Climate change is no longer
a threat on the horizon.
It's already here.
Things are bad...
and they’re going to get worse.
But they could get even worse
if we stand by and do nothing,
allowing capitalism
to ravage living conditions on Earth
—destroying forests, deserts, mountains,
rivers, and oceans
in pursuit of the eternal “progress”
and “infinite growth”
to the benefit of a small elite,
while dooming an ever-increasing number of people
to an increasingly precarious existence
in an increasingly hostile environment.
Governments around the world
have done little to prevent
the most catastrophic scenarios from becoming reality.
Quite the contrary—
they are making the situation even worse.
In many countries,
we witness the rise and consolidation of authoritarian leaders,
who close borders while persecuting and criminalizing minorities
within their own countries.
And in the most brutal cases,
they wage wars
and carry out genocide and ethnic cleansing
to secure control over the last remaining reserves of fossil fuels
and strategic military positions.
In the territories occupied by the Brazilian state—
whether under far-right governments
or under governments claiming to be more left-leaning—
environmental devastation continues,
sometimes at a rapid pace,
sometimes more slowly,
but always in the same direction.
The Lula administration authorized
oil extraction at the mouth of the Amazon River,
a sensitive area for wildlife and the ecosystem.
Despite all the promises of environmental safety,
the first oil spill occurred
just a few months after Petrobras received
the license to begin operations.
The state also violates the self-determination of indigenous peoples
when it ignores their protests
and imposes the opening of new transport routes
for grains and minerals extracted from the heart of the Amazon Rainforest,
thereby encouraging the devastation carried out by agribusiness and mining companies.
Political institutions offer no prospect of change.
The National Congress is, as it always has been,
full of reactionaries,
religious fundamentalists,
and defenders of the interests of capital,
who gamble away the future of their own children
to ensure the maintenance of this patriarchal,
racist, and colonial order.
Meanwhile, the institutional left—
the so-called progressives—
are preoccupied in maintaining governability
and winning the next elections;
to that end, they become the most loyal defenders
of the very institutions that have historically oppressed
and exploited the inhabitants of these territories.
All of this can lead us to despair
and a sense of powerlessness,
which paralyze us in the face of such daunting challenges.
But where there is life,
there is resistance.
There is hope.
Groups of people who have plenty of reasons
to be the most hopeless—
who suffer the greatest violence
and have been resisting this system for centuries—
are on the front lines, setting an example.
In the territories occupied by the Brazilian state,
we see indigenous peoples
using direct action
to combat the ecocidal advances of capitalism
and Brazilian colonial genocide,
in order to protect the forests and biomes.
In recent years,
waves of land reclamations have swept the country,
from south to north across the territories occupied by the Brazilian state,
keeping large landowners awake at night.
From the so-called Rio Grande do Sul,
where the Mbya Guarani,
Kaingang, and Xokleng-Konglui peoples
have carried out dozens of land reclamations,
through Paraná state,
where the Avá Guarani people reclaimed Tekoha Tatá Rendy;
through Mato Grosso do Sul state,
where the Kaiowá and Guarani bravely
reclaimed their ancestral territories
in the Panambi-Lagoa Rica Indigenous Land;
through Bahia state,
where the Pataxós reclaimed areas
of the Pataxó Comexatiba Indigenous Territory;
all the way to the Parnamirim reclamation
by the Anacé people in Ceará.
But it’s not limited to land reclamations.
In January 2025,
hundreds of Indigenous people from more than 50 ethnic groups
occupied the Pará State Department of Education
for over a month,
forcing Governor Helder Barbalho
to revoke a new law
that would have made Indigenous education in their villages unfeasible.
That same month,
the Kapinawa people occupied
the headquarters of the Pernambuco State Development Agency
to protest the construction of a wind farm
on their territories.
After two days of occupation,
they achieved victory when the wind farm’s construction was halted.
In November of that same year,
Indigenous protesters stormed the COP30,
the United Nations Climate Change Conference,
to protest various projects that facilitate
deforestation and agribusiness expansion in the region,
such as the construction of the Ferrogrão railroad
and the privatization of the Tapajós River waterway.
The protest laid bare the impacts
of oil exploration in the Amazon River Delta
and the international climate negotiations,
which exclude the voices of indigenous peoples
and treat native forests
as mere carbon credit assets.
On January 21, 2026,
Indigenous people from more than 15 communities
along the middle and lower reaches of the Tapajós River
occupied the port terminal
of agribusiness giant Cargill
in Santarém, Pará.
The occupation,
in which more than 1,000 people participated,
condemned the lack of consultation with Indigenous peoples
and demanded the repeal of the decree
that paved the way for the privatization
of the Tapajós, Tocantins, and Madeira rivers
and their dredging projects.
On February 19,
about 400 Indigenous people intercepted
a grain-carrying vessel on the Tapajós River.
And on the 21st,
they stormed Cargill’s office at the port of Santarém,
further increasing pressure on the government.
On February 23,
after 33 days of mobilization,
the government announced the revocation of the decree.
On the same day,
hundreds of women from the Indigenous Women’s Movement of the Middle Xingu
occupied the FUNAI Regional Coordination Office
in Altamira, Pará,
to protest against the advancement of the project
by the Canadian company Belo Sun Mining,
which plans to establish,
on the banks of the Xingu River,
the largest open-pit gold mine
in territories occupied by the Brazilian state.
On March 16,
two hundred Indigenous people also blocked
access to the Altamira airport.
The occupation of the FUNAI office lasted more than 40 days,
until April 3,
when the protesters left the site
to head to the Terra Livre Camp in Brasília.
These are just a few of the most recent examples
in the lands occupied by the Brazilian state.
But examples of indigenous resistance
can be found throughout every colonized territory.
From Wallmapu, in the far south of Abya Yala—
known as South America
—where the Mapuche have been resisting for centuries
against the Argentine and Chilean states
and against capital,
to the frozen lands stolen by Canada,
where the Wet’suwet’en, Gitxsan, and other peoples
are fighting against gas pipelines and other ecocidal projects.
All the way to Palestine,
occupied and ravaged,
where the population bravely resists
the atrocities committed by the genocidal,
racist, and colonial state of Israel.
In the face of seeming insurmountable challenges,
the struggle continues.
For the struggle and the lives of these peoples
are inseparable from the territories they inhabit—
the rivers, forests, and mountains.
To have a chance at a slightly more tolerable future,
we must draw inspiration from these struggles,
from these lives.
When we look at the land we inhabit,
we understand that our future depends on the earth,
the waters, and the winds
that surround us and sustain us
and those around us.
And we will do everything in our power to defend them.
Air, earth, and water are not for sale;
they are to be loved and defended.
Direct action gets the goods,
and our future depends on it.