Brazil: After a weeks-long journey from the glaciers of the Andes to Brazil’s tropical coast, a flotilla carrying dozens of Indigenous leaders arrived in Belém, a day before the United Nations COP30 climate summit commenced. Their mission: to demand meaningful participation in decisions about their territories amid mounting climate change pressures and industrial encroachment.
Among the approximately 60 delegates, Lucia Ixchiu, a K’iche’ Indigenous leader from Guatemala, emphasized that their goal went beyond financial compensation. “We want to reach a consensus where Indigenous territories are no longer sacrificed,” she told Reuters aboard the expedition vessel navigating the Amazon. The delegation highlighted that nearly 17% of Indigenous and local community lands in the Amazon face intrusion from mining, oil, and logging operations, according to a recent Earth Insight report.
The journey itself carried symbolic weight. Starting at the Andes’ glacier-fed headwaters, the leaders sought to spotlight the climate crisis’ cascading effects melting glaciers impacting rivers that sustain the Amazon and its communities. The Andes, home to over 99% of the world’s tropical glaciers, have lost between 30% and 50% of their ice since the 1980s, feeding nearly half of the Amazon River’s water.
Upon arrival in Belém, the flotilla was greeted with a celebratory cultural ceremony. Delegates offered candles, seeds, coca leaves, and even a llama fetus, honoring Mother Earth and ancestral deities. The delegation also showcased political discussions, workshops, and screenings of locally produced films along their route through Peru, Colombia, and Brazil to underline the multifaceted challenges facing Amazonian communities.
Beyond symbolic gestures, the Indigenous leaders sought to amplify the human cost of environmental degradation. Between 2012 and 2024, over 1,690 environmental defenders were reported killed or disappeared across regions including the Amazon, Congo, Indonesia, Mexico, and Central America, underscoring the risks faced by those defending forests and waterways.
COP30 will test whether Indigenous voices can shift the global climate conversation, highlighting not only emissions and finance but also rights, stewardship, and the protection of ancestral lands. The arrival of this flotilla signals a powerful assertion that climate action must include the people who have long safeguarded Earth’s most vital ecosystems.