COP30 comes to the Amazon — But will it help the people who live there?
Behind the statistics of the various illegal activities that have bedevilled Brazil's Amazon, what the rest of the world often seems to miss is how difficult life has become for the indigenous population on a social and economic scale.
Award-winning documentary photographer Alessandro Falco, living in Belém, the destination for COP30, says people are missing how much the climate extremes have made life hard for the indigenes, and it’s not just environmental.
‘Trapped between two emergencies’
Having lived in the Brazilian Amazon since 2018, he tells Global South World, “People living in the areas of the Amazon are trapped between two emergencies. And it's not just an environmental issue… on an economic and social level too.”
The Italian, whose work explores the social and environmental challenges facing the rainforest, says its people are “suffering”, watching their societies erode and their economic activities massively impacted—they struggle to take care of their families.
“I met a family from a remote village, and it took 15 hours to make it from their village to the nearest bank in a small city called Tefe. And that was just to withdraw some basic emergency aid that the government was providing during the drought,” he said.
“They pay a lot for gas just to take a few dollars back to [take care] of their families… On a trip that usually takes three hours when it's not a dry river,” he added.
People in the Brazilian Amazon engage in agriculture, fishing, and the sustainable use of forest resources. According to Falco, the climate crisis is forcing migration from small villages for economic reasons.
“Most of the people in the Amazon are a sort of sustainable extractivists. So they are based on some fishing together with some kind of bioeconomy products that they can sell in the nearest cities. So it's a sort of economy with no or few money involved,” he said.
‘Almost like a Western movie’
With over 18% of its rainforest lost to illegal logging, soy agriculture, and cattle ranching in the last 40 years, the majority of the forest is in danger. The Amazon’s unmatched biodiversity is essential to regulating the Earth's climate.
Brazil's rapidly expanding population settled large swaths of the Amazon Rainforest in the 20th century. As a result of settlers clearing land for farmland and grazing pastures, as well as timber, the Amazon forest's size drastically decreased.
In the arc of deforestation, for example, where scientists have discovered that it is the most vulnerable to drought, Falco says it almost looks like a “desert”.
The area has the highest rates of Amazonian deforestation and is where the agricultural border transitions into the forest.
It spans 500,000 square kilometres of land, passing through the states of Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Acre as it moves westward from the east and south of the Brazilian state of Pará.
“The landscape there is mostly paved roads, a lot of cattle, some cowboys. It's almost like a Western movie,” he added.
COP 30 — Not the World Cup?
Being the first United Nations Climate Conference to be held in the Amazon, there’s a lot of anticipation for COP 30.
Over $700 million in structural investments have been committed for the global event to welcome more than 50,000 participants to Belém.
According to Hana Ghassan, Vice-Governor of the state of Pará, this goes “beyond preparing the city for a single event—they’re about transforming lives and caring for people.”
However, despite the various construction and infrastructure initiatives currently taking place ahead of the conference in November, Falco says there is a real disconnect.
“In the local Ver-o-Peso. The largest open-air market in Latin America, where all fishermen and fruit sellers have their stalls… Speaking to this lady… she was so happy that there would be thousands of people. I was intrigued by her enthusiasm, but then I understood that COP 30 in Brazil sounds a bit like 'copa', which is like the World Cup,” he said.
“The reality is she was thinking that COP 30 was like the World Cup, and that would have been happening in Belém.”
Help never reaches the people in need
Not only do illicit environmental activities constitute crimes against Brazil's Amazon, but government officials designated to oversee the flow of funds appropriated for the protection of the region and its inhabitants are occasionally involved as well.
The Superintendência de Desenvolvimento da Amazônia (SUDAM), created to boost enterprise in Brazil’s Legal Amazon, became infamous for policies that fuelled mass deforestation and a corruption scandal in 2000 involving over $500 million in embezzled funds. The revelations, sparked by a political feud, exposed deep-rooted graft and marked the country’s costliest corruption case at the time.
“When other governments want to help the indigenous community, this kind of aid always passes through governments… 90% of the funds will get lost,” Falco said. “There's a lot of middleman corruption that never reaches the people who are in need.”
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
