In a few days, the 30th United Nations Climate Conference will take place – in the Amazon! This is the first time the conference will happen in the rainforest, and it comes at a critical time for the future of the Amazon and the Indigenous peoples who protect it.
COP30 is one of the most important climate summits in recent history. Marking 20 years since the Kyoto Protocol and ten years since the Paris Agreement, it arrives at a moment when scientists warn the world is dangerously close to crossing irreversible tipping points, including in the Amazon.
Hosting the conference in an Amazonian capital gives it both symbolic and practical weight. For the first time, global climate negotiations will unfold within the world’s largest tropical rainforest, a living system essential to regulating the planet’s climate and home to hundreds of Indigenous peoples.
The Amazon’s health is directly tied to the success of any global climate plan, yet extractive industries continue to drive deforestation and ecosystem collapse. COP30 represents a crucial opportunity to shift course to end the reckless expansion of oil, gas, mining, and agribusiness and to align global climate goals with the protection of Indigenous rights and territories.
Amazon Watch will travel to Belem to accompany many of our Indigenous allies who have traveled from across the hemisphere to bring their solutions and demand justice. We will work inside and outside the official conference to amplify the voices of Indigenous peoples, social movements, and allies demanding that Indigenous rights be respected and Indigenous territories be demarcated and declared free from destructive extractive activity.
This is a call rooted in Indigenous sovereignty, climate justice, and the recognition of the Amazon as a living system with its own rights. Protecting Indigenous land rights is the single most effective climate action humanity can take. Indigenous Peoples across the basin are already showing the world what post-extractive, life-sustaining economies look like, grounded in reciprocity, care, and interdependence with the living world.
At COP30, Amazon Watch will highlight how extractive industries – from oil wells and mining pits to massive soy monocrops and the banks and investors that fund them – are pushing the Amazon to the brink. The organization will call out the hypocrisy of governments that pledge climate action while expanding fossil fuel frontiers in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and across South America.
At COP30, we will continue to expose the links between Global North financial institutions and the destruction of Amazonian ecosystems, urging policymakers and investors to align with science. No new fossil fuel projects are compatible with containing global warming, which has already surpassed the 1.5°C limit ceiling that would prevent some of the worst threats of climate chaos.
Amazon Watch will organize, co-host and support several major events with strategic alliances during COP30, each bringing powerful narratives from across the Amazon Basin:
- The Answer Caravan and Ferrogrão Resistance: The Caravan is a 14-day journey from Brazil’s soy-producing powerhouse in Mato Grosso to COP30 in Pará, uniting more than 300 Indigenous, riverine, and social movement leaders from across the Amazon and Cerrado. The caravan will arrive in Belém carrying a message of solidarity and resistance to Brazil’s “export corridor” model of infrastructure that sacrifices forests and communities for profit. The call is clear: stop destructive megaprojects like the Ferrogrão railway, respect Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, and support biodiversity-based economies over monocultures and mining.
- The 6th International Rights of Nature Tribunal: Co-organized with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, this landmark event will serve as a forum to speak on behalf of rivers, forests, and other living systems. Presenting 18 emblematic cases from across the globe, from Yasuní oil drilling to Canadian mining, the Tribunal will issue a final call for a new social and ecological pact grounded in Indigenous worldviews and the recognition of nature’s inherent rights
- Amazon Crime Campaign and Triple Border Report: Amazon Watch will also spotlight the intersections between organized crime, illicit economies, and environmental destruction across the tri-border region of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The campaign urges governments and international institutions to address these root causes of violence and deforestation through cooperation, economic alternatives, and direct funding for Indigenous territorial governance.
- The Yaku Mama Amazon Flotilla: Traveling more than 3,000 kilometers from the Ecuadorian Amazon to Belém, this Indigenous-led river journey carries a message of unity and resistance. Launched in Coca under bright fabrics and banners calling to “End Fossil Fuels – Climate Justice Now,” the flotilla brings together Indigenous leaders, allies, and environmental defenders demanding that COP30 mark the beginning of an Amazon free of oil, gas, and mining. Joined by Amazon Watch, the Yaku Mama (“Mother of the Waters”) movement reminds the world that true climate justice flows from the rivers and territories of the Amazon, not from the boardrooms or political stages that continue to prioritize extraction over life.
These collective efforts reflect a shared vision that climate justice begins in the Amazon, and that protecting the biome means dismantling extractive systems while uplifting Indigenous leadership and Rights of Nature as the foundation of a livable future.
No matter the outcome inside the conference itself, this event and the gathering of Indigenous voices and allies from across the globe will serve as a catalyzing moment to move forward with bold action to finally confront the climate crisis with just and regenerative solutions.
