Echoes from the Amazon

Forest communities shaping climate action in Acre, Brazil

The heat arrives early now. By mid-morning, the forest already feels like it is holding its breath. The Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in the state of Acre is one of the first protected areas created in Brazil and the largest extractive reserve in the country, covering nearly one million hectares of dense lowland rainforest, submontane forests and riverine ecosystems.

For generations, this part of the Amazon inspired poets, writers and artists, who described it not merely as a landscape but as a living presence; one that speaks, teaches, responds and remembers.

That understanding echoes in the work of Rita Huni Kuin, a young visual artist from the Huni Kuin people of Acre – an Indigenous people of the western Amazon – who says: “My teacher is the forest. In the forest, the more you seek, the more you discover. My inspiration is nature and medicine, our songs, our culture, our language, the strength of our ancestors.”

The reserve is a vast mosaic of forest and water, with towering Brazil nut trees and ceibas rising above the canopy, and a forest floor alive with medicinal plants, fungi, insects and endangered animals essential to ecological balance and human wellbeing.

But the heat is changing everything. Leaves curl and brown by mid-morning. Fruit trees struggle to produce, and even the forest’s resilient hardwoods show signs of stress. Seasons no longer follow memory. The richness that has sustained communities for generations is becoming fragile under increasingly erratic cycles.

Raimundo “Raimundão” Mendes de Barros is sitting in his house amid the rubber plantations where he has spent nearly eight decades working, organizing and defending the forest. “There are days when we almost die from the heat,” he says. “It feels like we’re on the edge of a fire.”

A rubber tapper, union leader and lifelong defender of the Amazon, Raimundão is also the cousin of Chico Mendes, the world-renowned activist whose fight to protect rubber trees grew into a movement uniting forest workers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities for the survival of the Amazon.

Raimundão Mendes looks at a drawing honoring his cousin, Chico Mendes, the legendary activist who fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest and defend the rights of its communities.

In the mid-1980s, Chico Mendes and the National Council of Rubber Tappers organized local unions, led protests against illegal logging and land grabbing and negotiated with landowners and the government. Known as ‘empates,’ these protests reflected the forest peoples’ desire not to fight, but to put a stop to the devastation of their land. Their efforts culminated in the creation of extractive reserves, protected areas where communities could secure legal rights to the land and sustainably harvest forest products, ensuring both their livelihoods and the conservation of the Amazon. Today, the reserve’s inhabitants continue this legacy, albeit predominantly harvesting Brazil nuts rather than rubber to meet changing market demands.

While it provides a model of sustainable forest use, the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve also faces ongoing challenges from illegal logging, land conflicts, climate change and the pressures of balancing conservation with the livelihoods of its communities. “Humans, in their greed and vanity, are destroying the forest – and by destroying the forest, they’re destroying themselves, and all living beings,” Raimundão says.

Yet, the 80-year-old activist doesn’t focus on loss, but on trust and process. “If we are to benefit from this,” Raimundão says, referring to climate initiatives and forest protection programmes, “it has to happen through seminars and community discussion forums – so people can gather their proposals. From there, it’s much less likely that mistakes will be made.”

Raimundão Mendes and his family live in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, a protected area in the Brazilian Amazon established to safeguard forests while supporting the traditional communities that sustainably harvest rubber and other forest products.

Raimundão Mendes and his family live in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, a protected area in the Brazilian Amazon established to safeguard forests while supporting the traditional communities that sustainably harvest rubber and other forest products.

Listening before deciding

In response to calls like Raimundão’s, the government of Acre launched one of the most inclusive consultation processes in the state’s history to redesign how benefits from its ISA Carbono Program, which channels carbon credit revenues to support forest conservation and local livelihoods, would be shared.

For one year, teams from the state government traveled across Acre’s five regions – Baixo Acre, Alto Acre, Purus, Tarauacá-Envira and Juruá – meeting communities in extractive reserves, rural settlements and Indigenous territories. These were not symbolic visits but spaces for real debate, disagreement and collective decision-making. Meetings were held in remote forest communities, often requiring river travel and weeks of coordination. Where Portuguese was not the first language, interpretation into Indigenous languages was provided so people could speak and listen in their own words. Pre-consultations allowed women, elders and youth to voice their perspectives before regional assemblies elected delegates to represent them at the state level. Throughout the process, the SISA (Sistema de Incentivos a Serviços Ambientais – Environmental Services Incentives System) – Acre’s state-wide framework that links forest conservation with sustainable development, carbon finance and social benefits for communities – played a central role. Moreover, during the consultations, the Ombudsperson’s office systematically collected feedback and concerns.

Diversity shaping the future of the forests

Most importantly, the perspectives of multiple communities and groups – farmers, rubber tappers and Brazil nut producers, fishers, riverine families, teachers and educators, artists, Indigenous leaders, health practitioners, community organizers, women and men of all ages – helped shape Acre’s forest governance as it stands today. Through their everyday experiences, it’s the people who live in and rely on the forest who have actively influenced these decisions.

Among them is Renilda Santana, known as Dona Branca. She begins her day before sunrise, walking the trails, tending her plots and harvesting fruit that will sustain her family and community. Born and raised in the Riozinho da Liberdade Extractive Reserve in Acre, a community forest reserve created in 2004, she has witnessed decades of change, hardship and struggle and knows that protecting the forest is inseparable from supporting livelihoods.

Through her leadership in the local rural women’s association (Associação Feminina Força da Mulher Rural do Rio Liberdade) she ensures that the perspectives of women, who often carry the heaviest burdens in rural communities, are heard in local governance and the ISA Carbono consultations. “We need to be clear about what we want and need,” she says. “And how we want to manage and work with the biodiversity in our territory. This is crucial. Our market is the forest.”

Teaching the next generation of forest guardians

In the Indigenous village of Nova Morada, the school opens directly onto the forest. The lessons inside are inseparable from life outside. Children learn letters and numbers alongside dances, songs and stories of their ancestors and the rivers, trees and animals that share their home.

Francisca Andréia de Melo Brandão Shanenawa, or Kene Meni, teaches first grade, guiding her students in both academics and the responsibility of protecting the forest. “As a teacher, I feel I am contributing to the future of these children,” she says. “Being a guardian of the forest is a key role. Our Mother Earth, our Mother Water, they are bracing themselves to survive.” She reflects on the strength of Indigenous women in caring for their people, keeping their ancestry alive and passing knowledge to future generations.

Alongside her, Edileuda Gomes de Araújo Shanenawa, or Rani, directs the school, coordinates the Organization of Indigenous Teachers of Acre (OPIAC), and works as an artisan with the Purumã group, an Indigenous collective that keeps traditional crafts and cultural practices alive to sustain local identity and livelihoods. “The contribution of Indigenous women in our territory is essential for education, the transfer of ancestral knowledge and the maintenance of the forest.” For Edileuda, consultation affirms a fundamental right: “The right to choose what we want in our reality – what we live every day in our territory, what our children will need, what is still ahead of us. To exist is to resist.”

From dialogue to a historic agreement
This participatory spirit guided the state of Acre towards a historic agreement. In June 2025, more than 150 elected delegates from across the state gathered in Rio Branco to finalize the new benefit-sharing arrangement for the ISA Carbono Program.

“With transparency and respect, we completed consultations across the state’s five regions,” says Jaksilande Araújo de Lima, President of Acre’s Institute for Climate Change. The milestone agreement that followed established a new distribution of carbon revenues:
• 26% for forest extractivists – communities who live in the forest and depend on sustainably harvesting products such as Brazil nuts, rubber, fruits and oils without clearing the land
• 24% for small and medium-sized farmers
• 22% for Indigenous Peoples
• 28% for the state, supporting monitoring and enforcement

“At the participatory forum, we defined the new percentages for sharing the benefits. Listening to those who live and protect the forest is the first step toward trust – and trust is what makes collaboration possible”, Jaksilande Araújo de Lima highlighted.

Moving forward
For Raimundão, the consultations are part of a longer arc of struggle. “This generation set in motion a process to change our reality,” he says. “And we succeeded. I don’t stop… I didn’t stop when I was young, so now in old age I won’t stop either. We are moving forward, building a future for our children, their children and generations to come.” He emphasizes that the well-being of future generations depends on protecting standing forests. “Climate change should be the concern of every human being”, he warns, “what is happening here affects the entire world. Saving the Amazon means saving our planet.” Acre’s consultation process shows that climate action grows stronger when it begins where Raimundão began: on the ground and through dialogue. Humanity can only survive with the forest. And the forest only has a future if the people are heard.