In early September 2023, over 8,000 Indigenous women representing 247 nationalities from all of the biomes of Brazil converged in Brasilia for the Third Indigenous March of Ancestral Warrior Women in Defense of Biodiversity and Ancestral Roots organized by the National Association of Ancestral Indigenous Women Warriors (ANMIGA).
They marched to reconnect with each other after years of intense resistance and to celebrate their growing power to influence policies that affect their lives, bodies, and territories. They were joined by international solidarity delegations of Indigenous women and allies, including Amazon Watch.
Indigenous women traveled for thousands of miles to join the march. They came from the Amazon (the world’s largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest), Cerrado (the world’s largest tropical savannah), Pantanal (the world’s largest wetlands), Mata Atlantica (Atlantic rainforest), Caatinga, and Pampa to demonstrate their collective power to Brazil’s new government and emphatically demand, “No to Marco Temporal!”
Marco Temporal is the legal attempt to roll back Indigenous land rights which was overruled by the Brazilian Supreme Court in September. In October, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) later vetoed a second attempt to implement it, dealing a major blow to Brazil’s agribusiness and mining industries which sought to continue destructive development on Indigenous lands.
As close allies of ANMIGA, Amazon Watch responded to the invitation to join the march in Brasilia and organized an international solidarity delegation of women composed of activists, artists, and influencers, including Amazon Watch board member Favianna Rodriguez, actor and activist Nat Kelley, photographer and Earthrise influencer Alice Aedy, Earthrise journalist Joi Lee, Artist for Amazonia founding member Scottie Thompson, and Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Ginger Cassady.
Our delegation began on the Tapajós River in the Amazon, the largest free-flowing, undammed river in the Brazilian Amazon, with a sunset ceremony where we were welcomed by Amazon river dolphins. For the next four days, we traveled along the massive river and visited traditional and Indigenous communities, accompanied by Alessandra Munduruku, Indigenous woman warrior and 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize winner, and Maira Irigaray, Brazilian human rights lawyer and longtime colleague. It was an incredibly inspiring journey that reconnected us with the river, forest, community, and each other. This is the inspiration we needed to march in Brasilia.
Back in Brasilia, we witnessed the power of ancestral women warriors as each delegation of women arrived with their painted bodies and their songs, chants, crafts, and children. It was so beautiful and powerful to witness and see the vision of ANMIGA in action.
For three days, we witnessed gatherings of Indigenous women sharing their concerns and demands, including reforesting minds, biodiversity, climate emergency, gender violence, mental health, accessibility, and education, which resulted in a final declaration presented to a delegation of government officials after the march.
Since its founding during the Bolsonaro administration, ANMIGA’s vision has been clear: resist and organize to shift power, to shift consciousness at all levels, to reforest minds and hearts to protect Mother Earth and respect women’s rights.
In just a few years, they have organized and secured leadership roles in their communities, at the regional and national levels, including the election of ANMIGA co-founders Celia Xakriaba and Sonia Guajajara as Federal Deputies in the Brazilian Congress. Upon President Lula’s election, Sonia Guajajara was appointed as the first Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil and Joenia Wapichana was appointed as the first Indigenous person to lead the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI ). And this is just the beginning. ANMIGA is planting seeds of inspiration for Indigenous women across Brazil to lead their communities, regions, and states to prepare to take national leadership in the “headdress caucus.”
On the eve of the Indigenous Women’s March, Celia Xakriaba held a special session in the Chamber of Deputies. The Chamber, where she is the only Indigenous woman consistently speaking for Indigenous lives, rights, and territories, was filled with 500 women in headdresses. It was a vision for the future. There, she said:
“We are here to say that we are the healing of the Earth, we are the ancestral voice of the Earth speaking to us. It is not possible to think about valuing human rights if you kill the Earth.
Because only those who know how to be seeds know how to be human. We are seed women and not simply just women! Finally, we fight for territory, because whoever has territory has a place to return to. Those who have a place to return to, have a mother, have refuge and healing.”
And then, on the morning of September 13, over 8,000 women marched through the streets of Brasilia passing all of the federal ministries to the gates of the Federal Congress. It was a spirited march filled with dancing and joy, amid the demands against violence against Indigenous lives, bodies, and territories… and against Marco Temporal.
As V, formerly Eve Ensler, said in her Guardian op-ed: “Indigenous Women are showing us how to fight for human rights and climate“.
The following week, ANMIGA leaders were at New York Climate Week sharing reflections from the march and plans for the path for women’s leadership from COP 28 to COP 30. This is the path to protect our Mother Earth.
As ANMIGA says, “The struggle for Mother Earth is the Mother of all struggles!”
