At COP30 in Belém, the “gateway” to the Amazon, conversations flow in every direction, between diplomats, scientists, activists, students and entrepreneurs. But in the midst of the noise, there are voices that do not just comment on the climate crisis. For local Brazilians and Indigenous communities, the stakes could not be higher: they live in the “lungs” of the planet, feel climate shifts first and possess generations of knowledge about the forest.

At the COP30 venue in Belém, dozens of Indigenous people gathered with colorful banners reading “Our land is not for sale”. They reminded delegates that in the Amazon “we can’t eat money”, as one activist shouted and pressed for genuine participation.
This year’s COP stood out for a greater Indigenous presence: nearly 900 Indigenous representatives, compared to roughly 300 in the last COP with significant participation. Their priority is ensuring Indigenous knowledge becomes central in climate policy, not peripheral.

I had the privilege of meeting Vanda Witoto at the venue, an Indigenous advocate from the Witoto people in Amazonas whose work sits at the intersection of culture and conservation. She explained that fashion in her community carries moral weight; garments are woven with the understanding that creation must sustain life. “We must create with a responsibility to maintain life”, she said. Indigenous people always respect the tempo da natureza, the rhythm and limits of the forest, because, as she warns, if we “exhaust everything the Earth can give us, it is not the Earth that is going to die, it is us.”

This worldview makes the forest sacred to her community. She explained that traditionally they take only what the land can replenish. “We create what we need with the forest, not against it,” she said. For example, some riverine artisans turn leftover açaí pits and nut shells into jewelry and tools, a practice that turns waste into income while respecting the ecosystem (açaí bracelets have become a symbol of zero-waste innovation in the Amazon).

In this way, Amazonian traditions, from wild silk weaving to palm-fiber craft, reveal sustainability as inheritance. Learning from these communities is crucial for designing climate solutions that avoid repeating the mistakes of extractive development. Amazonian governance models already embody what sustainability frameworks attempt to articulate: regeneration thresholds, circular design and strict accountability to ecological limits. These practices show how economies can operate without overshooting planetary boundaries, how value can emerge without extraction and how cultural systems can function as environmental safeguards. Integrating such approaches shifts climate action beyond technocratic fixes and grounds it in systems designed to endure.

Fashion, Identity and Justice For many Amazonian people, the forest is an ancestor. Rivers, plants and animals form a living system that holds culture, memory and survival together. When that system is harmed, communities feel the strain immediately. This is why even small climate shifts in the Amazon reverberate so sharply through their daily life.

This connection shapes the perspective of Glícia Cáuper, whom I met in Belém. “I was born in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, but many Brazilians don’t even know our state,” she told me. Her frustration reflects a deeper political invisibility. The North sustains the country’s biodiversity, yet remains sidelined in national debates.

Glícia lived through the extreme 2023 smoke crisis: months of fires, drought and ash-filled air. Development gains under President Lula once helped many Amazonian families climb out of poverty, but Bolsonaro’s governance brought renewed deforestation and instability. When protection policies weaken, her community pays the price first: choking smoke, heat that curdles the air, unpredictable rivers, disappearing fish. Environmental damage becomes economic damage, which becomes cultural erosion. Her response blends law, activism and fashion. During the pandemic she joined a free fashion course with Casa de Criadores, Brazil’s leading incubator for emerging designers, and realized fashion could be a political tool.

“Clothes are not just fancy,” she said. “Your grandmother may have made clothes to survive.” For her, fashion is a record of resilience. It is also a reminder that those who gather fibers, seeds and natural dyes (often Indigenous, Black and women workers) are the ones most harmed by deforestation yet least included in policy decisions.

“We wear our history on our backs,” she says, a call for communities to recognize that their own aesthetics hold value, power and story. Celebrating Amazonian styles rather than imported tuxedos is a way of asserting visibility in a country that often sidelines the North.

Brazil’s fashion supply chain exposes a harsh irony. The country is one of the world’s largest leather exporters, and cattle ranching is the primary driver of deforestation. Yet Amazonian communities seldom benefit from this industry and are often excluded from grants, programs and investments concentrated in the southeast. Glícia uses her legal training to translate bureaucracy into accessible language so cooperatives can compete for funding. “I know how the system works,” she joked. “But I also know how to move with grassroots speed.” By reframing fashion as daily life, survival and political identity, she opens a pathway to climate justice. As Fashion Revolution Brazil highlights, the workers at the end of the supply chain are the most vulnerable and the most exposed to climate risks. Glícia’s work makes that inequity visible and non-negotiable.

What the world must learn from the people of the Amazon Other Brazilian and Indigenous people talked to me about similar concerns: hotter days, fewer fish, lost planting seasons. Predictable weather patterns have shifted, rains no longer follow historical cycles. Across conversations, one message emerged consistently: the most effective climate solutions already exist in the Amazon. They call for transitions centered on people, not corporations. As Kayapó chief Raon, chief of the Kayapo people warned at this COP: “If we continue destroying everything on this earth, there will be many consequences; there will be chaos on this earth.”

Listening to Indigenous and local Amazonian voices showed me that climate justice and social justice are inseparable. Saving the forests means saving the communities who safeguard them. The Amazon may store carbon, but its people store knowledge and they are breathing life into the global climate fight.

Both Glícia and Vanda described the contradictions of being Brazilian from the North: a region rich in biodiversity and culture yet marginalized politically. When protections weaken, their air fills with smoke. When policies ignore Amazonian realities, their crops fail and their health suffers.

Yet they also spoke of possibility: the chance to bring ancestral knowledge into global climate debates, to build local capacity, to redefine sustainability not as market trend but as tradition. For them, climate change is neither distant nor theoretical.

It is the smell of burning fields. It is the river’s unpredictable swell. It is the loss of familiar seasons. It is the burden and responsibility of living inside the lungs of the planet.

If I took anything away from my time with Vanda, Glícia and other Indigenous people, it is that climate action falters when it sidelines those who live where the world breathes. They do not claim to hold all solutions, but they carry a body of knowledge the world cannot afford to overlook.

They see changes first. They feel impacts first. They have protected the forest long before climate conferences existed. Their message is simple: Do not come to Amazonia to impose solutions.

Come ready to listen. Come ready to learn. Come ready to build together. The lungs of the Earth are not silent. They speak through the people who call the forest home. And the rest of the world must finally learn to hear them.