Who will stop ‘this madness’ of climate change, ‘if not us, then who, if not now, then when?’Yeb Sano
From our territories in the Amazon, Mesoamerica, Asia and Africa we fight to protect tropical forests threatened by illegal logging and mining, oil extraction, land invasion, drug traffic, monoculture, construction of hydroelectric plants and other extractive and infrastructure mega-projects that do not respect our rights and threaten to destroy the last large forests of the planet, basic for climate balance. More than 65% of the world’s land is under community ownership, but less than 18% of community land is legally recognized by governments. Our territories shelter 24% of the world’s forest carbon and 80% of biodiversity. The protection of these elements is part of our contribution to climate change mitigation and to the achievement of the goals set in the Paris Agreement.
This is a short story of Carol Gonzalez who is a resident of the amazon rainforest. As indigenous women she has extensive experience of living with the forest and has a wonderful life full of memories from there. Carol has stories of 800,000 victims from the war in her country but she doesn’t want to depress people. She instead wants to let people know that there is hope and that the future can be bright.
“Perhaps the amazon does not have salvation, but the world does have a salvation” Carol said and she noted that the rainforest looks after the world. Carols grandmother has never worn shoes in her lifetime. Many Amazonians have grown up happily in their environments and have beautiful childhood memories. The forest itself is self-sufficient and there are many ways the people of the forest can survive using what nature provides them and without damaging it. For example there are natural banana farms that grow organically that can be harvested for local consumption.
However the title of the land still has not yet been granted to the cachoeira tribes despite being promised by their government. There are over 3000 quilombola communities in Brazil and less than 170 received title t their land.
Links: https://guardiansoftheforest.me/ , https://ifnotusthenwho.me/guardians-forest-cop23/
By Alex Mitchison