Amazonian Youth in Brazil Deepens a Connected and Bold Vision for COP 30
Written by Felipe Storch and Pedro Neves de Castro from theYouth Advisory Committee (YAC)
On August 28 and 29, 2025, marking 75 days until the start of COP30 in Belém, the Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) of the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) held its fourth youth workshop in its Pan-Amazon series, bringing the conversation home to Brazil.
For two days, approximately 45 Brazilian young researchers, Indigenous communicators, community leaders, and students gathered virtually to explore a central question that has guided this series of workshops: how can we defend and strengthen Amazonian connectivities—ecological, cultural, social, economic, and between knowledge systems—on the road to COP30?
As with previous meetings that brought together participants from Ecuador-Peru-Bolivia , Colombia-Venezuela , and Guyana-Suriname-French Guiana, the Brazil session was designed for practicality: short plenary sessions, group work, collaborative tools, and collective synthesis—this time with a distinctly Brazilian rhythm. The result was candid, dynamic, and rooted in the realities of the Amazonian region.
Day 1 — Voices, Media, and the Many Amazons
On the first day, the opening plenary session focused on those who tell the stories of the forest. Indigenous media—described as organized, cohesive, and increasingly supported—emerged as a strategic force: documenting lived realities, shaping narratives, and focusing on content produced by the communities themselves. The group proposed directly including Indigenous communicators in upcoming sessions and even at COP30 itself.
The conversation also highlighted connections with the National Council of Extractive Populations (CNS), recalling a youth manifesto they previously produced—proof that local protagonism isn't a promise, but a practice. There were offers to open channels of collaboration on the way to Belém. From there, the participants were divided into three workgroups.
Ecological Connectivity: Corridors, Public Lands, and a Changing Climate
The young people defined ecological connectivity as the fabric that keeps forests, rivers, species, and cycles moving. Based on this, they mapped urgent pressures:
Fragmentation, deforestation, and fire reinforce each other and disrupt vital corridors, as well as affecting rainfall in Brazil and beyond.
Unused public forests — tens of millions of hectares — are seen as easy targets for land grabbing, illegal mining, and speculative projects.
Extreme weather, already altering crops (from Brazil nuts to fish), impacting food security and changing ecological processes, with examples such as the feminization of turtle hatchlings due to rising temperatures.
The main message of this group was to protect and strengthen existing areas, allocate public forests, and strengthen environmental agencies with personnel and budget.
Cultural and Social Connectivity: Belonging, Recognition and City-River
The group that discussed cultural and social connectivity defined this as the recognition of identity, languages, practices and ways of life shaped by rivers and seasons.
The group emphasized that there is a perception that the feeling of belonging to Amazonian identities is fragile among some groups of young people. This is a result of prejudice, youth migration, and political decisions made far from the territories.
Participants argued that public policies should be created “from the rivers outward” rather than “from outside the Amazon inward,” ignoring the local context from within.
Economic Connectivity: Beyond the Logic of Extraction
In the economics group, young people challenged the idea that connectivity is simply about the flow of goods. They highlighted an entanglement of economies rooted in the territory—fishing, community forest management, chacras, artisanal production—threatened by middlemen, precarious infrastructure, and disconnected policies.
The proposals included structural policies (education, sanitation, transportation), fair prices, traceability, and financing that reaches communities directly, with flexibility for them to be protagonists.
By the end of the day, three risks emerged as common threads: (1) internal colonialism and peripheral vision, (2) climate extremes that require only reactive responses, and (3) exclusion of youth from decision-making processes.
Day 2 — A summary of calls for specific sectors
The second day transformed these diagnoses into concrete requests. Each group conducted an exercise to address specific calls to the public sector, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, academia, civil society, and the private and financial sectors, to address the main needs identified.
Public Sector: The group understands that the public sector is responsible for allocating public forests, securing and demarcating Indigenous lands, and strengthening corridors. Furthermore, the public sector needs to strengthen environmental agencies with staff, budgets, and infrastructure, and create policies to adapt to extreme droughts, ensuring water, health, and education. It also needs to expand consultation spaces and prepare communities to comply with legal requirements.
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: The ecological connectivity group, for example, noted that "Indigenous Peoples have played their part, resisting for over 500 years since the Brazilian invasion, keeping the forest standing to this day. Research confirms that the best conserved areas are Indigenous Lands. More support is needed to protect the territory, combating illegal mining and drug trafficking." In this sense, it is important to ensure prior consultation and direct access to financial resources, support community monitoring and the intergenerational transfer of knowledge, and create technical research centers in the territories.
Academia: Conduct science in co-authorship with communities and deliver results in accessible language. Expand access and retention for Indigenous and traditional students. Promote Indigenous academic production in public policy.
Civil Society: All groups reinforced the importance of engaging more civil society in policy-making. The social and cultural connectivity group stated that "A very big barrier to this connectivity is prejudice. For example, at COP-30 recently, when the official dishes and ingredients to be served at the event were presented, some important ingredients were vetoed. However, there are people who consume these products daily (açaí, maniçoba, etc.). No care was taken to determine whether the risk actually existed”. This example demonstrates the influence of colonialism and how foreign practices are seen as better or safer than local ones. Therefore, civil society needs to be strengthened so that it can act on the front lines of climate crises, connecting local data to political advocacy. Increase literacy about COP30 to democratize participation.
Private Sector: Ensure traceability and supply chains free from deforestation and mining. Pay fair prices to producers and support community-based supply chains. Invest in local research and development, and community-managed infrastructure.
Financial Sector: The groups discussed the strategic role of the financial sector. For example, the ecological connectivity group noted that: "Money from funds (e.g., the Amazon Fund) needs to reach the end users directly. Many projects don't reach the communities that truly need it. Payment for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon credits) needs to be implemented urgently, and countries around the world must contribute to keeping the forests standing." Facilitate access to funds and payments for environmental services directly to communities. Support sustainable supply chains, applied science, and territorial governance.
What Brazil Adds to the Pan-Amazon Mosaic
Similar to other workshops, participants in the Brazilian workshop emphasized the dual commitment of Amazonian youth: occupying decision-making positions and preparing to exercise responsibilities. This includes training in territorial management, citizen science, and political advocacy. They rejected the idea of youth as "the future"; young Amazonians are already experiencing climate impacts today, alongside the elderly and women. The meeting also highlighted the challenge of scientific continuity: much research comes and goes without returning to the communities. The proposal: citizen science with co-management, community remuneration, and safeguards against the misappropriation of knowledge.
After four workshops, the regional patterns of opinions and perspectives of Amazonian youth are becoming clearer. First, there are common threats across the Amazon Basin. The nearly 200 young people involved primarily mentioned illegal mining, land grabbing, the increase in forest fires, and other extreme weather events, cultural erosion, and youth migration. Second, there are convergent solutions across the Amazon Basin regions. We are unique countries, but we have solutions that can be similar. Among the solutions presented, we highlight the need to guarantee territorial and water security, strengthen community governance, structure fair value chains, and promote inclusive social participation.
Finally, we can use connectivity as a guide, as a route to follow and achieve a vision of sustainable development for the region. Connectivity is like the Amazon rivers that form in the Andes mountain range, and as they descend and move through the forest, they meet and create, together with the trees, great flying rivers that care for our future. Likewise, there is connectivity between animals, the many languages, markets, and knowledge systems. The Brazil workshop emphasized how all these aspects of our lives in the Amazon are connected. There is a gap, however—an institutional gap (agencies with budget and staff)—and in access to funding that reaches the river headwaters, the communities, and those on the frontlines. We need leadership that comes from within.
Our next steps on the Road to Belém in November
As planned, we will now systematize the results of this workshop along with the regional set of youth priorities. This systematization will form a summary document, an Amazonian youth vision, to be launched at COP30 in Belém, along with the second SPA Amazon Assessment Report. A final regional workshop (scheduled for early October) will bring together young scientists and leaders to solidify commitments. If the Amazon teaches us anything, it is that life thrives on connection. This fourth workshop reaffirmed that this is true for climate action: multiple actors, many paths, one single living web.
