The Defenders of the Forests

"The earth is nature's book," says Kalfein Wuisan, an indigenous Minahasa from Sulawesi, Indonesia. "The earth is our mother, the forest is our father, and the river is our blood," says Kynan Tegar, a Dayak Iban native from Kalimantan, Indonesia. Both are young (Wuisan is 34 and Tegar is almost half 18) but an ancestral thought runs through their veins: nature as a home, pantry, pharmacy; cradle and burial; It is a place of familiar spirits that have accompanied their destiny for generations and that today are anxiously agitated by the abuses that are committed in their habitat by various interests. To speak of the environment in the case of indigenous communities is an understatement, very short: the environment is the whole, with a capital T like the one they use to refer to the Earth. That's why the threat of climate change affects them more than the rest of humanity: they're on the front line. And that's why, too, their struggle is not going to stop: "The defense of Mother Earth is also the defense of humanity," says Brazilian Kleber Karipuna.

They know how to read the earth: the eruption of volcanoes, the shape of clouds, the mood of crops. But the signs they see today in their angry demonstrations cringe their spirits. "The Earth has a way of speaking to its creatures: volcanoes erupt, there are floods, landslides, tsunamis. All this happens not because of divine punishment, but because of the very life of nature, which gives signs. Our obligation is to know how to read them," explains Kalfein Wuisan (Indonesia). In the words of João Victor Pankararu, from the Brazilian Amazon: "Whether in the city, on the land, on the beach, wherever we are, let us learn to listen to her signs, because she gives signs. We are responsible for amplifying that message." The one they transmit, owners of their story after centuries of marginalization and oblivion, confirms their existential challenge while a global ecocide advances.

Wuisan, Tegar and Karipuna participated in the UN General Assembly climate week in New York in September with the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC), along with some twenty territorial leaders from around the world. Their reverence for the Earth especially resonates in the city of skyscrapers, but their ease as creatures of nature gives them an advantage over the beings of the asphalt: they know all its secrets. Wuisan, Tegar, Karipuna, the smiling Levi Sucre (Panama), the vivacious Priscila Tapajowara (Brazil) or the brave Balkisou Buba (Cameroon), among others, are fighting a battle, that of survival, which puts them on a war footing against the so-called civilization. Theirs, their physical and emotional DNA, is endangered by the impact of climate change, but also by the wild appetite for natural resources of multinationals and chieftains, of gold prospectors (garimpeiros) or large speculators who raze ancestral forests to plant profitable palms (Indonesia). Defenders of nature are targeted, if not victims of murders that often go unpunished: nearly 1,200 environmentalists, many of them indigenous, have been killed in the last decade in Latin America alone, according to Global Witness. In many cases there will be no justice, but there will be replacement: the new indigenous generations, armed with university degrees, technology and new narratives, pick up the baton of their elders in the defense of their communities and, by extension, the planet. As Wuisan recalls, quoting his ancestors, "this land is not only inherited from previous generations, but borrowed from future generations." The only non-existent replacement is that of the Earth.

Kleber Karipuna, Uacá indigenous land (Brazil)

Kleber Karipuna, Uacá indigenous land (Brazil). Camila Falquez

Kleber Karipuna, 45, has a degree in Environmental Management from the Federal University of Mato Grosso (Brazil) and a master's degree in Human Rights and Citizenship from the University of Brasilia. He has seven children, to whom he intends to instill in him his struggle for the land, which he inherited from his grandfather and mother. "Two great examples who dedicated their lives to working for the community," he explains. He was inspired at the age of 18, when he began to participate in the struggle against the territorial ambition of the caciques. He believes that, compared to a majority of landowners with no formal training in his region, his activism benefits "from day-to-day empirical knowledge, plus academic knowledge." All the leaders present at the New York forum are university graduates.

"Traditionally, there has been little indigenous intervention in environmental management, despite the fact that we have a wealth of knowledge about the relationship with the land," he says. He assumes that the threats against environmental activists are becoming more serious by the day. "Bolsonaro's four years have been especially harsh, indigenous organizations have been criminalized, and leaders have been threatened. It's nothing new, we've been seeing murders and attacks since the military dictatorship for 30 years."

Sara Omi, Emberá indigenous people (Panama)

Sara Omi, Emberá indigenous people (Panama) Camila Falquez

Sara Omi, 37, laughs openly when reminded that this summer she was chosen as one of the 100 most influential women in the region by Forbes Central America magazine and for the second year in a row. Omi, who was going to be a criminal lawyer before dedicating herself to the defense of human rights, leads by example of representation: she is president-coordinator of Women Territorial Leaders of Mesoamerica and gender spokesperson for the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities. Empowering herself, for her, meant: "Knowing your rights and keeping the cultural identity of our people alive." Breaking, in short, a double structural barrier, that of machismo but also that of marginalization as indigenous: "That of indigenous women is a double discrimination," she laments.

"If we don't take action urgently, we're going to lose our balance with Mother Earth, and the Earth is going to respond. Every plant, every tree, every living being has an important, spiritual, cosmogonic function. It's our pharmacy, our economy and our well-being," says Omi, whose discourse is especially applicable to a region as convulsed by violence as Central America: "If there are no opportunities for development in the communities, young people become victims of violence and marginalization."

Kynan Tegar, Dayak Iban community (West Kalimantan, Indonesia)

Kynan Tegar, Dayak Iban community (West Kalimantan, Indonesia) Camila Falquez

Kynan Tegar is 18 years old and has a golden beak with which he articulates a discourse that is as poetic as it is combative. A university student, he is also a documentary filmmaker (he has shot half a dozen) of self-taught training: "I learned thanks to YouTube tutorials," he confesses. "When I was 14 I did my first one, and I was very lucky because it had international recognition," he explains. Thanks to that first documentary, her community achieved full rights over the forest under the Customary Forest Decree of 2020, after more than 50 years of struggle. Activism through art, or new narratives, is a common denominator of several of the leaders gathered in New York.

His best-known documentary is titled If Not Us Then Who? (If not us, then who?) And obviously it does not pose a rhetorical question, but a rallying cry, that of defending the forest against illegal logging and the harmful extension of palm oil plantations hand in hand with corporate greed. "Our resources are stolen, so it's easy to explain why I do what I do: if you see someone from the outside taking your stuff, you become an activist."

In addition to the environmental struggle, Kynan also carries his peculiar daily struggle, that of surviving in a city as immense and polluted as Jakarta, where he studies Social Anthropology. "I went from a community of 300 people to a city with 30 million people. It's not just the pollution, it's a beastly contrast to my community, where we live among fresh air and flowers... But the worst thing of all is to see the inequality: in my community we are all equal because we all have access to the same resources."

Kalfein Wuisan, indigenous Minahasa (Sulawesi, Indonesia)

Kalfein Wuisan, indigenous Minahasa (Sulawesi, Indonesia)Camila Falquez

Kalfein Wuisan is 34 years old and a member of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN). His discourse, always expressed in a very political tone, goes back centuries to what he considers the origin of the discrimination they suffer: colonization. "Colonialism completely destroyed us: most of the references and documents about our peoples were written or produced by the colonizers. And now, the media does exactly the same thing, they lie about our reality because they are aligned with corporations, multinationals, and governments. We're on our own." She focuses her activism on new media and new technologies. He makes photos, films, documentaries and graphic design. "All about us, Indigenous peoples, not only to document our struggle and defend our existence, but because we can't let our lives depend on others."

Like most of his peers, Kalfein Wuisan feels "threatened and in danger," but not personally, but in his environment. "We are being destroyed in the name of development. Our sacred sites have been vandalized and looted. The government has an affair with capital and religion to control the ancestral lands of the indigenous people. My brothers and sisters are dying to defend their land, their dignity," she says. He adds: "It's important to give space to younger generations to think, speak, act and lead. Give them the same confidence and responsibility as the elderly."

João Victor Pankararu, Ankararu Indigenous Land (Brazil)

João Victor Pankararu, Ankararu indigenous land (Brazil)Camila Falquez

A 26-year-old pharmacist, communicator, indigenous leader and youth representative of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, João Victor sucked activism at home. "I always saw examples of leadership in my family, in my grandparents and in my parents, so I developed as an activist naturally, without forcing. My preparation was forged over the years and came to port... So I also imagine that I can be a reference for other people in my community, when I come back from a trip and they thank me for the work I am doing for them..." Like many of his classmates, the young man has participated in several COPs and whenever he returns home he must give a full account of everything he saw, heard and learned: knowledge is also the lifeblood of these ancestral peoples.

João Victor assumes that feeling threatened for defending the land is inherent in activism. "The region of the world in which I find myself is the most dangerous for activists, and in the case of Brazil, which has historically persecuted and threatened environmentalists, especially indigenous peoples, this threat is much more serious because it comes from several sources: the physical threat (gunmen, invaders, snipers) and the territorial threat (legal decisions, etc.). bills), as well as other issues that are much more sensitive and do not allow us to sleep peacefully without having the feeling of threat. But we act with a lot of protection from our ancestors, always focused and asking for this protection wherever we go. But yes, sometimes we see one of our own fall." At the same time, five Indigenous candidates were elected to Congress in the 2022 elections, while a network of Indigenous lawyers is advancing their rights across the Brazilian Amazon.

Whether the defense of territory and the environment in Brazil will be important, says João Victor, they don't call it activism, "but movement." "We are indigenous peoples, but each with their own culture, their own way of expressing themselves, their own skills and actions, and I think this is a way to engage young people. Activism, or as we say here in Brazil, movement, will always be continuous, and that is what we must aspire to, that it continues to be something organic," summoning new generations, disparate and barely related communities, men and women. The community to which he belongs, in the region of Pernambuco (northeastern Brazil), is made up of about 8,000 people..., a drop of water in the infinite reality of the Amazon, connected by a lingua franca that everyone understands, that of nature.

Marco Aurelio Chávez, Quiché Maya (Guatemala)

Marco Aurelio Chávez Coyoy, a member of the Maya K'iche' community of Guatemala, currently coordinates the legal department of Utz Che', the Community Forestry Association of Guatemala. With more than a decade of experience, she helps local communities and indigenous peoples secure their rights, especially in access to forestry incentives. Camila Falquez

Family members of Marco Aurelio Chávez were killed during Guatemala's military conflict. This is how this 38-year-old indigenous Mayan Quiché refers to the protracted civil war — almost three decades — that hit the indigenous population especially hard. Chávez, coordinator of the Utz Che' Community Forestry Association of Guatemala, is a human rights lawyer. "We provide legal help to criminalized leaders, some of whom are persecuted for standing up to agribusiness and who, in some cases, end up being sent to gang member prisons," he explains.

The abundant natural resources of their land – water, especially in the north of the country – are coveted by large companies: "They have been commodified, for us natural resources are not income generators, but elements of our lives." The situation he describes is disturbing: victims of natural disasters such as the eruption of the Fuego volcano in 2018 have been relocated to unproductive land or cities, "and those who were not buried under the lava." The natural paradise that is Guatemala, on which the powerful carbon credit market has set its sights, does not make it easy for the new generations, Chávez denounces: "The only alternative our young people have is to migrate to the United States, but, if they leave, who will take care of our forests?"

Priscila Tapajowara, Tapajó village (Brazil)

Priscila Tapajowara, Tapajó village (Brazil)Camila Falquez

Priscila Tapajowara, a 30-year-old vivacious and loquacious producer and communicator from Mídia India (Indian Media), is a photographer and documentary filmmaker. Thanks to the generation that she and her colleagues in the association represent, she says: "We indigenous people are beginning to be protagonists of our own narratives... That's why I started with photography, because I didn't feel represented, it was always others who told our story." Tapajowara, who studied Audiovisual Production at the University of São Paulo – she was the first indigenous woman trained in this discipline – tries to show her region with its inhabitants, traditions, struggles and resistance: "Cinema is a tool of struggle, of entertainment and at the same time a way of safeguarding who we are."

Levi Sucre, Bribri people (Costa Rica)

Levi Sucre, Bribri village (Costa Rica)Camila Falquez

Coordinator of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, which represents indigenous peoples and local communities in the territories between Panama and Mexico, Levi Sucre also leads a network of eight indigenous territories in his country. His father was one of the indigenous leaders who organized others to reclaim lands that had been dispossessed by banana companies. "My father's influence, his leadership in the community, and knowing that he founded several communities inspired me to follow his path." At the beginning of the century, the indigenous people of his country had already been expelled from their territory by a project to build the Caribbean railway, which ended up shipwrecked, he recalls.

"Do I feel threatened? Any indigenous leader working in defense of the land feels threatened. Young people are witnessing how their families are victims of violations of their rights, this is getting through to them and can make them think that these struggles are not worth it."

Olo Villalaz, Kuna village (Panama)

Olo Villalaz, Kuna village (Panama)Camila Falquez

— Representative of the General Kuna Congress, Olo Villalaz, 40, owner of a small local transport fleet and who studied Business Administration, has spent the last 10 years dedicating himself body and soul to representing his people, "made up of 49 communities," and also to acting as an "intertribal youth mentor." "If a people is deprived of its territory, it loses everything. We devote a lot of effort to protecting and guaranteeing traditional food sources to ensure the diet," he explains, "but also to fight against electricity interconnection projects, large megaprojects of the hydroelectric industry. Villalaz, among many other territorial leaders, managed to get the concept of "indigenous traditional knowledge" included in the Paris Agreement.

Balkisou Buba, Mbororo community (Cameroon)

Balkisou Buba, Mbororo community (Cameroon)Camila Falquez

Balkisou Buba, a 40-year-old Fulani lawyer, is a social worker who specializes in conflict management and women's contribution to peacebuilding. As a representative of the Mbororo, a community of pastoralists in the northwestern region of Cameroon, he is also a daily witness to one of those forgotten and entrenched conflicts in Africa, that of the Anglophone minority against the French-speaking majority. "My father was an activist, the first in the community. The problems of peace and security in my region are complex: there are many internally displaced people, Boko Haram also operates further north...", he explains about the regional conflict, which has been escalating in violence in recent years. "There have been several cases of environmentalists being attacked, because their work has been increasingly criminalized," explains Buba, a mother of three girls and a boy.

She works in the Ministry of Social Affairs and deals with issues related to women's empowerment, "women's rights, organizational culture," she explains, "issues of education and access to health, above all." He argues that more and more indigenous people need to be involved in the decision-making process. "For example, in Cameroon there are no indigenous parliamentarians," he says of the invisibility of minorities, including his own.

Mina Setra, Dayak Pompakng indigenous leader, West Kalimantan, Indonesia

She is currently Deputy Secretary for Social Culture Affairs of the General Secretariat of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN), the largest indigenous organization in the world. For 18 years, she has been actively involved in indigenous issues at the local, national and international levels. Camila Falquez

Juan Carlos Jintiach, from the Shuar people (Ecuadorian Amazon)

He is the executive secretary of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC, the great global umbrella of indigenous and ancestral local communities). She has decades of experience in land management and indigenous rights. Camila Falquez

Cristiane Julião, from the Pankararu people (Brazil)

She has a degree in Geography and a master's degree and a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology. Her field of research is indigenous legal anthropology. She is part of APIB, the largest indigenous organization in Brazil, and is a co-founder of the National Articulation of Ancestral Indigenous Women Warriors (ANMIGA). Camila Falquez

Dinamam Tuxá, from the Tuxá people (Brazil)

He is an environmental lawyer and specialist in the defense of indigenous peoples. On his social networks, he defines himself as a "social activist" and is especially dedicated to issues related to the demarcation of ancestral lands. He is the executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the leading organization in the country. Camila Falquez

Monica Ndoen is a Rote indigenous leader from Nusa Tenggar, Indonesia

As Special Envoy of the Secretary General of AMAN, she participates in task forces in various ministries and institutions such as the National Survey on Violations of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of Indonesia. She is also a member of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). She is a lawyer by training. Camila Falquez

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