“Forest peoples have embraced a different way of inhabiting the world. They have invested in natural capital, with remarkable results—not least ensuring free access to food and clean drinking water. They are the true barrier against destruction.”

From June 4 to 6, Amazônia took part in the Green&Blue Festival 2026, a three-day event dedicated to the future of the planet, sustainability, and global environmental challenges, hosted at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan. This year’s theme, “US”, emphasized a shared responsibility: no environmental crisis can be tackled alone.

As part of the panel “Amazon and other stories”, Amazônia contributed a video message from its president, Emanuela Evangelista, speaking live from the small Amazonian forest village where she has lived and worked for many years. Her testimony brought to the festival the perspective of someone who, every day, works at the intersection of ecosystem conservation and the rights of the communities that depend on them.

The Amazon: from the “periphery” to the center of the world

In her speech, the biologist highlighted how the Amazon is no longer seen as a remote place discussed only by environmentalists, but as a biome that is central to global stability and the future of the planet.

“We are used to thinking of the centers of the world as the places where financial capital moves. But today, with humanity’s future threatened by the climate crisis, the most important forms of capital are natural ones—the capital that sustains life. Such as the Amazon.”

Without the hundreds of billions of trees that make up this forest, the world would be hotter, more unstable, and less habitable. Regions that are currently fertile could gradually become arid.

The Amazon rainforest generates enormous masses of atmospheric moisture—the so-called “flying rivers”—which carry rainfall and fertility far beyond the boundaries of the Amazon Basin, supporting a significant share of Latin America’s economy. Yet scientists warn that the forest is approaching a tipping point, beyond which vast areas could turn into degraded savannah within just a few decades.

Forest peoples and shared responsibility

If the Amazon still exists today, it is largely thanks to Indigenous peoples and traditional communities who have protected and shaped the territory for millennia while maintaining its ecological integrity.

Their worldview does not separate human beings from nature: the territory is part of the body, and the forest is not an enemy to conquer but a living presence with which to coexist.

In the village of Xixuaú, where Amazônia works, people live in stilt houses designed to adapt to the river’s natural flood pulse, which can reach up to 14 meters. Here, collective resource management combined with projects focused on education, community health, and sustainable livelihoods has helped protect a forest area nearly the size of Corsica, demonstrating that development and a standing forest can coexist.

Conscious consumption and bold policies

Forest peoples alone cannot stop the destruction driven by global demand for soy, beef, timber, gold, and other commodities linked to deforestation and river pollution.

For this reason, Emanuela stresses the responsibility that each of us holds as consumers, investors, and voters. Our choices can either help protect the forest or contribute to putting it at risk.

Individual responsibility must be accompanied by coherent public policies, recognition of the territorial rights of local communities, and support for scientific research and the organizations working on the ground.

Protecting the Amazon means safeguarding not only biodiversity and cultural heritage, but also climate stability, food security, and public health resilience for the entire planet.

Learn more: interview and Festival panel

Just before the festival, Emanuela Evangelista gave an interview to La Repubblica , in which she explores the role of the Amazon in addressing climate disruption and discusses the daily challenges faced by forest communities. We invite you to read it and delve deeper into her story.

You can also watch her contribution to the Green&Blue Festival panel to hear her testimony directly from what she calls “the center of the world.”

Local communities, scientific research, and innovation work together to demonstrate that forest conservation can become a driver of sustainable development.

“Bioeconomy shows that a living forest can generate more value than its destruction.”

In the Amazon, the forest is not only an extraordinary ecosystem: it is also the foundation of a possible economy. An economy that does not destroy nature but, on the contrary, depends on its conservation.

This is the idea behind the Amazonian bioeconomy, a development model based on the sustainable use of biodiversity — that is, the forest’s natural resources — to generate income, social well-being, and environmental protection.

Fruits, seeds, vegetable oils, natural fibers, active compounds, and traditional knowledge thus become the basis of production chains that bring together local knowledge, scientific research, and technological innovation. In this way, the forest is not cut down but becomes the heart of an economic system that keeps ecosystems standing and strengthens the communities that inhabit them.

Indigenous peoples and traditional communities play a fundamental role in this process: they safeguard valuable knowledge about biodiversity management and the use of natural resources. The Amazonian bioeconomy is born precisely from the meeting between this knowledge and the new opportunities offered by science and technology.

A bioeconomy laboratory in the forest

In this context, together with its partner Amazon Charitable Trust, Amazônia coordinates the Bioeconomy Thematic Chamber within the Deliberative Council of the Jauaperi Reserve, a protected area where nature conservation is intertwined with the traditional activities of local communities.

The Thematic Chamber is a space for dialogue and planning that brings together civil society organizations, public institutions, universities, and representatives of the reserve’s communities. Currently, five organizations and eight local communities take part, including Bela Vista, São Pedro, Dona Cota, Floresta, Palestina, Itaquera, Tanauaú, and Xixuaú.

The goal is to strengthen the sustainable use of non-timber forest resources and sociobiodiversity value chains, creating economic opportunities that allow communities to live from the forest without destroying it.

Throughout 2025, Amazônia and Amazon Charitable Trust organized several meetings with institutions, governments, companies, and research centers to build a collaborative network and define shared strategies. Among the identified priorities are strengthening technical assistance for communities, promoting new research — for example on payments for environmental services — and improving market access for forest products.

Forest-based economies

From Brazil nut harvesting to essential oil extraction, from wildlife protection to ecotourism and scientific research: the activities linked to the Amazonian bioeconomy are diverse but share a fundamental element — the direct involvement of forest communities.

Through dialogue with local producers, institutions, and businesses, Amazônia works to strengthen these value chains and create new opportunities for younger generations. Planned initiatives include promoting youth entrepreneurship and creating collective transport systems to facilitate access of local products to regional markets.

Cultivating the future

Alongside its work in the park, Amazônia also supports projects dedicated to rural development and food security in other regions of the Amazon.

On November 6, 2025, in the community of Vila São Jorge, in the municipality of Cidelândia, in the state of Maranhão, the Casa de Farinha São Raimundo was inaugurated, a new community agro-industry dedicated to cassava processing. This food is one of the pillars of diet and food security for millions of people in Amazonian rural communities.

The project also promotes sustainable agricultural systems, the restoration of degraded areas, and the strengthening of local value chains. Among the ongoing activities is technical assistance for a community forest nursery to obtain registration in RENASEM (National Register of Seeds and Seedlings), a key step to ensure quality, traceability, and access to new markets for locally produced seeds and seedlings.

The initiative is part of the project “Together we plant the future,” which Amazônia has been carrying out since 2023 across the states of Pará and Maranhão, in partnership with the Brazilian Institute for Development and Sustainability (IABS) and in collaboration with local organizations.

The new Xixuaú primary school is ready to welcome the upcoming school year, which is about to begin in Brazil.

Twice the size of the previous building, the Teodorico Nascimento School, named after the founder of the village, was designed to meet the needs of a growing community. The school includes two classrooms—one for preschool children and one for students from first to fifth grade—a library, a spacious kitchen with a dining area, restrooms, storage rooms, and access to filtered water, making it a true point of reference for children and families.

Fully powered by solar energy, the school was built through the collective efforts of the community and the operational work of CoopXixuaú, in collaboration with ICMBio, the Municipality of Rorainópolis, and our partner Amazon Charitable Trust.

This is a concrete step toward strengthening education in Jauaperi Reserve, supporting families in remaining in their territory, valuing traditional ways of life, and protecting the forest.

With thanks to Riccio Giramondo, Fondazione Adiuvare, Trentino Insieme (Rothooblass), 3B Meteo, Elettra srl, Fondazione Quarta de Matteis, Margherita Pantano, and the Associazione dei Carabinieri di Lanuvio.

Click to learn more about our education projects.

More than 50,000 people gathered for ten days in Belém, the capital of the state of Pará, at the gateway to the Amazon. 

One of the most significant features of COP30 was the unprecedented participation of civil society and Indigenous and traditional peoples. Thousands of people from Pan-Amazonia and other regions of the world took part in the negotiations, side events, and mobilizations. Among them was Emanuela Evangelista, biologist and president of Amazônia ETS, who attended together with a group of representatives from the Jauaperi national park. 

“This was the highest level of inclusion of Indigenous and community representatives in the history of the COPs,” Evangelista emphasized. “They brought visions and solutions based on nature and ancestral knowledge, showing that there are different ways of inhabiting the planet.” 

Peaceful demonstrations, marches, and parallel summits had a tangible impact: among the outcomes was the protection of new Indigenous territories. The Belém COP demonstrated that when forest peoples’ voices are given space, they can make a difference.

Amazônia in the Blue Zone: 25 years of field experience 

Within this context, Amazônia ETS actively participated in COP30. The organization spoke at two official events in the Blue Zone. The first, on November 10 at the Italy Pavilion, titled “Amazonia: strategies and best practices to avoid collapse a 25-year experience,” offered a dialogue between Europe and Brazil on concrete solutions for forest conservation. Alongside Evangelista, speakers included Jonas da Rosa Gonçalves of the Amazon Charitable Trust and Alda Brazão, an Indigenous leader from the Baniwa people and representative of the community cooperative CoopXixuaú. 

The second event, on November 17, was the international side event “An insider’s blueprint: a lifetime of proven climate actions on the ground,” co-organized with the Amazon Charitable Trust. The meeting explored the role of scientific and community collaborations in strengthening local capacity and promoting a just transition rooted in traditional knowledge. 

“Climate justice and ecological justice today urgently demand the defense of forests,” Evangelista stated. “Avoiding the point of no return in the Amazon means zero deforestation and reforestation. In both cases, forest peoples know how to do it. It is up to us to listen to them.”

Results and limits of COP30 

From a negotiation standpoint, COP30 did not deliver a shared global roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels, but it did mark some progress. An agreement was reached to triple climate adaptation funds by 2035, and, above all, the most comprehensive global mapping to date emerged of countries willing to move away definitively from fossil fuels. 

“A roadmap to accelerate the transition is now necessary and inevitable,” Evangelista explained. “We would have liked a more ambitious outcome, but the processes that have been launched will continue to shape the international debate in the coming months.” 

On deforestation, serious critical issues remain. The final document acknowledges the urgency of halting and reversing forest loss by 2030, but without defining a global action plan. Meanwhile, the Amazon continues to lose billions of trees every year and to suffer increasingly frequent extreme climate events.

A collective process, a global mutirão 

The final text of COP30 was titled Global Mutirão, evoking a deeply Amazonian concept: the collective action required when an individual cannot succeed alone. It is a powerful metaphor for the climate challenge. 

“Global climate action is a collective movement,” Evangelista concluded. “It advances even in the absence of a few denialist actors; it grows in the streets and in negotiations, in science and in ancestral knowledge. And, like a mutirão, it requires everyone to row in the same direction.” 

COP30 in Belém was a milestone, not a conclusion. But bringing the world into the heart of the Amazon made one truth increasingly impossible to ignore: without the forest and without those who inhabit it, there is no credible solution to the climate crisis.