How To Save the Amazon: The Struggle of the Yawanawa People and the Collective Future Visions of the Cacique Biraci Nixiwaka (Spanish)

The state of Acre is considered small in a country like Brazil, but it is critical to the future of the Amazon. However, increased violence, drug trafficking, and illegal extractive activities are destroying the state once considered an example of conservation.

But there is hope. Acre is the birthplace of environmentalist and current minister of the environment, Marina Silva, and the home of cacique and shaman Biraci Nixiwaka, a historic figure in the Indigenous movement.

His vision, and that of his people, the Yawanawa, can help us understand how the state has changed, the consequences of the criminal and extractive violence that increased during the government of Jair Bolsonaro, and the possible ways to save the Amazon.

Journalist Felipe Milanez will visit Nixiwaka along with journalist Eliezer Budasoff and socio-environmental activist Angela Mendes, daughter of renowned environmentalist Chico Mendes.

Milanez will complete the interview that British journalist Dom Phillips did not get to finish. Phillips, who was murdered in 2022 along with Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, was going to visit Nixiwaka to find answers to the Amazon crisis in the experience of the Yawanawa.

Also, Mendes, Milanez, and Budasoff will explore the challenges facing the government of Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.