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Indigenous Amazonian peoples are demanding representation at COP30 in Belem, Brazil, emphasizing their crucial role in climate solutions.
Their protest highlights the need for territorial and social justice, urging global leaders to recognize their practices as vital to combating climate change.
Indigenous peoples of the Amazon have demanded that they be represented at the United Nations climate summit in Brazil’s Belem, itself in the Amazon, later this year.
Representatives of Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and social movements from across the Amazon held a powerful demonstration on July 23 morning in front of the construction site of the 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Belem.
The protestors sent a clear message to global leaders: the solutions to the climate crisis already exist and are practiced daily by Indigenous and traditional peoples in Brazil and around the world.
“There is no Amazon without its peoples. The territories protected by our communities are the last strongholds against destruction. Science confirms what our ancestors have always known: climate justice is only possible through territorial, social, and popular justice,” the Declaration of the Amazon Peoples’ Gathering for COP30: The Answer is Us, signed by 19 organisations, noted.
The document, which will be delivered to the COP30 Presidency, stressed that hosting COP30 in the Amazon brings both a historic responsibility and a political opportunity to elevate social movements.
“The current global rise of fascism makes it all the more urgent for this COP to move beyond formalities and become a platform for true leadership by the peoples and movements of the Amazon,” the document added.
The protest, according to a statement by non-profit Amazon Watch, comes at a critical moment in Brazil, as movements call on President Lula to veto Bill 2159/21 — known as the “Devastation Bill” — which would represent one of the most significant rollbacks to environmental protection in Brazil since the military dictatorship.
“A COP taking place in the Amazon must reflect the voices and faces of the Amazon. There are no real climate solutions without recognising the peoples and their territories as key actors in this transformation,” Dione Torquato, Secretary General of the National Council of Extractivist Populations (CNS), was quoted as saying in the statement.