

Gender Profile of Supported Persons

Race/Color

Person/Collective Supported Statement

Also under Axis 1 (Emergency Rapid Response Fund), 10 grants were made to address emergency responses to climate disasters. These emergency aid measures were implemented following extreme events (intense droughts and severe floods), such as the severe droughts that occurred in Pará in 2024 and in Amazonas in 2025.

According to Aldeni de Matos, of the Association of Kaxinawá Rubber Tappers, Producers, and Artisans of Nova Olinda, Acre, the emergency support they received “contributed to the sustainability of food for families while they worked to recover their agricultural production, given that production is the source of their food and the sustainability of their income generation. And with the equipment acquired, the territory is being monitored, preventing the invasion of non-indigenous people”.

This type of response to climate emergencies included:

• Infrastructure adaptation with the installation of technologies such as GPS and radio communicators for monitoring and alerting river levels (situation and risk room in the community);

• Restructuring, structural repair, and renovation of homes and headquarters of organizations affected by severe flooding;

Reconstruction and maintenance of logistics and access infrastructure on roads and bridges that provide access to affected territories, restoring movement, access to basic rights and services, as well as the circulation of food, medicine, and humanitarian aid;

• Emergency actions to promote access to drinking water in communities affected by extreme drought through the distribution of nanotechnology filters;

• And actions to raise public awareness of good environmental practices through environmental education, seeking to minimize the impacts of climate disasters on the livelihoods of affected populations.

By State

For Axis 2 (a call for projects to strengthen organizations and support networks working on the agenda of environmental defenders affected by the climate emergency), a selection process for projects was held in May 2024 via a public call/ announcement. The goal was to promote projects that strengthen communities, organizations, and support networks that act as human rights defenders on environmental issues affected by the climate emergency. A total of 52 projects were received, and 18 projects were ultimately selected, valued at up to R$50,000, totaling R$900,000 in direct donations for the following support lines:

• Line 1: Access to decision-making spaces;

• Line 2: Generation of evidence, complaints, and data on the impacts of climate emergencies for human rights defenders on environmental issues;

• Line 3: Campaigns and communication;

• Line 4: Training, development, and capacity building;

• Line 5: Legal protection.

For Emilly Schwingel, of the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB-MT), the supported project strengthened the understanding that rights violations are not just individual; they collectively affect the entire community. As a result, the actions developed contributed to strengthening social activism and prepared communities to face future conflicts and threats to their territories. She says: “The project strengthened the defense of affected communities and environmental defenders by organizing communication and awareness campaigns that increased popular engagement and mobilization. This strategy enabled the demand for fair compensation and territorial recognition, empowering residents in the fight against the impacts of the climate emergency and its direct consequences on their livelihoods”.

Of the 18 projects supported and with activities underway by July 2025, 8 are from the state of Pará, 3 from Amazonas and Maranhão, respectively, and 1 each from the states of Rondônia, Roraima, Mato Grosso, and Amapá. Regarding the format of the supported organizations, 8 approved projects are implemented by associations, 4 by networks and organizations, 3 by collectives, 2 by social movements, and 1 by an NGO.

Regarding the gender component, 67% of these projects have women responsible for organizing and implementing the projects, leading these processes. The profile of these organizations, in descending order, ranges from citizen activists to extractive organizations, farmers, quilombolas, indigenous fishing and riverside communities, and finally, residents (neighborhood associations).

Finally, under Axis 3 (Invitation Letter for organizations working on local solutions and strengthening the climate agenda), a call for proposals was issued in March 2025, via invitation letter, addressed to the organizations of the 15 VCA Brazil Coalitions. The objective was to strengthen

Types of Supported Organizations

Call for Projects for organizations working on the environmental defenders’ agenda (via project selection process - public notice)

Projects Implemented

8 Projects Implemented

1 Project Implemented

3 Projects Implemented 2 projects implemented

women are responsible for organizing and executing projects

ongoing actions focused on Local Climate Solutions in territories of the Legal Amazon severely impacted by climate change, especially intense droughts and severe floods, as well as to support ongoing actions to strengthen the climate agenda with a focus on advocacy, participation in decision-making spaces, and the development of local, regional, and national climate policies, such as COP30. It also aimed to generate evidence and produce knowledge about the impacts of climate change in the territories, develop/strengthen campaigns and communication strategies that contribute to the implementation of actions that ensure the resilience, sustainability, and protagonism of these communities in the global climate agenda.

From this invitation process, Casa Fund received 17 projects, and we are supporting 13 projects with up to R$63,000 through October 2025, totaling R$819,000 donated directly to strengthen the climate agenda and local climate solutions.

The VCA Emergency Fund (NLGF) was a decisive achievement within the VCA Program, playing a crucial role in strengthening the resilience of communities in the Legal Amazon to the challenges of climate emergencies and in defending the rights of activists, collectives, and territories.

Another significant impact of the VCA Emergency Fund in Brazil has been its contribution to raising climate awareness and political influence. Several funded projects are supporting research and documentation on climate injustices, providing critical evidence used to engage policymakers and advocate for stronger climate protections. Furthermore, with COP30 scheduled to take place in Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, initiatives supported by the VCA Emergency Fund are actively preparing environmental leaders and advocates to participate in the global climate dialogue, ensuring that their perspectives influence international climate discussions. V

Photo: CPT Acre Archive

Photo: CPT Acre Archive

on the bow of canoes

Waves are carrying out popular communication along the River Arapiuns

By João Paulo Serra, Project Coordinator of Tapajós de Fato, Rádio Banzeiro Coalition

Everything began and culminated in Vila Brasil. I refuse to say it’s over. It wasn’t just a project but a blow of hope planted in the Amazon region. What we did there was more than merely completing reports or activities: we planted seeds. Good quality seeds, into fertile soil, a soil that pulses with life, breathes resistance, echoes collective strength, and uniqueness of a people that won’t be silenced. The story I’m about to tell you comes from the Rádio Banzeiro Coalition (an alliance of dreamers: Tapajós de Fato, Guardiões do Bem Viver, and FEAGLE, supported by Hivos).

And now, I yearn for the day when communication will have new faces that will share news about their communities. When it won’t be just us, the communicators of today, writing news about Lago Grande’s Project Agroextractivist Settlement (PAE). I expect it to be them (young people from the territories), popular communicators from Lago Grande PAE, who will support leaders and who will speak of their people (and from what we can see, it’s already happening). They will be the ones who participated in our communication caravans, convened by Rádio Banzeiro.

Let me tell you how everything began

The year was 2022. Global VCA had just embarked on a journey across the territories supported by the program, and that’s how, in the middle of River Tapajós, Amazonas, and Arapiuns, we met our team from Hivos. And in one of these conversations we had inside a boat, anchored at Vila Brasil, we shared a dream: “We want to buy some pendrives so we can distribute our podcast to the furthest communities, so that communal radios will share it.”

Luckily, this world always brings us some surprises that enliven our daily lives. That small dream expanded beyond Tapajós de Fato. It became a dream of Hivos, of Guardiões do Bem Viver Collective, of FEAGLE – and that’s how, all of a sudden, we were all swimming in the same direction, the direction of resistance’s echo and territory strengthening. That’s how Rádio Banzeiro Coalition was born. A chain of voices that decided not only to produce the podcast and distribute pendrives, but to create something bigger.

our dream grew up

We created Web Rádio Banzeiro. We navigated rivers and crossed roads to bring popular communication everywhere on the Lago Grande Agroextractivist Settlement. Wherever we could cast our nets, dive in cold waters, listen to the older ones, learn from the younger ones, we would stop for three days to work. Each community was an open live exchange space, each encounter a type of soil, each person a seed. We went across more than 30 communities and three regions, strengthening 90 young people, involving collectives, associations, and schools. Everywhere, the soil was fertile. We weren’t simply spreading seeds. This was made in a time when the youth of the territory were mobilizing themselves and doing great actions with all communities of PAE.

What we saw was beyond what we expected These young people not only learned how to record podcasts or edit videos, they became narrators of their own stories and defenders of their territories. Today, the resistance against mining increases, climate justice has become a standard, and they are the ones on the front line, showing the world that popular communication is not just a tool, it is a weapon, a shield, a shout of triumph.

What about the culmination? Ah, the culmination happened in April 2025, when we gathered part of this youth and took a step further: we made videocasts. The idea was to show the diverse possibilities of creating content, all of it while we explored communities. We recorded podcasts on riversides, in ravines, on the bow of canoes. And it was in the riverwaters’ movements, that we call “banzeiro”, that we believed popular communication is wavering with us, the fruit of almost 2 years of work in direct collaboration with organizations and locals. V

Network of community reporters consolidates itself as a communication tool in the low Amazon regions of Pará

With support from ‘Vozes do Tapajós combatendo as mudanças climáticas’ Coalition (Voices from the Tapajó combatting climate change Coalition), the project scaled up and amplified the number of communicators that reveal productive chains in 13 municipalities of the Low Amazon Region

By Samela Bonfim, from the Tapajós Voices Coalition

There are times when everywhere is full, and so it becomes easier; we can catch them near home. But when it gets dry, we have to move further away”, fisherman Antônio Rosires, from the Coast Community of the Tapará River, explains to reporter Anaiara Santos, from Santarém in Para, about shrimp fishery for household nutrition.

The region experiences the dynamics of river seasonality marked by more intense flows and ebbs over the last five years. These changes in cycles and river dynamics were highlighted in productions by young communicators of the community reporters program, initiated by Sapopema in 2022, with support of the VCA Program, represented at the region by NGO Projeto Saúde e Alegria (Health and Joy Project), which coordinated a coalition composed of seven organizations.

Over two years, the program directly involved 66 popular reporters, with diverse age groups, mainly between 10 and 14 years old, from 41 different communities located in the Tapajós, Arapiuns, and Ituqui regions in the Low Amazon. The actions prioritized the participation of women, indigenous leaderships, quilombolas (maroons), and young people in vulnerable social situations.

In total, more than 80 video-stories were produced with topics such as: impacts of severe drought and climate change, challenges of riverside school education, strengthening of family farmers and extractivists, young and female protagonism, valuing of cultural identity, and land defense. The stories were published in digital channels of Sapopema, social media, and, in some cases, had repercussions in regional and national press.

80 videosstories produced

In 2025, the project expanded into new communities and topics, reaching the production chains of local socioeconomy through other supporters, such as the Moore Foundation, and also in partnership with the fisherman colony of the region through Mopebam and organizations such as Turiarte, unions, and cooperatives.

“The young communicators’ actions have amplified the visibility of activities like fishery, agroecology, and sustainable family farming, connecting traditional practices and systematized data with communication tools. The idea is to strengthen these organizations and empower young people as future leaders of the territories,” highlighted Samela Bonfim, program coordinator.

Narratives of sociobioeconomy

During the first three months (May-July), 28 reporters produced 75 videos in which they narrate the production process of 13 municipalities of the Low Amazon Region. They address topics in three main production chains: fishing, family farming, and handicraft, including shrimp production, fishing activities, pirarucu cultivation, production of foods such as flour, tapioca, vegetables, sugar cane juice, ornamental plants growing, and jacitara handcrafting. Besides women’s empowerment.

The proposal is for young people, through their audiovisual productions, to show their territory’s potential, challenges, and opportunities. With images and testimonies of local people, the material will serve to subsidize the public power, so that the most presented propositions can serve as a guiding direction for creating more effective policies.

“As a reminder, if we have healthy food on our tables, we show how important it is to work and fight for the environment, we will already be of help”, says Selma Ferreira, Coordinator from Amabela, interviewed by reporter Bruna Nerys.

“Fishing management meets not only current needs, but the needs of future generations, assuring a fishing stock for the environmental balance and also for other species, because they migrate from one place to the other, and that helps with nutrition sustainability”, Aldeci Dias, from the community of São José, in conversation with reporter Bruno Ezequiel V

see more

“The young communicators’ actions have amplified the visibility of activities like fishery, agroecology, and sustainable family farming, connecting traditional practices and systematized data with communication tools. The idea is to strengthen these organizations and empower young people as future leaders of the territories.”

Samela Bonfim, program coordinator

women in network

Strengthening Women and Agroecology Groups in Babassu Coconut Territories

By Cleonice

Silva Soares1, Raimundo Alves Silva2, Vanessa Cristina Neco3 and Horácio Antunes de Sant’ana Júnior4

1Grupo de Mulheres Josina’s de Fibra Women, defibrajosinas@gmail.com; 2Associação Comunitária de Educação em Saúde e Agricultura (Acesa), acesa. coordenacao@gmail.com; 3Associação Comunitária de Educação em Saúde e Agricultura (Acesa), acesa. mulheres@gmail.com; 4Universidade Federal do Maranhão (UFMA), horacio.antunes@ufma.br

illustration: Jambo Studio

experience introduction and contextualization

Acesa, since its creation in 1986, has been looking to strengthen men and women farmers from the Middle Mearim region. Some of the actions were developed to bring visibility to the work of women who work as Babassu coconut breakers/farmers/ craftswomen, as well as to bring their actions to the center of the local organization process. Since 2000, there has been a visible concern about the violence they face in their social and gender relations, and that’s how the first seminars on gender and agroecology began. These new approaches increased women’s participation in the institution’s activities, gave access to new debates that discuss new ways of understanding social relations, allowing women to acquire a new perception of themselves as subjects of rights. This way, they can contribute to defending life, combating violence against women, and providing context about gender relations.

Babassu Coconut breaker. Photo: Pulsar Imagem/Adobe Stock

In 2015, through the project “Family Farming with an Agroecological Basis: Building equity”, the organization began to approach more effectively the importance of women farmers and Babassu coconut breakers’ work inside the communities where they operate.

Acesa uses information about equity, autonomy, and the visibility of women’s productive work to support and strengthen women and women’s groups of the region. These actions aim not only at improving the work conditions of Babassu coconut breakers but also at promoting gender equity, empowering women, and recognizing their fundamental role in the sustainability and conservation of local and ancestral knowledge.

As a result of these actions, still in 2015, the group Josina’s de Fibra was created by 10 women farmers, Babassu coconut breakers, and craftswomen from the communities of Centro da Josina, quilombo Santa Cruz, and Centro dos Mouras, all of them inside the municipality of São Luís Gonzaga do Maranhão/MA.

These communities are situated in the Mearim region. In the 1980s, this region experienced an advance in livestock farming, which resulted in significant negative consequences for the local communities. Currently, communities continue to face the same problems, besides new ones that emerged as effects of the large estate areas, the deforestation of Babassu forests, the restrictions that difficult or deny access of women coconut breakers to the Babassu areas, and the use of agrochemicals that generate significant losses of sociobiodiversity, affecting women coconut breakers and palm trees directly.

During the period 2022-2025, with the support of the Voices for Just Climate Action Program, we implemented the project Agroecology for the Protection of Amazon Forests in coalition with Acesa, Rama, Tijupá, Justiça nos Trilhos, and GEDMMA, which helped a lot in the formation processes about climate change and impacts on traditional ways of life.

The development of the experience

Women from the above-mentioned communities also face a strong patriarchy, besides being the first ones to feel the impacts of climate change in their own body-territories, like having difficulties with water availability, production of food in productive backyards, and with other productive activities. Muniz (2025, p.145) approaches the body of women as an extension of their own territory. She affirms:

“It is necessary to reflect on the concept of body-territory, as a place of healing, as Rosa, a coconut breaker, quilombola-woman, says: “When we talk about territory, we are talking about bodies, palm trees [Babassu]. Body and territory that heal and that are healed. Belonging to these spaces is also a way of healing. A place of healing should be one where we can walk barefoot.”

In this sense, climate change affects the conditions, ways of life, and work of Babassu coconut breakers and of communities in general. These climate changes put at risk the physical and emotional health and sustainability of women and the activities of babassu coconut breakers. They also hinder the preservation of palm trees, an essential source of richness and survival for coconut breakers.

That’s how Josina’s de Fibra group emerged to strengthen the collective of coconut breakers, given they are women who carry a background of defense for their territory and Babassu palm trees, of protection and care of native seeds, and of facing agribusiness with their actions. They’re also protagonists in the process of agroecological transition, mainly with their backyards (farming gardens and medicinal plants, experimenting with a variety of seeds and raising small animals).

Josina’s de Fibra women know that by saving seeds and biodiversity, they are protecting cultural diversity, which is strongly different from the capitalist, corporate, and industrial rationale that wishes to perpetuate colonialism, including within food systems. In accordance, Vandana Shiva (2024, p.30) positions herself affirming:

Not only are the strategies of corporate and industrial reproduction incapable of dealing with climate change, but genetically modified seeds are killing farmers. In India, thousands of farmers committed suicide due to debts caused by the high costs and unreliable seeds sold by big corporations. Suicides are concentrated in areas dependent on commercial seeds, and they are more intense where Bt cotton(genetically modified) is sold. These seeds are seeds of suicide and slavery. There are no suicides where farmers use ancestral seeds and traditional varieties.

challengeS

The women of Josina’s de Fibra group have as their primary motivations: concerns about mental and physical health, the nutrition of their families, and the conservation of sociobiodiversity. Even so, they are the ones who suffer the most and who face a variety of violences from external agents, like big corporations and large estates that violate their territories. The State fails to implement laws and public policies to protect the territory where the women live; they are flexible about vigilance, and even the existing laws incentivize big corporations through financing and policies for their type of production. These women also suffer and face internal violence inside their homes and communities, generated by sexism that excludes them from decision-making spaces about their productions and participation in public policies, culminating in domestic, psychological, and economic violence.

Main results

Since its creation, the group has received support from Acesa, the Coalition Agroecology for the Protection of Amazon Forests, Voices for Just Climate Action Program/Fundación Avina, and other partnerships. Reusing Babassu coconut and Banana tree fibers, they developed handicraft techniques that combine ancestry, sustainability, and income generation. They also improved their backyard and strengthened their agroecological production. They began to reclaim discussions about women’s rights, occupying spaces inside organizations and in political discussions in their territories, accessing public policies, and increasing their incomes with local and regional sales. That is how the group became a reference in female collective organization for women and women’s groups of other communities where Acesa operates.

the Dissemination of the experience

It was because of these experiences and with support from Coalition Agroecology for the Protection of Amazon Forests, Voices for Just Climate Action Program/Fundación Avina that in 2024, Elas em Rede was born, an articulation of women’s groups strengthened by joint

formations, knowledge exchanges, and collective strategies of resistance. Besides Josina’s de Fibra, the network is also composed of: Mulheres Quilombando e Semeando Arte (Quilombola Community Catucá, Bacabal-MA); Mulheres do Babaçu de Marmorana (Marmorana Community, Lago Verde-MA); Mulheres das Semeadoras de Esperança (Alto Alegre do Maranhão-MA).

Together, these women compose a network of 52 women farmers, with ages between 19 and 70, coconut breakers, quilombolas, craftswomen, and guardians of traditional knowledge who continue to fight with solidarity and autonomy. Elas em Rede is, today, a strategic space for strengthening agroecology, defending territories, facing climate change, and building an economy of care and of collective resistance for the women of Mearim. Each group has its autonomy and strategies, but they also collectively strengthen communal fights. As said by Leinha, from the quilombola community Catucá.

With Elas em Rede, we learn to know a different world, we step out of our bubbles, we value our work. We had no voices, no power. Today, we feel safe and empowered; we have learned how to speak. We learned how to say no at the right time. We also learned, by exchanging knowledge with many women, that each community, each group, has its own culture and ways. And that’s how we continue to grow, with culture and respect for one another.

Each group of women has improved their production and trade strategies, but beyond that, women have strengthened their socioeconomic empowerment, valuing and recognizing themselves as guardians of their territory. Discussions about climate change and other topics on climate have made it possible to effectively defend their territories, like Luísa from the Mamorana community said:

I had never been a part of anything in my entire life. As a group, we went to a workshop about climate change in Quilombo Catucá. None of us had ever left home before. It was in the workshop that I learned that what butchers do is wrong; they kill the cattle and throw the rest away on our riversides, where we fish. So, the first thing I did when I came back home from the workshop was to go to our riverside and put up a sign to forbid it. The teacher of the school saw us there and asked what we were doing. I answered him. He decided to record a video and put it out to the world. I sent the video to the association group, saying that whoever tried to throw things on our riverside would have to deal with us, because we’re going to look for justice no matter what. The video reached across other people, and that was it. People stopped throwing things on our riverside. And we only did that because of the workshop and because of all the women who encouraged us to do so.

That’s how each community has recognized, bit by bit, women’s groups and new women have become members of them. Each group settles, in their communities, spaces for meeting and producing, aiming to strengthen collectivity, financial autonomy, and affection between women. They always connect through Elas em Rede to think of ways to defend their collective fights. The current goal is to make Elas em Rede reach more women and communities, to potentiate the fight for the territories against many threats, and to amplify the fight for rights and raise awareness of agroecology as a way of life.

Referências

MUNIZ, Ariana Gomes da Silva. Coco e cocar: lutas, resistências e identidades compartilhadas das indígenas e quebradeiras de coco Akroá Gamella em Viana, Maranhão [recurso eletrônico]. São Luis: EdUEMA. 2024.

SHIVA, Vandana. Terra Viva: minha vida em uma biodiversidade de movimento. Tradução Marina Kater. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2024.

CAPORAL, Francisco Roberto; COSTABEBER, José Antônio. Agroecologia: Enfoque científico e estratégico. Revista Agroecologia e Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável, v.3, n.2, abr-jun, 2002.

BARBOSA, Viviane de Oliveira. Mulheres do Babaçu: Gênero, Maternalismo e Movimentos Sociais no Maranhão. Tese. 267f. (Doutorado em História Social), Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, 2013.

Coalition Agroecology for the Protection of Amazon Forests

The actions developed by the project Coalition Agroecology for the Protection of Amazon Forests, in the period of 2022-2025, contributed significantly to amplify debates about climate change, involving communal leaders in the defense for their territories and ways of life, reporting violations of human and nature rights, structuring communication strategies for announcements and complaints as well as transforming gender relations, placing women at the centrality of actions, giving them access to knowledge and strengthening their skills for productive organization and political advocacy.

Climate accounts and their challenges by women from the global south

By Jakeline

Carvalho

,

and Paula

, from Hivos Brasil VAC Network, Voices for a Just Climate Action research team: João Paulo Souza (TdF), Eduarda Batista (Jandyras), Dânia Silva Baré (COIAB), Sayonara Malta (Casa Preta), Isabela Callegari (Equit), Nanci Darcolléte(Pimp my Carroça), Livia Santos, Kayo Moura e Laura Torres (Decodifica & Gaia). Members of the Guiding Committee: Marcos Wesley (TdF), Haydee Svab (Open Knowledge Brasil), Graciela Rodriguez (Equit), Paula Moreira and Danielle Almeida de Carvalho (Hivos).

Ilustration: Jambo Studio

Xavier

Danielle Almeida de Carvalho

Moreira

through traditional knowledge, creative solutions, care work, and amplification of support networks, women from the Global South have been leading work to face climate change, providing solutions and bearing its costs. To make their work visible and to translate figures and public policy proposals, Hivos, in partnership with WRI and researchers from the VAC network, will launch at COP30 the results of the research “Social and Economic Costs of Climate Change on Female Households: Evidence from Brazil and Zambia (20222025)”. The process gathers results from interviews in women-led households in rural and urban areas of Brazil and Zambia, supported with a robust bibliography review, to understand the costs of climate change in the domestic economy.

“With this study, we want to highlight the real costs of facing climate change for women who lead mitigation and adaptation initiatives, and also propose recommendations for public policies in care and climate areas. We know the costs are very high in terms of mental health and even higher in financial aspects”, affirms Paula Moreira, Manager of Engagement from the VAC program, by Hivos.

The first stage of the research analysed 23 articles about the social and economic costs of climate change. The investigation concentrated on the analysis of concrete impacts such as income loss, increase in household expenses, and risk exposure, and it considers the strategies adopted by women in vulnerable situations. The second stage of the research includes applying questionnaires in the VAC territories of Brazil and Zambia.

impacts on household budgets

It is verified that climate change effects on household budgets are significant. In Brazil, an urban framing shows that women-led households, especially those of black and peripheral women, are the most affected by floods, landslides, and failures of basic infrastructure. The additional costs of health, food, energy, and transportation are aggravated by the precariousness of public services and by familiar care work overload. In 68% of analysed cases, there was total or partial loss of domestic items after floods.

In Zambia, the rural scenery presents distinct but equally severe challenges. The reduction of agricultural productivity, provoked by long periods of droughts, irregular rainfall, and soil erosion, directly affects women farmers who face systematic restrictions on accessing

Brazil

Women-led households, especially black and peripheral women, are the most affected by floods, landslides, and failures of basic infrastructure.

68%

of the analysed cases showed a total or partial loss of domestic items after floods.

ZaMBIA

Expressive increase of informal indebtedness, food insecurity, and violence against women.

63%

of women say they were forced to cut expenses with food and education due to extreme climate events

lands, credit, and technology (i.e., cellphones). As a consequence, an expressive increase of informal indebtedness and food insecurity has been observed: in an academic article, 63% of women said they were forced to cut expenses with food and education due to extreme climate events. An increase in violence against women has also been observed.

Public policies’ frailty and social implications

The analysis demonstrated that there is, in Brazil and Zambia, a frailty or a lack of public policies specific to women. Only 30% of the reviewed studies identified any government measure that considers gender specificities in climate impacts. Another critical point was identified regarding the absence of gender data in territories, which limits the visibility of climate effects on household budgets and makes monitoring of inequalities associated with climate crisis difficult.

Given these factors, it becomes evident how climate change amplifies pre-existing inequalities. The costs faced by female households aren’t limited to economic spheres – affecting income, consumption, and financial security – they also generate social implications. Among them, we highlight the effects on women’s physical and mental health, the intensification of carework overload, and the enlarged difficulties of having access to education, technology, mobility, and social protection.

Response to climate change

The majority of identified responses to climate change come from the affected women and communities themselves. Solutions such as solidarity networks, communal gardens, agroecological practices, and reconfigurations of care spaces operate as resilience mechanisms within their territories. Even though these initiatives are effective, they receive little institutional support or recognition.

Recommendations for public policies and possible paths

To amplify the extent and effectiveness of these strategies, research outcomes indicate that it is fundamental for technical teams of governmental

entities, civil society organisations, and partner organizations to recognize and strengthen already existing abilities in our territories. This is possible, according to the research recommendations, through enabling women’s access to climate credit, adaptive technologies, technical support, and land tenure regularization. Besides that, investments in active listening of communities and valuing solutions that already have positive results against climate change are recommended actions of the investigation.

Women as central points in addressing the climate crisis

To improve the quality of the debate and of information about the role of women in social impacts of climate change, Hivos will launch, along with the above-mentioned research and with Eqüit Gender, Economy and Citizenship Global Institute, the publication “Climate extremes, mental health and care: the role of women from the Global South in the maintenance of the Earth”. The case study happened in Brazil, with partner organizations of VAC in Brazil, Tunisia, Kenya, and Indonesia.

The initiative emerges from the registry and sistematization of climate solutions stories of women in different Brazilian and African communities –quilombolas, peripheral, babassu coconut-breakers, amazonians, and rural – to understand the connection of women and nature, which traditional knowledge is used to face climate change, and how they organize themselves for protecting their territories.

It is expected that the launch of the report “Social and Economic Costs of Climate Change on Feminine Households: Evidences from Brazil and Zambia(2022-2025)” and the publishing of “Climate Extremes, mental health and care: the role of women from the Global South in the maintenance of the Earth” will contribute and improve the quality of debate about the economic valorization of invisible and non-paid care work and the hidden costs of climate change on their domestic lives. We also expect these topics to be seriously considered when discussing climate financing. V

Around the World

It’s not just Brazil… In other places of the world, voices rising from the earth also want climate justice. What is happening in the climate justice movement in other countries and in the global scenario? How are those voices acting? What are they saying?

THE ANSWER IS US

INDIGENOUS NDC

Indigenous peoples of the Amazon present a NDC proposal for COP30 and request priorization of the recognition of indigenous territories as a climate policy and as zones free of exploration activities.

By Valdeniza Vasques, from the Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Organizations Coordination (Coiab) • Illustration: Rafael Melgueiro

In June, Authorities and indigenous leaderships from the nine countries of the Amazon Basin presented, in Brasília, an indigenous NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution) proposal, with climate actions to be adopted by States until COP30. The document was delivered during the indigenous preCOP to the Brazilian Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, and to the representative of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, Maria Violeta Medina.

“There will be no possible future without Indigenous Peoples at the center of global decisions. The States must respect our rights, incorporate our ancestral knowledge and ensure the protection of indigenous territories to conceive more effective mitigation and adaptation strategies”, says the document, signed by 28 indigenous organizations from the Amazon Basin.

The indigenous NDC elects as priorities for COP30: the recognition and protection of all indigenous territories as a climate action and policy, especially territories with the presence of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact; direct financing and financial autonomy; effective representation and participation in spaces of climate decision; protection for indigenous defenders; inclusion of indigenous systems of knowledge as mitigation, adaptation and restoring environmental strategies; and the establishment of Amazon indigenous territories as zones free from extractive activities.

The demands are addressed to the States that integrate the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP/UNFCCC), Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), and to the governments of Amazon countries. The document was already presented at strategic global agendas, such as the Bonn Climate Change Conference, in Germany.

The indigenous pre-COP was convened by the Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), and the international coalition G9 of Indigenous Amazon.

“This NDC is the result of indigenous peoples’ voices from the entire Amazon Basin. These are our reivindications, our knowledge, and our paved pathways to overcome the challenges that threaten the forest and the planet’s climate. We will no longer take empty promises. We demand real commitment from countries, which will include and respect indigenous authorities. There is no solution for the climate crisis without the protection of indigenous territories, without a guarantee of our rights and our effective participation in decisionmaking. This NDC is a call for climate justice and for respect for indigenous peoples”, Toya Manchineri, general coordinator of Coiab, affirmed.

Sonia Guajajara highlighted the preparation for indigenous advocacy at COP30, which aims to have the biggest indigenous delegation of all COPs, with credentials for more than 1000 indigenous individuals from all over the world. “We have a direct advocacy so countries will really take decisions that matter, with assumed commitments and a guarantee of national agreements, with safety for indigenous peoples inside their territories,” the minister declares at the indigenous pre-COP.

Acess the link to read the full document

Minister Sonia Guajajara received the indigenous NDC proposal.

Our way here

Indigenous pre-COP is one of the steps of the Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Movement towards COP30, but the advocacy of indigenous peoples in the climate agenda has been built for years. Alongside strategic partners such as the initiative Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA), since 2023, COIAB has been performing a series of actions and mobilizations that aim to amplify and qualify the participation of indigenous peoples in the climate debate. An example was the course about Climate Change, Carbon, and REDD+ in the Indigenous Amazon, convened by the Amazon Center of Indigenous Formation (Cafi) in three modules, throughout 2023, with the participation of 230 leaders.

VCA has also supported the convening of the Assembly of the Peoples of the Earth for the Amazon, in the city of Belém, Pará, in 2023, which united 800 indigenous people from all over Brazil and the Amazon Basin to promote the importance of peoples and territories facing the climate crisis. That year, the support from VCA also made the participation of the COIAB delegation at COP28 possible in the United Arab Emirates, where leaders participated in debates about direct climate financing, just energy transition, losses and damages, and others.

In 2024, the highlight was the advocacy in the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP), convened in Cali, Colombia, where the Indigenous Brazilian Amazon reinforced the role of indigenous lands for the conservation of biodiversity and climate balance. One of the results of this support was the creation of the “G9 of Indigenous Amazon”, a joint strategy of international political advocacy between indigenous organizations of nine countries of the Amazon Basin, to act on climate, biodiversity, and desertification agendas at a global level.

This advocacy paved the way to the indigenous pre-COP and represents the continuous strengthening of the Brazilian indigenous movement in spaces of global discussion – not just for COP30, but beyond. V

Indigenous Pre-COP, held in Brasília (DF)

FROM PAIN TO HOPE

Paraguay has one of the highest rates of land concentration in the world. The struggle for a piece of land to cultivate a living is hostile and has costed human lives. This is the case in San Oscar Romero – formerly Marina Kué – where, after two decades of struggle, pain has been transformed into hope and today it celebrates the beginning of land titling. A territory of resistance, cultivation, and dreams built through collective effort.

By Noelia Díaz Esquivel / Edited by Mônica Bareiro, from Emancipa Magazine and the VCA Paraguay Regional Team

CERTAINTY

“We always hoped that these lands would belong to the peasants. We never stopped fighting,” says Cristina Ozuna, the first person to pay for her land title in the San Oscar Romero colony in Curuguaty, about 270 km from Asunción, the country’s capital.

The lands Cristina speaks of were the scene of the worst massacre in the history of land struggle in Paraguay. On June 15, 2012, 11 peasants and 6 police officers died during an eviction operation in which the farmers were demanding tenure of the land known as Marina Kué, which was in the hands of a large estate landowner. The case was the subject of investigations and reports of alleged irregularities and human rights violations, and even led to the impeachment of then-President Fernando Lugo.

After years of legal battles, both for the memory of the deceased and for justice, Paraguayan President Santiago Peña officially transferred the lands of Marina Kué to the National Institute for Rural and Land Development (INDERT) on October 25, 2024. This institution is responsible for the colony’s regularization procedures.

Today, like Cristina, 15 residents have made the first payment for their property titles. In total, each must invest Gs.$ 17 million (approximately R$ 11,626) over 10 years. So far, 211 families have been registered, but it’s estimated that the number could reach 250.

Cristina, a farmer and homemaker, paid for the title of a 9-hectare lot. She is 39 years old and the mother of two daughters, Yamili and Estrella. On plot number 4 stands her dignified wooden house, and behind it, several meters into the forest, is the kokue (garden). Until recently, everything they produced was for their own consumption. However, last year she managed to harvest and sell a hectare of cassava.

“It wasn’t the best price, but I made eight million. Previously we would plant only for consumption because there was no road. Now that we have one, the truck can come in and transport the production”, she says, barely contained emotionally.

Cristina Ozuna

LAND CONCENTRATION

According to data from the 2022 National Agricultural Census by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), land ownership in Paraguay remains highly concentrated: of the 291,497 registered agricultural properties, 55% (160,273) have definitive title, 29% (84,965) have provisional documents and 22% (64,352) are in a situation of lease, partnership, occupation or other forms of possession.

Land concentration in Paraguay is one of the highest in the world, with a Gini coefficient (a statistical measure of wealth inequality) of 0.93, indicating extreme land inequality.

According to the organization Base-IS, Horacio Cartes, businessman and former president of Paraguay, is considered one of the largest landowners in the country. Furthermore, after the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), approximately 8 million hectares intended for agrarian reform were illegally transferred to regime allies. These lands, known as “malhabidas”, remain in the hands of private individuals and companies, without any effective redistribution, as shown by an investigation by the Paraguayan media outlet El Surti, which created a tool to identify “Paraguay’s VIP invaders”.

This data reflects persistent land concentration,

with unequal distribution that particularly affects small producers and rural communities.

On February 24, 2025, the date on which Paraguayan Women’s Day is celebrated, Cristina paid one million guaraníes (R$722) as the first installment of the property title for plot number 4. “I was touched, I cried, because it’s a very important achievement”, she says.

MODEL SETTLEMENT

San Oscar Romero is a rural community located in the Curuguaty district, in the Amambay department, northeastern Paraguay, very close to the border with Brazil. The territory lies in a transition zone between the Atlantic Forest and the wetlands of Chaco, with rich biodiversity and several waterways, such as the Aguara’y Guazú River, which runs through the region.

Historically known as Marina Kué, the territory was renamed by residents as San Oscar Romero, in honor of the canonized Salvadoran bishop, a symbol of social justice and defense of human rights.

The conquest of paying for the lots, more than just a formality, signified the legal recognition of a long-denied right. But they didn’t stop there: with support of various government agencies and civil society organizations, they developed a land

Land titling will allow the population of Marina Kué to improve their quality of life.

development plan that includes the protection of forested areas, the identification of water sources, and the demarcation of community spaces such as vegetable gardens, nurseries, and assembly areas.

The community has a registered original plan that sets aside 260 hectares as protected forest land, as determined by a specific national law for Marina Kué. This law also promotes the integration of reserves into properties as part of a sustainable production model.

The community also embarked on a project to rescue native seeds, recovering original varieties that are distributed free of charge as a practice of solidarity economy, to preserve them on family properties and ensure their transmission between generations.

Since 2023, a community garden based on agroecological techniques has also been developed. This experience seeks to expand to other sectors of the settlement, benefiting more families.

SOLIDARITY

Darío Acosta is another key player in this story of pain transformed into struggle. He never gave up, understanding that alliances with different sectors were essential to achieve his goal: for locals to become the sole and legitimate owners of San Oscar Romero.

With this political strategy, he did everything possible to open spaces for dialogue with the State. But he also knew how to manage the solidarity of his supporters, responding responsibly and committedly to the support of various civil society organizations.

The Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) project provided advocacy funds, allowing the leaders of the Marina Kué Victims and Family Members Association to mobilize and carry out their activities in the nation’s capital.

Emma Timermann, from the WWF-Paraguay VCA coordination team, explains that “the support consisted of resources for the coordination and logistics of the association’s spokespersons’ travel and their participation in inter-institutional and intersectoral meetings and dialogues with government entities such as INFONA, INDERT, the Government’s General Registry Office, the General Directorate of Public Records, and other social organizations”.

Don Darío admits that many peasants are unaware of their rights, and in this sense, VCA’s support was crucial in providing technical assistance to advance in land regularization. They also received technical support for sustainable development and their properties.

Today, where there was once discouragement, the fruits of hope are sprouting. Each seed harvested preserves the memory of the struggle. The land, finally, responds to the love of those who cared for it. V

Darío Acosta

AYOREO COMMUNITIES IN BOLIVIA REGAIN CONTROL OF THEIR FORESTS

By VCA Bolivia • Photos: ORE

In Bolivia’s Pantanal wetlands region, Ayoreo communities are demonstrating what’s possible when climate finance reaches them directly.

Two Ayoreo communities, each with about 160 people — Pilay and Manantial — rely heavily on forests for their livelihoods. The forest provides food, medicine, shelter, and income. But they had little say in what happened in their territory.

Unbeknownst to the community, legal representatives had signed logging contracts in Spanish—a language many Ayoreos don’t speak. Decisions were made behind closed doors about the forests they lived in, internal trust was lost, and profits disappeared.

Taking Control

In 2024, the community decided it was time to change. With the support of the local NGO ORE and the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) Program, a forest committee composed of men and women from the Pilay and Manantial communities was created. This was the first time women were included in decision-making processes. The goal: to create fair rules and ensure that forest profits are distributed equitably.

This process began with individuals understanding their rights. A two-day legal training session was held in the Zamuco language, the communities’ native tongue. For many, it was the first time that forest laws and contracts truly made sense. Together, they worked on a new contract model that clearly defines what is permitted, what should be paid, and how the community will be informed. This gives them a voice in decisions.

Forest inventory and timber measurement practices, contributing to a sustainable and legal forest management process.

After generations of being excluded from decisions about their territories, the communities are now taking the lead in managing and protecting their forests on their own terms.

THE NLGF IN BOLIVIA

The Next Level Grant Facility is a VCA fund that provides small direct grants to grassroots groups and individuals who would not normally have access to traditional climate finance. The NGLF has played a vital role in strengthening climate resilience among indigenous communities and grassroots organizations, especially in the Pantanal and Chaco regions.

In Bolivia, the NGLF is managed by the local partner organization Community in Action (COMUNA), which is responsible for selecting beneficiaries and distributing funds. NGLF-funded projects in Bolivia address issues ranging from water security, environmental protection, and legal protection to disaster preparedness. V

Legal training with Ayoreo communities.

ZAMBIA, A MICROCOSM OF THE FUTURE

In Southern Africa, VCA supports local organizations at the forefront of climate action to shape and implement innovative and lasting climate solutions

By VCA Zâmbia e South South North

Zambia, a 21 million people country in southern Africa, is a microcosm of the future, grappling with the harsh realities of climate change. The Kafue Flats serve as a stark example. Millions live in and depend on the low-lying floodplains on the lower Kafue River. Many are farmers and fishers, and many face an uncertain future as climate change wreaks havoc on the natural resources they rely on. As a result of climate change, people are forced to adapt their diets, relying on smaller, less nutritious meals and wild foods. Food, water, energy, and health sectors face significant challenges.

While the new climate poses significant challenges, some are discovering opportunities for prosperity. Marginalised groups, such as women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples, are tapping into their ancestral wisdom to find sustainable ways to live in this changing world. Drawing on their deep understanding of the land and its resources, these groups adapt to the new realities and find ways to thrive.

Local solutions driving the response to climate crisis

In Zambia, the VCA partners have collectively rolled out a variety of locally-led climate resilient interventions in ten of the country’s 116 districts

where climate change is already having a serious impact. The VCA, supported by other local organisations, implements various climate initiatives directed to empower local communities to adapt to climate change and build more resilient livelihoods.

In Bunda Bunda, Rufunsa district, Zambia Alliance for Women (ZAW), supported by Akina Mama Wa Afrika, is helping farmers with crop diversification, reduction of pesticide use, and implementation of organic farming. These practices improve soil health, biodiversity, and water retention.

In Luangwa district, the Katondwe Alliance of Women, supported by VCA, is leading initiatives like village banking, reafforestation, and adopting clean energy technologies. This mitigates climate change’s effects, enhances agricultural productivity, and empowers women in decisionmaking and resource access.

In Musaya, Chikakanta district, the Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (CSAAZ) supports local communities by reconstructing water structures to capture and store rainwater, ensuring a reliable water source during dry periods.

In the Kanyama compound, the People’s Process on Housing and Poverty in Zambia (PPHPZ), with support from SDI, is empowering women to lead initiatives in sack gardening, organic manure making, and liquid fertiliser production, addressing food insecurity and malnutrition. In the Kanyama compound, Lusaka, the People’s Process on Housing and Poverty in Zambia (PPHPZ), with support from SDI, is empowering women to lead initiatives in sack gardening, organic manure making, and liquid fertiliser production. These activities address food insecurity and malnutrition.

The rippling impacts of stories

In Itezhi Tezhi, where charcoal production threatens local forests, Panos sparked change by distributing a circular that raised awareness about the devastating impact of deforestation in the Itumbi and Kaanzwa wards, urging policy reforms to protect the environment. “We realised that it was an important issue that we needed to tackle,” Kondwani Thindwa says.

In October 2023, Panos organised a dialogue in affected communities, bringing together chiefs, women, civic leaders, government officials, and climate experts to discuss solutions to the charcoal production crisis. The topic of discussion was sustainable charcoal production and alternative livelihoods. “The meeting allowed information gaps to be addressed, and the community members could ask questions to learn about the impact of the activity. At the same time, they had the opportunity to highlight the impact on their livelihoods if they did not produce charcoal”, Thindwa says. Six months after this event, the Minister of Green Economy announced a ban on charcoal production in the district.

In another instance, the Panos team visited the Rufunsa district, where the ZAW, supported by VCA, helps farmers adopt climate-smart agricultural techniques. “We wanted to understand what they’re doing, capture some of their stories of change and document locallyled climate solutions,” Thindwa says. During the conversations, one woman mentioned that she had read an article about the work of the Kanyama Women’s Federation (produced by Panos and the VCA project). She said they would love to learn from what their colleagues at Kanyama were doing. “So, an opportunity for an exchange of ideas and skills was enhanced through the publication, which could lead to behaviour change in terms of mitigation and adaptation”, Thindwa says. “That is a huge example of the impact of our work for us”.

But their work continues, Nervious Siantombo, Panos Regional Programme Manager, says he saw a circular from the Ministry of Local Government about funding for drought relief. “This is an opportunity to take advantage of”, he says. “We are already strengthening our databases at those sites to help make that leap [between local sites and policy makers].”

A Vision for a Sustainable Zambia

VCA has successfully brought innovative initiatives to a broader audience and influenced decision-making at national and sub-national levels. However, VCA recognises that there is still much to be done. The ultimate goal is to create a society where local civil society and underrepresented groups are at the forefront of climate action, shaping and implementing innovative and lasting solutions. V

A journey on traditional knowledge from Brazil and Tunisia as tools to combat Climate Change and the loss of biodiversity

By

Adriano Maneo e Andreia Bavaresco, from IEB and Regional VCA Brazil; Carlos Pereira, from the Quilombo Kalunga Association (AQK); Karim Benchaaban, from the Group of Agricultural Development of the Tamaghaza Oasis (GDA Tamaghza); and Ramzi Laamouri, from the Food Sovereignty and Environment Observatory (OSAE) • Photos: Adriano Maneo

View of the city and oasis of Tamagzha, in western Tunisia.

Karim Benchaaban, from the Tamaghza oasis, visits a family farming settlement in Chapada dos Veadeiros.

The flight from Tunis landed in the last month of the greatest drought in the history of Brasilia. It was September 14th, 2024, the 143º day of the 167 rainless days in the city. The Tunisians Ramzi Laamouri and Karim Benchaaban, representatives of the Food Sovereignty and Environment Observatory (OSAE), and of the Group of Agricultural Development of the Tamaghaza Oasis (GDA Tamaghza), landed in Brazilian soil for the beginning of an immersion in the Brazilian Cerrado.

“Wow! The climate is similar to the one we have back home”, Karim was surprised once he was outside the plane. Symptomatic. Karim is the leader of the millennial Tamaghaza Oasis in the Tunisian west, at the border with Algeria and right next to the Sahara Desert. He is used to extreme droughts.

Raízes Cruzadas (Crossed Roots) began right there, a knowledge exchange journey to know and understand how family farmers, traditional peoples, and communities from different regions of the Global South deal with climate and non-climate threats to their ways of life, their traditional knowledge, biodiversity, and their food sovereignty.

The journey consisted of two visits, each lasting about a week, one in the Brazilian cerrado and another

in Tunisia, for representatives of the International Education Institute of Brazil (IEB) and Quilombo Kalunga Association (AQK), from Brazil, and from the Food Sovereignty and Environment Observatory (OSAE) and of the Group of Agricultural Development of the Tamaghaza Oasis (GDA Tamaghza).

We visited quilombos in the Cerrado, oases in the desert, islands on the Mediterranean, settlements resisting against the agribusiness, groups of women resisting against the patriarchy, national parks, cooperatives, museums, and civil society organizations. Wherever we went, we were always welcomed by people who inspire us, climate and biodiversity guardians who persist in believing the planet can be a more diverse, balanced, and just place, “a world with many worlds”.

“How much they can do with so little water! It is a lot of knowledge, lots to learn about.”, exclaimed Carlos Pereira, president of the Quilombo Kalunga Association, in the following month, when he met the Tamaghza Oasis and the ancestral technologies of water management in the agro-oasis systems of the west region of Tunisia.

Besides Carlos, the Brazilian delegation also had a team from IEB, composed of Andreia

Bavaresco, executive director, and Adriano Maneo, socioenvironmentalist and communicator.

“What impressed me the most during this experience was the women’s movement towards economic autonomy. That moved me deeply and made me reflect about the importance of promoting real and significant exchanges between countries that were colonized and still today fight to align anticolonial practices with the promotion of social and environmental justice”, Andreia highlighted at the end of her visit to Tunisia.

Through the perspective that the climate emergency is a fruit of the colonial development model from the Global North, which in different times and contexts massacred and dominated Global South peoples, including those from Brazil and Tunisia, the connection and knowledge exchange between peoples, social movements, family farmers, and traditional communities of these two countries is a rich source to amplify the understanding of climate change and its roots, its implications, intertwining with previous problems and also the way to combat them from a global scale, with protagonism and in alliance with the most affected: the peoples of the South of the planet.

“What impressed me the most during this experience was the women’s movement towards economic autonomy. That moved me deeply and made me reflect about the importance of promoting real and significant exchanges between countries that were colonized and still today fight to align anticolonial practices with the promotion of social and environmental justice”

Andreia Bavaresco, executive coordinator

Visit of the Brazilian delegation to the Women’s Agricultural Development Group of Takelsa, in Tunisia

Visit of the Brazilian delegation to the Women’s Agricultural Development Group of Takelsa, in Tunisia.

We invite you to travel with us to the beautiful Tunisian and Brazilian landscapes. Through an online interactive page, get to know the friends and organizations we met in the way, besides sharing reflections and analyses of such a rich meeting.

See the complete story, in Portuguese, English, and Arabic at link. On the webpage, we share an initial contextualization of what you read here, many photos and videos: a guided map with II. The paths we walked, following an analysis about III. Climate threats to sociobiodiversity in territories; then we continue with a presentation about IV. Peoples from the Brazilian Cerrado and from Tunisia: facing threats, especially those we met and visited on our journey; we also bring an analysis of challenges and opportunities of the V. Multilinguistic and

Multicultural Dialogue, which in this case involved at least four different languages; and, at the end, we remember the messages of VI. Thanks and Farewell with memories of our last moment together, when we celebrated with a Tunisian barbecue the closing of our meeting.

The connection Brazil-Tunisia between these organizations was made possible through the interregional collaboration grants promoted by the SouthAfrican organization South South North, under the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA), of which IEB and OSAE are a part. Through the journey in the Brazilian Cerrado, the initiative also had indirect support from the Global Environment Fund (GEF) and from the Brazilian Fund for Biodiversity (FUNBIO), under the project Baru da Chapada. V

Amazonian Youth plays the main role at the third periphery COP in Belém do pará

Convened in Vila da Barca and in Curro Velho, the conference gathered around 700 people during three days of debates, workshops, symbolic courts, and cultural festivities, reinforcing the protagonism of the youth in the fight against climate change

By Amanda Martins and Ruth Ferreira, from COP das Baixadas

Photo: Amarilis

Between August 22 and 24, Belem served as the main stage for the 3rd Edition of COP das Baixadas (Baixadas as synonym for ‘peripheries’ in Portuguese), a conference that consolidated itself as one of the main spaces for articulating young people’s efforts towards climate justice in the Amazon. Convened in Vila da Barca, in the Cultural Foundation Curro Velho, the meeting brought together young people, villagers, collectives, researchers, and national and international organizations. It is estimated that 700 people participated in free activities, which occupied institutional spaces and communal areas.

With the purpose of a collective creation of “the conference we want”, the 2025 edition of Cop das Baixadas highlighted the need to make visible solutions that already exist in the peripheries of Belém and neighbouring cities. The debates addressed a range of topics, from climate financing to the relationship between culture and climate, reaffirming that solutions for the environmental crisis emerge from within the territories.

“Our objective is to show that the periphery is not just a victim of the climate crisis, but also a producer of alternatives”, said Jean Ferreira, founder of COP das Baixadas and coordinator of Gueto Hub.

Celebration and belonging

Besides the panels and roundtables, the conference also served as a space for celebration. Cultural parades, carimbó presentations, hip hop battles, shadow theater, and a Ball House of Carão were some of the activities part of the program. This diversity

reinforced the symbolic dimension of the meeting: convening a COP das Baixadas in Vila da Barca and in Curro Velho gave weight to the message of resistance and communal protagonism. “Bringing the conference inside the community is a way to reaffirm that it is here – where impacts are felt first– that the fight for climate justice needs to be intensified”, affirmed Suanne Barreirinhas, from Barca Literária, an integrant of the organizing commission.

Featured Program

The program was diverse and intense. The first day had a opening session “From Global to Local: How can COP30 transform Climate Financing in the Peripheries”, gathering representatives from Fundación Avina, WWF, Oxfam, Gueto Hub and Barca Literária. The third edition of “Vozes da Vila”, a magazine produced by teenagers from Vila da Barca, was also launched.

The second day was full of workshops, conversation circles and simultaneous cultural activities, but two moments were highlighted:

The Children’s Court – held at noon, the court brought reports made by children of the community about inequality, lack of public sanitation, and the effects of climate change on their daily lives.

The COP30 Court – held at early evening, it drew attention for the environmental crimes that affect the peripheric territories directly, calling for visibility and accountability.

These symbolic initiatives served as public denunciation spaces, making explicit socioenvironmental injustices that are often maintained invisible in institutional debates.

On sunday, the closure began at Cultural Space Ruth Costa, with “Pedaling towards 3rd COP das Baixadas”. Following up, cultural parades, self care workshops, children’s activities and artistic presentations set the tone for celebration and reaffirmation of communitarian identity.

Protagonism at yellow zones

One of the highest points of the edition was the strengthening of Yellow Zones (or Zonas Amarelas in Portuguese), communal spaces created for debates and articulations of solutions to face climate crisis. Today, there are already seven active Yellow Zones in Belém and Castanhal, they are centers for mobilization and formation.

The concept was born out of Yellow Zone, a program of communal development promoted by COP das Baixadas Coalition. The proposal is to de-centralize the climate debate, taking it beyond institutional centers and amplifying the participation of the peripheries. The Yellow Zones were created from a polygon named “Territory of the Baixadas”, presented at the 2nd edition of the COP das Baixadas, in march 2024, and it holds the perspective to expand to other cities at the future COPs, creating decentralized zones in different urban territories. Their goals are multiple: to bring discussions about climate change outside traditional spaces, reassuring

Photo: Amarilis

Photos: Lírio

Network Actions

the inclusion of peripheries; to leave a communitarian legacy with a professional formation; to promote social tourism and community-based hospitality, bringing value to local culture and generating income; and to keep a permanent mobilization around the climate agenda, with a continuous communitarian engagement.

During the organization of the 3rd COP das Baixadas, Yellow Zones were responsible for the engagement of villagers, collectives and leaderships, guaranteeing that the conference wouldn’t be just an occasional event, but part of a permanent movement of resistance and communitarian action.

““Each Yellow Zone is an alive territory full with voice, participation and collective construction. These are the spaces where the community organizes, debates and finds way to face climate crises, parting from their own realiy. They are also Zones of Hope where

the Amazonian youth gets ready to set their agendas at COP30, but mostly, all of the other processes that will follow it. The protagonism born in the peripheries is the base of a new way of thinking climate justice”, Ruth Ferreira, from the Coordination of Gueto Hub and from the Organizing Commission.

The 3rd COP das Baixadas reaffirmed its role as an strategic space for the climate debate on the Amazon. Between technical debates, cultural manifestations and symbolic denunciation activities, the conference showed that the Amazonian youth is not just part of the global debate but a redifinition of its realities and resistance practice. V

Photos: Amarilis

Photo: Lírio

Photo: Amarilis

Varadouros at COP30, an event organized with support from VAC/ Fundo Casa. Photo: Alexandre CruzNoronha

The communicative youth network flows

The Coalition brought mobilization to young people from Acre, previously made invisible, and continues with Chico Mende’s legacy

By Hannah Lydia, Angélica Mendes, and Anaís Cordeiro, From

the Chico Mendes Committee and Comunic(A)tiva Youth Network Coalition

chico Mendes left a letter to the youth. It stated that on the 6th of September 2120, a revolution would take place led by young people from all over the world. Today, 36 years after his murder, and 95 years before the predicted revolution, from what we can see, Chico is above everything, a visionnaire.

With this spirit of continuity and resistance, the Program Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) arrived at the Chico Mendes Committee, a short time after it became formal as an organization. Founded on the same night Chico was murdered, the Committee was born with a mission of keeping his legacy alive. Even so, it was only in 2021 that the institution became juridically official, aiming to strengthen its defense activities of the territories and peoples of the Amazon.

At this turning point, VCA got closer, and what was only a seed began to grow a structure. The first fundraising held by the Chico Mendes Committee happened through this meeting.

From then on, the Committee began to act more strongly at the Extractivist Reserve Chico Mendes, especially with the young people who live and resist inside it.

From this meeting between the Committee and the VCA, the ComunicAtiva Youth Network was born, an initiative that became essential for the mobilization of a youth historically made invisible. After all, many people prefer to believe or pretend to believe that there aren’t people living in the forest. But there are. And this youth carries the weight and the potential to sustain the future of the territory. Even without having minimum access to basic services, such as quality education, they still resist.

It was from the ComunicAtiva Network meetings and their exchanges, formations, and connections between realities, that the Varadouro Collective arised. With the motto “United Youth for an alive Resex”, the collective was born after Chico Mende’s week, in December 2022. Young people who don’t only exist, but also resist, decided to walk together.

Since then, the Committee has gotten stronger. It began to act in the climate justice agendas too; it approved more than eight medium-sized projects, it

Chico Mendes Committee and the Varadouro participating at the SB62, in Bonn

created partnerships, and occupied spaces. Along with the Varadouro, the Committee has a chair in the Deliberative Council of Chico Mendes Resex, it participated in national articulations, and it brought its voice to international spaces, like Climate Conferences (COPs).

In this month of July, another seed was planted: on the 26th and 27th, young people from the Varadouro Collective gathered together at the Dois Irmãos Community, inside the Extractivist Reserve Chico Mendes, for a formative immersion that connects the territory to global agendas. The so-called “Pre-COP” settles not only a symbolic closure for a cycle of the VCA project, but it also begins a new march towards COP30, guided by the firm steps of the extractivist youth. It was a moment for listening, collective creation, and political articulation, with young people themselves conducting the debate around climate justice and the real effects of climate change on their ways of life. A construction that reaffirms: the future of the forest is already walking its path, and it has its own voice.

Among the experiences born out of this pathway there is Project Fluentes, a partnership between the Committee and the Correnteza. With support from the VCA, Fluentes offered English language classes for 15 urban and extractivist young people, throughout 10 months of remote and intense meetings.

But Fluentes is not just a language course. It is an experience of affirmation and active listening. A collective construction in which English becomes a tool, not for “leaving the forest”, but to take the forest to places where decisions are made.

In the classes, participants learned vocabulary to name their fights, territories and their wounds. They discussed their advocacy paths, understood the structures that maintain the international climate agenda , and exchanged with each other the learnings they carry from life, from their communities, and from their struggles. All of this while strengthening their voices for the world.

Fluentes parts from the principle that the formation center is not the language, but those who learn it. Nobody should renounce their own identities to have dialogues with the world. Occupying international

spaces requires technique but also having roots. These young ones are deeply rooted.

There’s still a lot to be done. Chico Mendes Resex continues to be threatened, the forest continues to be exploited, and political violence is still strong. But if we look at all open paths and those walking on them, there is a certainty that won’t abandon us: the revolution announced by Chico Mendes has already begun, and on it, there is the future of the forest, spoken in many languages, but especially in the territory’s language. V

Anaís, responsible for Project Fluentes, and Kailane, an extractivist and one of their students.

Foto: C. Durigan

In between rage and fear

Climate crisis and performative resistance in the city of Manaus/ Amazonas.

By Francy Júnior, from Movimento das Mulheres

Negras da Floresta – Dandara, Ykamiabas Produções e da Coalizão Na Piracema das Mudanças Climáticas. (Black women in the Forest movement – Dandara, Ykamiabas Productions, and Coalition Piracema of Climate Change.

In the city of Manaus, the sky not only announces the arrival of rain. It expresses pain. Thunder and lightning, once merely the sound of rain, now serve as a signal of alert. Heavy clouds bring anguish to those who’ve already seen the river flood their houses, those who have lost their furniture, memories, and even their own ground. The Manauara community, in the Amazon region, lives between extremes: floods and droughts, melting heat and severe storms, and windstorms that blow off roofs, trees, and the little peace that is still left.

In here, the climate crisis is not just a theoretical debate; it is everyday living. It’s the fear of the next historical flood, it’s the bodies of rivers that disappear, leaving behind stranded boats and entire communities isolated. This reinforces that something has deeply changed in the relationship between time and territory. What was once considered a cycle of nature has now become announced violence.

The most vulnerable populations, especially from the periphery and from riverside communities, are the ones who suffer the most from negligence,

Centro de Manaus.

environmental racism, and disregard. There is a lack of structure, of responses, of public policies, but pain is abundant. And, even so, there’s resistance. And there’s dance.

It was in this scenery of urgency, rage, and fear that the performance Essay on Madness was born. The Essay is the result of a continuous listening process of a series of rounds of conversations about crisis and climate justice, developed by the project of peripheral women and youth from the North Zone of Manaus, giving continuity to the formation of engaged actors initiated during the first stage of the project (that ended up in the creation and presentation of the play Oxigênio). These new actors are fruits and roots of the Coalition Na Piracema das Mudanças Climáticas: mulheres e jovens na Amazônia nadando contra a corrente. (On the Piracema* of Climate Change: women and youth swimming upstream).

Composed by organizations of 03 municipalities of the Amazon region (Imperatriz, in Maranhão; Altamira, in Pará; and Manaus, in Amazonas) and by Eqüit Institute, with support from VCA - Voices for Just Climate Action, in Manaus, Coalition Piracema had a sensible coordination brought by the Black Women in the Forest Movement –Dandara; support from Ykamiabas Productions, and essential help from the São Paulo Community, which, out of solidarity, many times offered us a space for rehearsals and conversations.

An Essay on Madness is a poetic, visceral, and necessary response to awaken our sense of integral

ecology. On stage, bodies carry the desperation of waters, the weight of heat, the rage of winds, and a cracked-open ground under our feet, echoing the scream of a collapsing forest, of a people who refuse to silence.

An Essay on Madness is not just art; it’s a report. A sensible and potent translation of a state of things that sicken us, makes us weak, but that also calls us up into action. In a State where natural phenomena are no longer natural, but consequences of a predatory model that deforests, dries, and kills, art is necessary as a way to breathe and to protest.

An Essay on Madness is a scene, but it’s not delirious. The performance knows what it says, even when the words aren’t spoken.

We need to listen to the screaming bodies; we need to act before the next flood takes whatever is left. The city of Manaus/Amazonas is in a state of climate, emotional, and existential emergency. If the public power won’t respond, we will, with art, with complaints, with courage.

Because fear is real, but so is resistance. V

MUTIRÃO ESPERANÇAR

Transformation flourishes in the Vila Nova Conquista Occupation

By Conceição Amorim, coordinator of the Padre Josimo Human Rights Center and member of the Coalition Na Piracema das Mudanças Climáticas

Photos: CDH Padre Josimo Collection

Since 2015, the Vila Nova Conquista Occupation in Imperatriz, Maranhão, has been a battleground for its residents, especially women and young people, in the relentless struggle for decent housing. Three violent evictions had already marked the community’s memory, but the most recent threat, in November 2024, loomed with devastating intensity. The air was heavy with the fear of losing their homes, the destabilization of entire lives, and the sense of powerlessness that accompanied each notification. It was a critical moment, where the community’s resilience was being tested to the limit.

It was in this tense scenario that the On the Piracema1 of Climate Change project, and in particular the Padre Josimo Human Rights Center, one of its participating organizations, acted as a protective dam. The Human Rights Center team, with its legal expertise and unwavering commitment, immersed itself in defending the community. Their actions were decisive: they mobilized resources, organized support, and, most importantly, ensured that the residents’ voices were heard in court. The visibility of the struggle, which the project helped to amplify, put pressure on authorities and public opinion, and it was instrumental in suspending the eviction lawsuit.

The suspension not only prevented forced eviction but also opened a valuable space for the “On the Piracema” project to grow deeper roots, offering a new horizon of hope and empowerment. During the bustling times in Vila Nova Conquista Occupation in Imperatriz, Maranhão, the young women in the community, many of them mothers and heads of households, were already

1. Piracema (from tupi “pirá”, fish + “sema”, exit) is the name given to the period of the year when fish reproduce

engaged in the project’s various workshops. They learned about agroecology, exchanged craftsmanship, and discussed the impacts of climate change on their lives. The project was already sowing new ideas about rights, the environment, and community.

To continue sowing seeds in the occupation, residents, aiming to transform a degraded square in the area, joined forces to revitalize it into a vibrant, functional, green public space, thus promoting quality of life, sustainability, and strengthening the local community. Together, we cleaned, planted, and improved the neighborhood square, transforming it into an even more pleasant space for everyone.

On this day, there were also poetry and music performances by artists Paulo Maciel and Lília Diniz. We concluded the activities at the Occupation with the presentation of the 20th “January 18th” Medal, an honor given annually by the Padre Josimo Center. This year, the Center honored Maria da Luz Estácio, a

comrade who distinguished herself for her career and commitment to the fight for quality rural education, land rights, and environmental protection.

The community effort to build the square at the Nova Conquista Occupation was a great success, demonstrating the strength of community unity and the importance of the actions of the Padre Josimo Human Rights Center through the VCA (Voices for Just Climate Action) program. The new square is a community asset, a symbol of hope, and an example of how small actions can generate great transformations. The “On the Piracema of Climate Change” project is not just about adaptation and resilience; it is a tapestry woven from the threads of hope, struggle, and empowerment. Amid the challenges of the Vila Nova Conquista Occupation in Imperatriz, Maranhão, the stories above stand out as beacons of change that the project and the community are co-constructing V

WHERE MONOCULTURE CANNOT TAKE US

An essay on the relationship between art and climate

By Lucía Santalices, from the Eqüit Institute and

the Na

Piracema Coalition das Mudanças Climáticas

This text was developed based on the rich and fruitful execution of the project On the Piracema* of Climate Change: women and youth swimming upstream, which, over its more than three years, has enabled a political, collective, ethical, and aesthetic openness to understanding the profound relationship between art and climate.

“They could clap an artificial anus in the hollow of my hand, I wouldn’t be there, almost living their lives as men, just men, man enough to be a real man, in their image, one day, fulfilling my avatars.”

Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable

Art is part of the realm of culture, which emerges as a kind of “constant response” to the natural realm. That is, the realm of things that exist, and the realm of what we create from our relationship with what exists and with what we feel we lack. This dialogue, this lack, is the cultural realm. It doesn’t mean this relationship is linear, according to which “man would progressively transform nature into culture through the process called ‘history’”. On the contrary, it is more of a circular relationship, in which:

One transforms nature into culture through the process of “production”, culture becomes waste through the process of “consumption”, and waste spontaneously transforms itself into nature through the process of “decomposition”. The current problem is waste: it grows, and its decomposition to become nature is slow (atomic waste, plastic, etc). The accumulation of waste slows the circulation of history, and history stagnates.

This circularity we understand to exist between nature/culture (and waste) allows us, in a way, to say that culture is human nature, and that the distinction between nature and culture does not really hold up. Following this line, we can affirm that ecology should not be understood merely as a science of nature, but rather as an archaeological science, addressing both natural and cultural environments. For thinkers like Flusser, ecology must incorporate human deeds and interferences, which in some way means that the realm of culture is also the realm of nature, and in this sense, he proposes the existence of an ecology of culture and communication.

The idea of nature conservation seems misguided to us precisely because it presupposes a static relationship—nature cannot be preserved like sardines in a can—rather than a dynamic one, and which, somehow, believes in a virgin forest, an untouched romantic maiden, free from the harm of human hands. But we understand that it is quite the opposite, the theory that the Amazon rainforest is, for example, the fruit of human management — that is, of the Amerindian relationship with nature, of their dialogue, or, in other words, their culture — is increasingly accepted. Phrases like “without women, there is no forest” are aware of the profound relationship that still persists in territories whose culture has not yet been completely devastated by neoliberal devouring efforts. In other words, our culture is largely shaped by the environment, by nature, our relationship with our surroundings, just as our culture interacts with and offers a human world, which inevitably alters nature, culture dialogues with it. And this dialogue can be harmonious, sustainable, or a harmful, destructive monologue that produces excessive waste, depending precisely... on the cultures of each people.

1FLUSSER, 11/10/1982, p. 7 apud. DADBAD, R.; BAITELLO JR, N.; MENEZES, J. E. O. “As Crateras de Itabira”. Correspondência entre Vilém Flusser e Rodolfo Geiser Sobre a Ecologia (free translation: “The Craters of Itabira”. Correspondence between Vilém Flusser and Rodolfo Geiser About Ecology). Electronic Journal of the Master’s Program in Communication at Cásper Líbero College. Year XXIII - No. 45, p.16. JAN/JUN 2020. Available at: https:// seer.casperlibero.edu.br/index.php/libero/article/viewFile/1153/1079. Accessed on 06/15/2025.

2Ibiden

In this sense, the relationship between culture and nature is a structuring one. Perhaps we could venture to say that culture, and more specifically, art, one of its branches, is the human dialogue with the earth and the cosmos.

In truth, it’s possible to find countless connections between the topics: art that addresses climate, art that relies on natural resources to be created (and if we take it literally, all art depends on them, because life itself depends on them, and because a guitar uses wood, a drum set uses ferrous elements and refined petroleum, and any painter’s canvas is made of cotton), the influence of environmental degradation on the production of artistic works (whether in the difficulties it brings to artists’ daily lives or in the content of their works), or the influence of agribusiness on the ten most-played songs in Brazil and on what the public “wants”. The interconnections between art and climate, nature and culture, are complex and date back as far as our imagination can reach.

It’s no coincidence that culture (from the Latin cultura – participle of the verb colere, to cultivate, to inhabit – that which has been cultivated, the result of labor) is a word with two expressive meanings. It can be the broad and multiple designation of a complex of values, knowledge, norms, beliefs, customs, technologies, and arts of a given social group; and it can also specifically mean (agri)culture or the cultivation of plants (or even animals). Planting is a cultural trait from the most distant times. Planting and harvesting culture. From there, culture extended to the broad spectrum of habits, behaviors, ways of acting, and thinking of each society. In other words, it is everything a society plants, harvests, and feeds on, far beyond what we chew and what our intestines process – “what are you hungry for?”.3

WHY DID WE CHOOSE TO GO FROM PLANTING WATER CREATING DESERTS – “COMPUTERS MAKE ART”?4

Patriarchy builds its aesthetics according to its interests. We know that patriarchal values are maintained through violence inflicted on bodies and territories daily, but it is also through cultural persuasion, which legitimizes misogynistic, restrictive, and hierarchical behaviors among lives, among other dubious principles. Throughout history, art has been a great way to disseminate values and to sediment cultures. Therefore, and despite the current hegemonic culture acting as a great co-opter of subjectivities, counterculture must seek to challenge the aesthetic narratives that need to be dismantled, seeking to replace dominant patriarchal values with others of greater love and respect for life and the commons. Art made by the community — that is, by us and for us — can achieve profound transformations.

Current hegemonic art is an arm of contemporary culture, which unceremoniously calls itself the “industry culture”, making its perspective of the masses clear. An industry does not produce diversity; that is precisely the distinguishing feature of craftsmanship: each piece is unique. On the contrary, the purpose of industrialization is precisely the large-scale

3 FROMER, M.; ANTUNES, A.; BRITTO, S. Comida. Do álbum Jesus Não Tem Dentes No País Dos Banguela, 1987 (free translation: Food. From the album Jesus Has No Teeth in the Country of the Toothless, 1987).

4 ZERO QUATRO, F.; SCIENCE, C.; NAÇÃO ZUMBI. Computadores fazem arte. From the “Da lama ao caos” album, 1994.

reproduction of the same product, infinitely repeated, identical, at an incredibly fast pace, even if this means a loss of quality. In the cultural industry, what we see is a very similar process: the global and massive reproduction of certain (increasingly less) artistic materials, (increasingly) entertainment products to be consumed based on a media stimulus that implies in a pornographic injection of financial resources to boost certain artists who reproduce the status quo, where “to have” is more important than “to be”, and where “my being” is always better, more beautiful, and more powerful than “yours”.

Another expression that draws attention is the famous Brazilian slogan “Agro is pop” (where agro corresponds to agribusiness). In an attempt to cleanse its toxic image (that’s what happens when we mess around with so much poison...), the national rural elite sought to make a joke, associating its mass production with a musical and plastic style that, “coincidentally”, also aims to reach crowds. However, between the lines of the sentence, it is possible to interpret the cultural intentions of agribusiness. And we’re not talking about soybean cultivation, but perhaps we can talk about soybean cultivation.

Monocultura gera monocultura

Soybean cultivation, to our dismay, extends far beyond the millions of hectares cultivated with a single plant species, soybeans’ cultures, in a rather ignorant and relentless form of exploitation of soil nutrients. It presents monoculture not only in its form of food crops in the fields, but increasingly it seeks to interfere with what nourishes our minds. And, not coincidentally, the agribusiness sector has been investing heavily in agromusic. Songs that praise the use of pesticide-spraying planes, the sexist cowboy and the objectification of women, individual enrichment over common goods, among other degrading topics and values, even hijacking narratives from the peripheries (such as hip-hop), which in another context, talk about conquering a place in the sun, about succeeding in life, and becoming rich even against all odds and difficulties. The agroboys portray themselves as winners who fought hard to acquire a poison-spraying plane. What the verses hide are the resources injected into this production and sound distribution so that it becomes a passion, or rather a national fever (a fever isn’t a disease, but a symptom that something isn’t right). As I heard the artist Bnegão say on a podcast, if in the past, the sertanejo (Brazilian country music) rhythm narrated the adventures of the working people from the countryside and Pantanal wetlands, now it seems to speak about the desires of the boss, the owner of the farm…

In the increasingly transformation of art into entertainment and as a part of the armed hyper-techno-neoliberal communication, art is a part of what affirms, attests, legitimizes, and guarantees stability to the hegemonic. It is what provides moral and affective foundations, what convinces populations, in completely different territories, that the neocolonial and patriarchal form of the hegemonic, despite being alien to local needs, philosophies, and physiologies, is better for them… monoculture art opens the gate for the cattle to pass through and devastate.

Even on a motorcycle or a speedboat, rushing this conversation so it will fit into these pages, it is worth mentioning another efficient form of capturing subjectivities that the right wing has understood and that has been heavily used in contemporary times: conspiracy theories, which are not art, but almost. According to Paolo Demuru, the mechanisms of conspiracy theories and their narratives, besides offering simple answers to complex and daunting

problems like climate change, provide a great dose of wonder against the frustrations and harshness of the competitive and individualistic world we live in (in isolated, depressed, anxious, individualized lives). Those who believe in these theories don’t find concrete data, but they do find enchantment, wonder. Lately, the left wing seems so busy “putting out fires” (real and symbolic), and so concerned with not losing its “small democratic share” (hard-won, it’s true) that it seems to forget to compete for wonder, enchantment, and possible futures. And far-right movements, in recent years, have been doing this very well. In other words, it’s not through social change or real data that they’ve managed to convince the masses of their disastrous project and maintain their support; it’s primarily through fantasy, through literature. To know a hidden truth, revealed to me as a “chosen one”, because not everyone understands The Truth, allows people to feel special, to find purpose, and to feel part of a select community. In other words, it activates struggle and a sense of community (purposes still latent in our bodies, even if the new times devalue them and replace them with the idolatry of the self), while simultaneously segregating those who know (the selected ones) and those who don’t (the ignorant masses).

Through all of this, we see the importance of the left wing and popular social movements aligning their struggle with the work of engaged artists who are sensitive to the common people. We need to look at life again through poetry, through dreams. Not just postponing the end of the world, but investing in the future, redesigning the future we want, not just the one we don’t want.

Art can be, itself, a weapon against inequalities and domination, since it can work as an eyeopener. The power, speed, and communicative depth of art cannot be underestimated by social movements. Monoculture in the fields generates monoculture in the minds, and this opens the gate for the cattle to pass through.

THE IMPORTANCE OF COUNTER-HEGEMONIC ART

Art is a central tool for transforming reality. As Safatle says, “sensitivity is a battlefield”. It defines or it can redefine what experience is, how each subject experiences art and life itself. Art is a kind of pressure on reality, not an escape valve, forcing reality to be different from what it is; art sets reality in motion. It disputes culture. It disputes what will be planted and therefore disputes futures and hopes, presents dreams and reminds, it is memory. Art is a battlefield for the dispute of the imaginary. It is also a powerful tool of communication, which operates untraceable synapses and, in a single verse, can touch us deeply, changing our vision; it is a vector of sensitive transformation that we cannot allow to continue being instrumentalized by hegemonic common places.

Art can be a tool for denouncing climate change, for example, through engaged art that explicitly makes the issue visible, but it is, itself, a pillar that keeps forests alive. Cultures strengthen populations’ sense of belonging; (some) cultural traditions are what teach us to have a relationship of profound respect for nature. Art influences our ways of thinking and being, and it keeps alive indigenous cultural traditions of territories: dances and songs of a people, their cuisine, their myths and rites are a significant part of what gives them a sense of belonging to the point of caring for that territory. Art is collective (because even the most solitary artist needs an audience to truly exist), and in this sense, it can contribute to

strengthening community relations. It is also a channel for young people, thus serving as a gateway for dialogue with this crucial segment of the population that needs to be rekindled for social struggles. And finally, art can be understood as mental health and care for the soul, a “transversal organ” of human vital impulse for the production of new thoughts and, consequently, profound social transformations.

This essay needs to end, and it’s good to know that the conversation doesn’t end here. Not being able to fit everything I had to say means having to continue further, and that makes me happy. So, I’d like to close by opening up, to explain things by confusing you and confusing you so as to clarify, as Tom Zé (a Brazilian singer) did so beautifully (and still does in) my mind as a child, as a girl, and based on everything that has been exposed, we would like to propose the development and cultivation of the conceptualization of an ecology of culture, perhaps not so much along the theoretical lines of Flusser, but one that contemplates a pragmatic perspective focused on the struggles and creativity in the territories, day to day. In other words, a cultural proposal (in terms of public policies, but also ethics and aesthetics) that is in harmony with diversity and the climate, with sustainability of life, human and non-human, on this planet; a less market-driven, hegemonic, and more caring culture; a less monocultural and more agroecological culture, whose public policies are less vertical and reproduce an elitist and patriarchal logic, and which incorporate the voices of the territories in the prior development of cultural plans. Understanding how culture can be more ecological and less devouring, seeking to value and respect cultural diversity, promoting less waste, guided by the rhythm of decomposition and not the greed of feverish composition, super-hyperproductivity; that does not require billions in cash to happen; that is democratic, for everyone, year-round; against mega-events whose budgets devour the cultural portfolios of dozens of small towns across Brazil, leaving a scorched earth landscape in their wake and deserting the cultural programming for the rest of the year, leaving populations without access to leisure and artistic enjoyment, balms of well-being* and generators of critical thinking.

And wherever the concept goes, may seeds of other fruits, the fruits of each land, to be exchanged and incorporated, in a dialogue with the realities and needs of each territory, because each will have its own culture and ecology. We must collectively return to forging dreams, subjectivities, the future, desire, and the capacity for imagination… let us plant art! V

Translator’s notes:

* in the original, the expression used is “bem-viver”, which refers to “buen vivir”, a philosophy and concept that originated in indigenous cultures of Latin America, especially in the Andes.

mood

In order to change the climate collapse scenario in which we live, we need to create a new society model with a new concept for development. But how can we win and engage hearts and minds while reporting disasters, those responsible for them, and proposing new paths? With Art Mood, we document History, amplify the buzz, and raise political and social awareness! Join the vibe!

Young People of the Future Festival: Amazonian enchantments towards COP30

Inspired by the Amazonian Enchantments (“Encantarias” in Portuguese), the Young People of the Future Festival, in the city of Rio Branco, brought together a powerful network of Amazonian youths preparing for COP30. With art, culture, political formation, and a lot of knowledge exchange, the event was a space for youth protagonism, where dreams and struggles of peripheral and rural territories gained voice and shape. More than just a festival, it was a call to action: young people from different regions of the Amazon found themselves debating climate justice, socioenvironmental rights, and political advocacy strategies. The Program included conversation circles, workshops, cultural presentations, and moments of celebration of the Amazonian diversity.

The Festival reaffirms that the future of the Amazon is in the hands of those who live and resist inside it every day. And COP30 needs to listen to these voices – they are multiple, creative, and deeply connected with the forest and its wisdom.

Climate alert

By Rogenir Costa, from Fundación Avina

If morning dew no longer falls, like before; if cicadas no longer sing, like before; if the ipê tree no longer flourishes in its season; if whirlwinds increase; if rivers dry up; if fish disappear; if fires burn ruthlessly, what is left out of the forests; what will happen to our people? to culture? to poetry? to life?

Climate impacts are real and immediate; Human action needs new imagination; Time won’t wait it needs to change; it needs to be done; What unbalances the Earth’s axis needs to be disarmed; What is bringing humanity to the center of chaos. Together, we need to weave new landscapes; Together! We will only be capable while plural!

NATIONAL ARTIVISM MOBILIZATION AGAINST DEVASTATION DRAFT BILL

In an initiative along with Megafone Ativismo Coalition, with participation from Hivos Institute, Climate Observatory, and many other civil society organizations, 27 collectives articulated, one from each Brazilian state capital, wheatpasting largescale posters against the “devastation draft bill”.

After the draft became approved by Congress, the campaign and mobilization #VetaLula (requesting President Lula’s veto) grew along with popular pressure, engaging more than 150 collectives in 70 cities of all Brazilian regions, which pasted 250 big posters with an illustration by the artist Thaís Trindade, along with the sentence “Those elected by the people, stand by their people! Veto, Lula!!”. This was an art action and network activism that helped put popular pressure and allowed us to have important vetoes.

Photo: Ana Bia Novais

CAMPAIGN AGAINST PESTICIDES

Tapajós de Fato has been putting a lot of energy into activist actions that connect culture, social mobilization, and political advocacy. One of the actions, currently still happening, it’s a campaign against pesticides, bringing together popular communication, production of multimedia contents, and articulations with partner movements, researchers, and legislators.

The initiative brought up testimonials about affected communities, reinforcing the urgency of more rigorous regulations, transforming reports into a tool for collective awareness.

And the next step is convening a Popular Court of Pesticides and the re-creation of the Forum of Pesticides. These actions aim to create a State Law to regulate the use of pesticides and diminish poisoning of traditional populations crushed by the power of agribusiness in Pará.

This is a way we found to do our activism along with political advocacy. A path that includes information, mobilization, denunciations, and articulation with decision-makers. They’re not isolated actions, they’re connected to other creative mobilizations in events such as the Círio de Nazaré, which happens every year in Belém (host city of COP30), besided the preCOP30 convened by the Federal University of West Pará, in Santarém, in the west of Pará, reinforcing the urgency and the need to decentralize the debate, bringing together culture, information, activism and political advocacy.

ÁGUA PARA BEBER

Music by Paulo Maciel, part. Lucia Santalices. Clip by Lucía Santalices

The video clip of the song “Água para Beber” (“Drinking water”) is a touching masterpiece, with collages from Lucía Santalices. The artist makes us dive into the lyrics that report the risks our waters are under, because of the climate emergency or because of big companies that see water as a business and not as a fundamental element for life on Earth. Watch the video clip and check the lyrics in the link below:

There’s a rumor along the riverside saying its waters will end the fisherman has seen it and told me what will happen to us? People from this place? what will happen to us? what will happen to us?

drinking water

living water

tchssboomboom in the water

The boatman has seen it

Our boto friend left and didn’t come back drinking water is limited what will happen to us? what will happen to us?

drinking water

living water

Big dams control the river and they can end with many lives they stop water and rain coming from god riverside people mourn what will happen to us? what will happen to us?

drinking water

living water and they can end with many lives they stop water and rain coming from god riverside people mourn what will happen to us? what will happen to us?

drinking water

living water

EMERGENCY TIMES REQUEST ROOTED RESPONSES

By Eva Duarte, Lara Vaz, and Rogenir Costa, Collaborators in the Biomes Program at Fundación Avina. Photos: Emanuel/Pulsar Imagem

INTRODUCTION

Climate change is a structural issue that affects the future of humanity and deepens social inequalities, proportionally to the social context of each country. In structurally unequal societies, extreme events primarily impact segments of society that are historically vulnerable to the successive economic models that have prevailed over millennia of human existence on Earth.

Faced with the climate collapse we experience, where the effects of climate change are felt daily and compromise the lives of thousands of people in various parts of the planet, climate adaptation is a sine qua non. Whether in rural or urban areas, adaptation strategies are developed by peoples, traditional communities, and peripheral communities, especially by women, who build resilience through observation, ancestral knowledge, and in a direct relationship with their territories.

MANY COMMUNITIES ARE EXCLUDED FROM ACCESS TO INFORMATION

AVAILABLE

ABOUT CLIMATE FINANCE MECHANISMS AND HOW TO ACCESS THEM.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), low-income countries received less than 10% of the climate finance mobilized by developed countries between 2016 and 2022. Most climate finance is directed toward large infrastructure and mitigation projects, with fewer resources for adaptation and community projects.

On the one hand, complex bureaucratic processes and low local capacity hinder access to finance for smaller communities and organizations; on the other hand, many communities are excluded from accessing information about available climate finance mechanisms and how to access them. The current climate finance architecture excludes these communities from direct access to its resources.

In this scenario, a question remains: are the current financing model and isolated actions for climate adaptation alone sufficient to increase resilience in vulnerable territories?

STARTING FROM THE ROOTS: TERRITORY, THE LOCUS OF KNOWLEDGE, DATA, AND RESILIENT INITIATIVES

By living the purpose of the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) Program day by day, the collective gained strength, and the possible paths became even clearer, fueled by knowledge that is generated from the outset, appropriated over time, and rooted in the territory. There are no viable paths to Climate Adaptation without rebuilding the mental models that shaped current reality, so that we can understand, in synergy, that there is only one efficient methodology for adaptation: solutions are designed when sitting on the ground in territories made vulnerable by the consequences of climate change. We must listen carefully to those who follow historical changes with sensitivity, those who invent and design workarounds for the resilience of continuing to resist in the soil that shelters generations, cultures, and histories.

Counter-colonization needs to be the starting point, so we can have the courage to dress as a flowing river–carrying along with it everything around and feeding back on everything it encounters, like its tributaries, and ultimately, becoming abundance.

VALUING THE SHADOW OF THE TREE

Ancestral memory is essential for guiding possible futures. Each territory carries in itself a collective memory through the knowledge and skills created throughout generations, woven by bonds, practices, and resistance. The entire collective legacy that exists is important in the process of creating new solutions!

The mobilization of the social fabric already present in the territories is a powerful sign that we are closer to concrete and effective actions. This is because it activates two fundamental drivers: belonging, recognizing that local actors are those who know and live the territory best; and the appreciation of shared decisions, through collective governance from the beginning of the processes. It seems simple when we put it on paper, but why is it so difficult to apply this consistently in practice?

The organizations that lead local actions have tirelessly dedicated themselves to meeting the standards and criteria defined, and often updated, by funding organizations. For a long time, these criteria served as barriers that hindered or even prevented resources from being managed directly by local organizations. Today, many of these metrics are outdated because the realities and capabilities of the territories have changed. Traditional communities on the periphery have placed themselves at the center of debates, not only being heard but also occupying decision-making positions. Although it happens slowly, this is a profoundly revolutionary movement.

EACH TERRITORY CARRIES WITHIN ITSELF A COLLECTIVE MEMORY, A CAPITAL BUILT BY GENERATIONS, MADE OF KNOWLEDGE, CONNECTIONS, PRACTICES, AND RESISTANCE. AND ALL EXISTING SOCIAL CAPITAL IS IMPORTANT IN THE PROCESS OF BUILDING NEW SOLUTIONS!

Marajoara Artisan. Photo: Pulsar Imagem

We understand that climate finance, which in itself represents a major landing challenge, is not sufficient to create the necessary conditions for resilience in the current context, especially for people and communities that have historically been negatively affected by State policies and private sector policies and practices, such as illegal mining, use of pesticides, deforestation for extensive agriculture, etc. However effective the application of climate finance may be in a given initiative, it will not be able to promote resilience in isolation.

The actions of climate adaptation, developed in the most vulnerable communities, need to leverage other resources and actions, with an integral perspective of the territory, bringing together different efforts and agents, therefore, contributing to the reduction of inequalities, which are present in these communities, made vulnerable throughout centuries of promoted injustices by continued political and economic models.

Furthermore, climate adaptation in the territory cannot be imposed by external agents. It is essential to adopt collaborative methodologies, centered on active listening and equitable participation, especially for those who have historically been relegated to the role of mere “beneficiaries,” rather than protagonists of initiatives.

Shared governance, from project design to implementation, can be a powerful tool for strengthening adaptation strategies, based on local and ancestral knowledge; for decentralizing power, ensuring democratic decisions and the participation of diverse identities in decisionmaking spaces; and for paving the way for resilient futures built collectively.

Adapting is also about relearning how to move forward together—with listening, trust, and a willingness to change the way we do things.

NOURISHING THE SOIL

Everything that arrives in the territory must build on what already exists to strengthen the social fabric

and generate climate resilience that will be sustained by community engagement and the creation of mechanisms and public policies that impact these actions locally. It is by adding to, not replacing, that true transformation is built.

Repairing historical debts: In the Brazilian context, environmental racism and gender inequality are factors structurally rooted in society and historically reflected in public policymaking, especially in the Amazon region, where different populations have faced—and some still face—attempts to deny their existence through government strategies. To envision a resilient future, it is essential to address these inequalities head-on, ensuring that projects do not reproduce exclusion but instead become tools to reverse historical cycles of injustice.

Investing in the active participation of historically vulnerable groups in decision-making spaces is also a strategy for adaptation and climate justice. Ensuring that their voices and experiences contribute to public policymaking not only corrects historical injustice but also generates effective solutions from those who already face the impacts of climate change directly and daily.

Given everything mentioned, it is fundamental to increase direct climate financing for communities and local organizations, as a climate and historical reparation strategy, focusing on adaptation and resilience projects to strengthen existing local practices of climate adaptation within the territories; to simplify access to funding, making it more accessible and transparent; to build the capacity of communities and local organizations to develop and implement climate projects, ensuring their active participation in the processes; and to ensure that climate financing is distributed fairly and equitably, prioritizing the most vulnerable populations. V

Registering activism matters

The value of memory “I continue the fight.”

By Jonaya Castro, from Coalition Megafone Ativismo

Illustration: Bruna Bastos

Building activism memory in Brazil is fundamental for two main reasons. First, historical registers recognize activism as both art and a legitimate expression of democracy, a form of political participation that combines emotion, language, and collective action. Second, demonstrations, posters, people on the streets, and digital and visual creations serve as a collective imaginary photograph of times. They help us understand how society thought, felt, and reacted to injustices and to the changing of times. Registering and valuing these expressions is also preserving the political imagination of a generation.

The Megafone de Ativismo Award, created in 2021, is a Brazilian pioneer milestone dedicated to recognizing and documenting activism in multiple languages, from art to journalism, from digital campaigns to street mobilizations. Every year, a diverse coalition evaluates 14 categories, awarding creativity, courage, and impact.

Stories that inspire: Elizabeth e Davi

I chose two stories that affect and inspire us, they’re about the living memory of the fight for justice in Brazil: Elizabeth Teixeira and Davi Kopenawa Yanomami.

Elizabeth Teixeira was honoured – at the age of 99 – by the Juri Awards in 2024, for her trajectory in the fight for land reform. A courageous woman and a symbol of farmers’ resistance, Elizabeth became a leader of the Sapé Farmers League in Paraíba after her husband, the farmer leader João Pedro Teixeira, was murdered in 1962 under the command of large estate owners. Because of the military dictatorship repression, she was forced to live as a clandestine with her children for more than two decades.

Elizabeth has not only survived persecution – she persisted. In her own words: “I continue the fight.”.

Elizabeth Teixeira

“White people don’t know the sky. They believe it is just what their eyes can see. But the sky is alive. And if the Xapiri people go away, it will fall”

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami

Her story was made eternal in the documentary Cabra Marcado para Morrer, by Eduardo Coutinho, which shows decades of her husband’s life and exposes the depth of injustice in Brazilian rural areas. Elizabeth is, to this day, one of the greatest references of a rural feminist and of a fighter for land, dignity, and memory.

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, leader and shaman of his people, has also received the Juri Award in 2025. His actions for the intransigent defense of the forest, for ancestral knowledge, and for the life of his people are internationally recognized. President of the Hutukara Yanomami Association, Davi combats illegal mining and threats happening in his territory with courage and wisdom.

In his book, The Falling Sky, words of a Yanomami Shaman, written in partnership with anthropologist Bruce Albert, he gives an alert, “White people don’t know the sky. They believe it is just what their eyes can see. But the sky is alive. And if the Xapiri people go away, it will fall”. The Falling Sky, Cia das Letras, 2015 (published in English by Belknap Press in 2023).

This sentence, deeply symbolic, articulates spirituality and political ecology. Davi reminds us that the world depends on the balance between human beings and nature and that destroying the guardians of the forest is putting the sky that protects us at risk.

These voices reveal the force of activism and of living memories, rooted not only in its origins but also in its future fruits. Giving recognition to Elizabeth and Davi, the Megafone Award not only honours two trajectories but it reaffirms the value of persistence, ancestry, and justice.

Inspiring and acting: memory and climate justice in a global dialogue

More than an award ceremony, the Megafone Award consolidates activism as a legitimate element of democracy; it strengthens narratives made invisible and registers climate and social struggles in Brazil through plural languages, connecting art, journalism, and digital mobilization. Memory stimulates and inspires new actions, new types of activism, and strategies to continue fighting for climate justice, not only for Brazil but for the entire world. V

Amazonian Youth finishes climate advocacy formation during Chico Mendes Week

By Adriano Maneo, from the International Institute of Education of Brazil (IEB), and the VCA Brazil Regional Team Illustration: Reg Coimbra

In 2024, the capacity building program Cuida!* Amazonian Climate Advocacy enabled the creation of learning paths, exchanges, and voices’ strengthening. Created in a partnership between the Program Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) and the Climate Observatory, the initiative gathered young people and women from different states of the Legal Amazon for a training journey about climate justice and political advocacy.

The path began in Brasilia, on the first on-site module, when participants could directly dialogue about Brazilian climate plans and policies, at important spaces of political decisions, such as the Ministry of the Environment and the National Congress. The formation continued with two online modules, held

throughout the semester, which deepened essential topics for action. The first module addressed pathways for political advocacy, exploring articulations of efficacious advocacy strategies. The second one addressed communication, campaigns, and artivism, offering tools to boost narratives and strengthen mobilizations even more. As a result, the participants developed collective communication campaigns with a high range and impact.

“I believe that back in the times of Chico Mendes, he not only had colleagues in the state of Acre, but all over our country, and that’s what VCA is providing us,

Cuida, in some amazonic regions slang translates simultaneously to take care and hurry up!

so it is important to strengthen the knowledge exchange among us,” says Lukas Tupinambá, indigenous leader of the Tapajós Region and vice-coordinator of the Indigenous Council Tapajós-Arapiuns (CITA).

But the best was saved for last, with a great closure in December. The closure was full of symbolic meaning: it was Chico Mendes Week in the state of Acre. For some days, in Brasiléia and Xapuri, participants experienced closely the legacy of the rubber tapper leader, who became a global reference in the fight for the forest and for the peoples of the Amazon, when leading the creation of a model of extractivist reserves.

The activities included visits to Chico Mendes Resex, meetings, and conversation circles with young people and leaders who fought along with Chico Mendes. It was an immersion about memory and Amazonian resistance, and also an opportunity to project the future.

This immersion set not just the end of a formation cycle, but the beginning of new articulation possibilities. Young people and women who participated in Cuida! are better prepared to act on their territories, to influence public policies, and to dialogue with the world about Amazon urgencies – especially in a scenario where Brazil is getting ready to host COP30, in the city of Belém, in 2025.

“I

believe that back in the times of Chico Mendes, he not only had colleagues in the state of Acre, but all over our country, and that’s what VCA is providing us, so it is important to strengthen the knowledge exchange among us”

Lukas Tupinambá, indigenous leader of the Tapajós Region and vice-coordinator of the Indigenous Council Tapajós-Arapiuns (CITA)

More than a training program, Cuida! was a space for collective construction. The mix between online modules – with theory, strategies, and tools – and on-site meetings – which strengthened connections and roots – resulted in a unique experience. Each participant takes with them not just knowledge but stories, connections, and inspirations to keep going.

“We were able to interact with other coalitions from Brazil, and, of course, we create great friendships born out of the struggle, partnership, and knowledge among us. This is very important”, reflects Lukas Tupinambá, indigenous leader of the Tapajós region and vice-coordinator of the Indigenous Council TapajósArapiuns (CITA) “I believe that just like Chico Mendes back in his time, he not only had partners in Acre, but all over the country, and that is what the VCA is allowing us to do, so it’s important to strengthen knowledge exchange between us”, he concludes.

The experience doesn’t end here. All of the produced material, content summaries, and registers are available at an online space. Those who wish to know more about the project may access the official hotsite: cuidaamazonia.org.

With Cuida!, the VCA and the Climate Observatory reaffirm the importance of strengthening local leaders and positioning Amazonian young people and women at the forefront of climate action. After all, they are the ones who already build, every day, solutions needed by the forest– and by the rest of the world. V

The Coalition Strengthening the Fight for Climate Justice in the Core of Brazil

By Sara Tamioso,

from the Onça D’água Association and the Coalition Voices of Tocantins

It started with ten. Ten organizations, encouraged by the Institute for Society, Population, and Nature (ISPN), came together to strengthen and connect their efforts to face a common challenge: the climate crisis. What they had in common was the fundraising through Ecos Fund, managed by ISPN, and nature-based solutions.

Thus, the Coalition Voices of Tocantins for Climate Justice was formed, which held its first meeting in February 2022, still using masks and rapid testing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Present at the table were the Association of Kalunga Quilombola Remnants of Mimoso do Tocantins (AKMT), the Pyka Mex Association (Prata village, Apinajé Indigenous Territory), the Kajré Cultural Center (Pedra Branca village, Krahô Indigenous Territory), the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST Tocantins), the Onça D’Água Association for Support for Management in Conservation Units, the Professional Fishermen’s Colony of Araguacema/ TO (Copesca, Z-5), the Federal University of Tocantins (Neruds and Arraias’ Tourism Course/TO), the Bico do Papagaio Padre Josimo Agricultural Family School (EFABIP), the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Cooperative (Coopter), and the ISPN.

With areas of activity in communication, public policy advocacy, and youth development, the Coalition has gained credibility and established itself as a partnership, socio-environmental strengthening, and protection network. With the support of Fundación Avina and the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA Brasil) program, we were able to make important interventions in the State Environmental Licensing Law as amicus curiae (friends of the court), rendering sections unconstitutional; we held the Public Hearing to Discuss Lands and Territories and a seminar on the impacts of pesticides; we consolidated our presence on social media and in the press; we trained approximately 30 young people in communication and climate justice; we also managed to spark mobilizations to advance school meals in traditional territories, among other initiatives. We also participated in COP28 in Dubai in 2023, carrying flags, producing content, exchanging experiences, and engaging in advocacy wherever we went.

Alan Dias Apinajé, a member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition for the Pyka Mex Association, reaffirms the importance of networking to increase visibility of the challenges facing traditional territories and to coordinate efforts to defend these communities.

Students in the Youth Communication and Climate Justice training program.

MAR 2023. Photo: Sarah Tamioso.

Public Hearing on Land and Territories. JUN 2024. Photo: Coalition Voices of Tocantins Archive.

First Meeting of the Coalition Voices of Tocantins. FEB 2022. Photo: Sarah Tamioso

“We need to value this organization more and to be stronger to maintain this organization, which today leads meetings, public hearings, and training sessions. So, we see all of this as an idea built jointly with grassroots organizations. We are being strong together, leading a collective struggle with this organization”, he explains.

The collective experience was so valuable that in 2024, the network was joined by the State Human Rights Movement (MEDH/TO), the Center for Indigenous Work (CTI), Wyty Cate (association of the Timbira peoples of Tocantins and Maranhão), the Community Association of Artisans and Small Producers of Mateiros (ACAPPM), the Association of Agroextractivist Women of Cantão (AMA Cantão), and Cooaf Bico, totaling a network of fifteen organizations.

Despite their own characteristics and priorities, the gathering of different organizations in the Coalition Voices of Tocantins strengthened the struggle of traditional peoples and communities in Tocantins and the fight for climate justice, which affects aspects of life such as health, food, water access and quality, safety, work, human rights, leisure, and well-being, among others. Our lives depend on the climate, and that’s why we need to fight — together — on all fronts.

Even with the completion of the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA Brazil) project, the Coalition Voices of Tocantins for Climate Justice continues its work by raising new funds and strengthening organizations. It also has new projects to strengthen nature-based solutions in the Legal Amazon, the Cerrado, and Tocantins. V

Coalition meeting to continue the work. February 2025. Photo: Jean Costa – Ookami Films

CLIMATE

Feed on climate knowledge!

“Xibé” is a mixture of cassava flour and water, to drink or eat. Also known as “jacuba”, it is a symbol of the richness of Amazonian food, present in the daily lives of many riverside inhabitants, native people and individuals involved in natural extraction activities . Devour this xibé and enjoy!

Click here to visit the website and access all episodes.

Lessons from the Amazon

The “Amazon Solutions” Series portrays over 30 real stories of climate solutions emerging from the territories

In partnership with Fundación Avina and WWF-Brazil, Amazônia Vox launched the third season of the series Lessons from the Amazon, this time focusing on locally led climate solutions. With original and authorial content, the series adopts a Solutions Journalism approach to broaden the visibility of the Amazon’s challenges— based on the idea that the answers to these problems are found precisely in the initiatives developed within the territories.

Airing since August, this special series features new weekly episodes and more than 30 real stories of climate solutions, detailing projects and initiatives carried out by organizations participating in VCA (Voices for Just Climate Action). The aim is to show, directly from the territories, that it is possible to address climate challenges through sustainable actions, political advocacy, community mobilization, and the strengthening of civil society collectives working for climate justice.

Amazonian leadership was also reflected behind the cameras. The content was produced by more than 20 professionals—including journalists, filmmakers, and photographers—from five states featured in the stories: Pará, Acre, Tocantins, Maranhão, and Mato Grosso. On the Amazônia Vox website, visitors can read the full stories, browse the photo essays, watch the videos, and get to know the people behind the initiatives. The content is also available on Instagram at @amazoniavox and @wearevca. Soon, part of this audiovisual material will be broadcast nationwide on RedeTV News (Saturday programming) and on Canal Futura.

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Voices Echoing from Vila da Barca

During the 3rd Edition of the COP of the Periphery held in Belém, a special moment marked the event: the launch of the third edition of the magazine Vozes da Vila, the result of the project Memory and Peripheral Culture of Vila da Barca. The magazine arises from the creative strength of young people in the community, who participated in writing, photography, editing, and mobile design workshops throughout the first semester.

This edition focuses on climate and COP30—but through a unique lens: the lived experiences and sensitive perspectives of peripheral youth. With accessible language and engaging aesthetics, the magazine transforms global issues into local narratives, revealing how climate change intersects with daily life in Vila da Barca.

To read and be inspired by these voices that transform memory into resistance, visit the project’s Instagram page: @museumemorialviladabarca.

FEBRE Magazine #2 Art and Climate

In a historic year—with COP30 taking place in Brazil and the Paris Agreement still neglected— civil society rises. FEBRE Magazine, an initiative by labExperimental and Instituto Lamparina, documents and inspires creative climate actions, bringing together the voices of artists, collectives, institutions, and movements that confront the global climate crisis with courage and imagination.

Learn more here

PUBLIcation

SANEA MENTE: Voices from the Amazon for Dignity and the Right to Sanitation

The Miri Collective, Comunidade da Paz, and Habitat for Humanity launched the booklet SANEA MENTE—a publication born from the collective strength of the community located in the Apeú River Basin in Castanhal, Pará state. More than an informative material, it is a manifesto built by and for rural and peripheral territories that face the daily denial of basic rights such as land, water, housing, and sanitation.

Based on local data and lived experiences, the publication denounces the social, racial, and territorial inequalities that define access to sanitation, while proposing pathways toward an agenda of socioenvironmental education and resistance that recognizes Amazonian peoples as agents of transformation within their own realities.

Acess here

Hotsite Cuida!

Cuida! was a training program on political advocacy for Amazonian leaders fighting for climate justice, with a focus on women and youth. The training was organized by the VCA Brazil Regional Team, in partnership with the Observatório do Clima.

All produced materials, module summaries, and records of the journey are gathered in an open-access online platform. Those interested in learning more about the project can visit the official hotsite: cuidaamazonia.org.

Water, Sanitation, and Climate: Strategies for Other Futures from Amazonian Cities

The study “Water, Sanitation, and Climate: Strategies for Other Futures from Amazonian Cities”, produced by Mandí, brings forward reflections on the diverse ways of life in Amazonian cities and their relationship with access to water. The goal is to connect the Climate Adaptation agenda with Basic Sanitation, creating integrated strategies at infrastructure, governance, informational, and social levels rooted in local territories.

The research is based on social, environmental, and ecological analyses conducted in Belém (PA), Macapá (AP), and Manaus (AM)—three Amazonian capitals— aiming to understand pathways for climate adaptation while advancing universal access to sanitation, and vice versa, especially in countries of the Global South.

Indigenous Peoples Facing Climate Change

“Indigenous Peoples Facing Climate Change” is the title of a new publication designed for Indigenous communities, public servants who work directly with these peoples, and others interested in the topic. The book compiles relevant information and discussions on climate change, climate policy, and the REDD+ mechanism (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

With didactic texts, explanatory graphics, and photographs, the material contextualizes key concepts and connects them to international climate negotiations—such as the upcoming COP30, to be held in Belém. It also highlights the crucial role of Indigenous Peoples in forest conservation and offers guidance on REDD+, a mechanism created to finance forest preservation.

The publication is the result of a partnership between FUNAI (National Indian Foundation), IPAM Amazônia, and IPÊ (Institute for Ecological Research), with support from Hivos, the Amazon Fund, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The material is publicly available through this link.

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Building Safe Environments – A Guide for Developing and Implementing Safeguard Policies for Girls and Women

On September 16, Hivos and Serenas held the online pre-launch of the guide “Building Safe Environments – A Guide for Developing and Implementing Safeguard Policies for Girls and Women”, created for partner organizations of the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) and Our Feminist Futures (NFF) networks.

The event introduced practical institutional tools to address violence against girls and women, focusing on safeguard protocols and physical and mental well-being in contexts of vulnerability. The guide, developed through participatory workshops with network organizations, reinforces the commitment to the full protection of communities supported by human rights, gender equity, and social development projects.

The pre-launch gathered 15 participants from network organizations and underscored the importance of preventing harm—whether through action or omission—in initiatives involving children, adolescents, and adults at risk. With this initiative, Hivos and Serenas reaffirm their commitment to creating safe environments and promoting anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, and anticolonial institutional practices.

The guide is publicly available here

Araceles: The Toco Girl, The Boto Girl

In its final months of work in Altamira (PA), the project driven by the Maravaia Collective, part of the coalition Na Piracema das Mudanças Climáticas, culminated in the production of the children’s book “Araceles: the Toco Girl, the Boto Girl.” The story portrays the childhood and early years of Mãe Nayara, a mãe de santo and master of local culture. Based on her true story, the book celebrates and brings visibility to the community work led by Black and Afro-Brazilian women of terreiro, who are essential to the region’s cultural and environmental resilience.

Alongside the publication, the project also enabled the recording of an album of Umbanda songs, reinforcing the importance of preserving and transmitting traditional knowledge across generations. The initiative highlights the central role of leaders like Mãe Nayara in confronting hegemonic forces, religious prejudice, and the growing pressure from neo-Pentecostal groups in the municipality. With Mãe Nayara’s official recognition as a master of popular culture in the state, new opportunities open for her participation in national spaces, strengthening networks of resistance and ensuring that her voice resonates far beyond her territory.

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Know

our cover illustration artist

Segtowick is a visual artist and designer, born in Belém, Pará. She holds a degree in Advertising. Her poetry runs through feminine, fantastic, mystic, and Amazonian sacred ancestrality themes via digital techniques, muralism, acrylics, and oil on canvas. Currently, she is the owner of the studio that has her name, in which she worked for companies such as O Boticário, IPAM, Funbio, ClimaInfo, and MOL Impacto Publisher House. She’s also the co-curator and producer of the projects “Visagentas”, “Tarô Amazônida”, and “Anciãs Amazônidas”.

Follow her on: @renataseg.art

Renata