South America
Climate Action
South America
For Climate Action, we travel to Brazil to connect with WECAN Coordinators who are Indigenous women leaders and land defenders of the WECAN Women for Forests program for innovative solutions to regenerate forest ecosystems in the Amazon rainforest while defending our global climate. The impacts of climate change are worsening each day, with irreversible damage threatening the Earth’s critical living systems. Indigenous peoples are major stewards of global biodiversity and stand on the frontlines of climate action and biodiversity protection. As interconnected systems, protecting biodiversity is foundational for climate action–healthy biodiversity nurtures a stable climate by balancing carbon, water, and weather patterns, while a changing climate destabilizes ecosystems, leading to species disruption and the spreading of disease. Without increased biodiversity, both the planet’s ecosystems and its climate spiral into instability. Through the WECAN Women for Forest program, Indigenous women from the Sarayaku, Tembé, and Guajajara communities are implementing reforestation initiatives that will restore biodiversity and strengthen both community and climate resilience. The women in the program are also leading forest protection advocacy. By addressing climate change, environmental degradation, economic challenges, and social issues, the projects are building a resilient future for all communities that depend on a thriving Amazon rainforest and connected biomes.
We’ll travel with the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) to meet courageous Indigenous women leaders at the UN COP30 climate conference in Brazil (2025) who are bringing their solutions to the global stage in a once-in-a-generation chance to document historic speeches and actions of Indigenous women, told through their own voices, on the soil of their homelands, at the mouth of the Amazon Rainforest.
"I’m counting on you to accept that simple philosophy of praying for, providing for, and making sure that the seventh generation from now will have clean food to eat; will have clean water to drink. Clean air to breath.
Be on the right side of history."
-Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca Nation Elder and Land Defender, WECAN Board Member
From the WECAN website: “WECAN is a climate justice-based organization established to unite women in worldwide movement building for social and ecological justice. Our primary work is with women on the frontlines of climate change, in particular, Indigenous, Black and Brown women, low-income women, and underserved communities. We also believe that it is essential to work with decision-makers at every level, and thus, our network engages with women at the highest levels of government and business.
Due to unequal gender norms globally, women are impacted first and worst by climate change, and yet, one of the untold stories is how women in all of their diversity are simultaneously essential actors in local and global solutions. Study after study shows that we must involve women at every level if we are to succeed in areas of just climate solutions, social equality, and bold, transformative change.
Our programs are wide-ranging: from reforestation projects to the protection of old-growth forests; from fossil fuel divestment and resistance to feminist climate policy advocacy locally and at the United Nations; from Indigenous rights to food sovereignty; and more. Our programs have engaged people in over 50 countries and focus on immediate actions as well as long-term systemic change to the climate crisis and the root causes of environmental degradation and socio-economic inequalities.”
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