People from Brazil’s Indigenous Munduruku group outside the COP30 venue in Belem on Nov. 14.
Photographer: Pablo Porciuncula/AFP/Getty Images
Climate Protests Are Back at COP30, Held in Democratic Brazil
After years of UN climate summits in authoritarian countries, activists are again staging events to urge countries to do more and move faster.
Beginning at dawn on Friday, dozens of people from Brazil’s Indigenous Munduruku tribe assembled at the venue of the United Nations’ COP30 climate summit in the city of Belém and blocked the entrance. They demanded a meeting with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, denounced illegal gold mining and questioned infrastructure for transporting soybeans being built near their territory, in the Tapajós River basin of the Amazon region.
“Enough of using our image to claim sustainability and bio-economy while they destroy our forest,” said Alessandra Korap, a Munduruku leader who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2023.