Climate justice in the bodies of Indigenous women

On the eve of COP30, while Brasília fine-tunes its discourse on environmental leadership and Belém prepares to welcome the world, another Brazil presented itself, unfiltered, at the 1st National Conference of Indigenous Women. It wasn't a stage for slogans or official selfies, but a mirror of the deep Brazil. And what was reflected there is the distance between the image of a "green power" and real life in the villages. For these women, climate justice is not a carbon target on an international spreadsheet; it is the difference between getting sick and living, between breaking a cycle of violence and ensuring the continuity of a culture. It is public policy inscribed on the body.

The theme of the meeting, “Women Guardians of the Planet for the Healing of the Earth,” placed the debate where it needs to be: on the ground. Women from all biomes reaffirmed what politics often refines to the point of inertia: the earth is an extension of the body, and the body is an extension of the territory. The formula may seem merely poetic, but the content is concrete. “We are guardians of our bodies and our territories,” summarized Jozileia Kaingang, from ANMIGA. The notion of body-territory, so often labeled as “identity-based,” asserts itself as a powerful category: a forest is not a carbon stock; it is a living organism that, when violated, returns violence as disease, hunger, and mourning, almost always with the face of a woman and a child.

In that same spirit, the speech by Cacika Irê (Juliana Alves, of the Jenipapo-Kanindé people, from Ceará) summarized the methodological shift the movement is undergoing: “The Indigenous women's movement is only managing to advance because it is showing politicians that there is a huge difference between governing from offices and being present on the ground in the territory.” This is not a catchy phrase; it is a diagnosis of governance. She points out that the distance between the written word and life, between the decree and the life that pulsates in the villages, defines the success or failure of any climate policy. Being present in the territory, as the leaders remind us, is not a protocol visit with a delegation and photos; it is continuous listening, services that arrive, protection that remains, and decision-making processes that happen with, not about, the people.

The government was present and opened channels of dialogue, notably with the participation of Minister Sonia Guajajara and Minister Marina Silva. This matters. But the contradiction that runs through the public machine remains latent: while bioeconomy is celebrated and ancestral knowledge is revered on the stage, the retrograde fiscal and political plan of the National Congress still operates in step with the accelerated expansion of commodities and the pressure for environmental deregulation. The rhetoric of climate change avant-garde coexists with legislative offensives that weaken licensing, with the dispute over the Temporal Framework for indigenous lands, and with the reactivation of projects that historically opened fronts of deforestation and conflict. This friction is not a behind-the-scenes detail for those who need to live without fear.

However, there is a substantive and proactive movement coming from the grassroots. Gathered in Brasília, around five thousand Indigenous women from all biomes presented a plan, not just complaints. The Conference organized proposals into areas ranging from territorial rights and management to climate emergencies, health, education, and combating gender-based violence. From this emerged 50 priorities to compose a National Plan of Policies for Indigenous Women, with a public commitment from the government to implement them and the creation of an inter-ministerial working group to advance the plan. This gesture is unprecedented and has institutional weight: it is policy-making based on qualified listening, preceded by regional stages and anchored in free, prior, and informed consultation, as mandated by ILO Convention 169, and with concrete measures such as the creation of an Indigenous Women's Center in each biome and the development of specific service protocols for their realities.

This architecture has added value because it re-establishes the State in the territory in a non-episodic way. Territorial demarcation and protection—including sustained removals over time, not just one-off operations—are the cheapest and most efficient climate policy that Brazil has at its disposal. The Minister of Indigenous Peoples herself listed, in official interviews, actions to remove invaders from lands such as Yanomami, Urueu-Wau-Wau, Karipuna, Trincheira-Bacajá, and others, highlighting their direct impact on reducing deforestation. It is necessary to transform these victories into administrative routine and not into exceptions celebrated with reason, but always at risk of setbacks when political attention shifts to another issue.

The Conference also laid bare the obvious, which is often lost in climate negotiations: global warming is a useful category, but in the territories, the key word is integrity. Integrity of water, of the forest, of the body. Institutional integrity as well: environmental licensing shielded from shortcuts, coordinated presence of Funai, Ibama, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health (Sesai), the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office and the police, and a federal pact with states and municipalities to avoid turning protection into a game of passing the buck. In the case of illegal mining, the reality reported by leaders is one of sophisticated criminal organization, with logistics, weaponry and financing. Reports of the growing presence of factions are not limited to mining areas. The escalation of violence associated with organized crime has become a chronic problem throughout the country, especially in the indigenous lands of the Northeast region, where entire groups are expelled from their villages and the very presence of the State is threatened.

What Indigenous women have brought, by organizing 50 proposals, is a pragmatic roadmap that helps align climate ambition with concrete protection of life. And here it is worth proposing a change of benchmark. If Brazil wishes to condition its international insertion on a credible climate agenda, it needs to link climate finance flows and environmental clauses of trade agreements to verifiable goals for protecting life in the territories. Not just preserved hectares and emissions curves, but human indicators: reduction of mercury and pesticide (poison) contamination; consistent decrease in gender-based violence and sexual exploitation associated with cycles of territorial invasion; expansion of access to intercultural primary care, with teams that speak the language and know local care practices; continuity of land clearing with annual targets and transparency. These are auditable metrics, simple to communicate and, above all, endowed with human basis. It is necessary to convert the green wave into rights and services.

This rebalancing also requires reviewing our developmental automatisms. The rhetoric of infrastructure as an unavoidable engine of progress needs to be confronted with evidence about vectors of deforestation and conflict. Projects that tear through ecological corridors and axes of uncontrolled occupation tend to multiply social and environmental costs, ultimately undermining the very legitimacy of the climate agenda that the country wants to lead internationally. It's not about paralyzing Brazil, but about revisiting the initial question: development for whom, at what cost, and with what governance? In the case of indigenous and extractive territories, the answer cannot continue to be the old formula of sacrificing bodies and forests in the name of promises that never reach those who pay the price.

There is a decisive symbolic and political dimension to this shift. By marching along the Esplanade of Ministries, the indigenous women, with their body paint, songs, and sharp words, brought COP30 to the real Brazil. They said, in their own way, that ecological transition will not happen only with solar panels and electric vehicles if, at the same time, the bodies of the guardians of the biomes continue to be a territory of sacrifice. And they offered, more than a denunciation, an invitation. The invitation is to redesign priorities from the margins, where the environmental crisis has color and culture.

Transforming this invitation into policy requires some objective steps. A designated budget, with specific lines of funding for territorial protection and for the health of Indigenous women and children. Protocols for comprehensive care, from prevention to rapid response to gender-based violence, with teams that are not only deployed but also trained within the communities and led by Indigenous women. Strengthening Indigenous schools with curricula that value language and knowledge. A chain of economic accountability that reaches the links of financing and money laundering, so that crime no longer pays. All this with transparency and participation, as reminded by the guidelines for free, prior and informed consultation that underpinned the Conference itself.

The good news is that the elements are already in place. There has been listening. There is a book of proposals. There is institutional willingness to address priorities and formalize working groups. Evictions have been carried out and they have been effective where they occurred. There is sufficient science to guide policies, from epidemiology to best practices in territorial protection. And there is a desire for the future pulsating in the voice of those who say that the healing of the Earth begins with the care of the body that guards it.

By marching together, they weren't targeting a specific government, but a logic that transforms territories and bodies into sacrifice zones. Indigenous women affirmed something simple and undeniable: there will be no ecological transition if the biomes continue to be guarded by those whose own integrity is denied. They are not asking for favors; they are offering direction. It is up to the country to accept the path. The time to listen, and to act accordingly, is now.