the unbearable notice is; that you've to make up your mind to be the difference and not the other way round else people will misjudge you even though you're not that person.
Women in various Indigenous communities across the Amazon have kept up the fight against the injustices that face their lands for decades.
In the early 2000s some of these women united in yearly marches known as Marchas das Margaridas, in honour of the late Margarida Maria Alves, which focused on advocating for women’s rights, education, and land reform and this movement is still alive today.
More recent movements such as Mujeres Amazónicas have taken significant steps against governmental and corporate efforts to threaten their ancestral land.
Indigenous women’s leadership has led to successful landmark court rulings that have helped safeguard ancestral territories from oil extractions, such as the women from The Kichwa People of Srayaku, who in 2003 successfully expelled oil industries from their sacred lands.
“Across the Amazon rainforest, the legacy of Indigenous women as fierce protectors of the environment has shaped a powerful movement against exploitation and climate threats”
InsiderNotes
As guardians of the Amazon, Indigenous women cultivate a profound relationship with the land, nurturing medicinal plants, collecting seeds for reforestation efforts, patrolling their lands against illegal mining, and so much more.
Their efforts have helped to enhance biodiversity, increase carbon storage, and foster resilience to climate change in the rainforests they manage.
Today, Indigenous women activists of the Amazon are continuing this legacy, making their voices heard in South and Latin America, and globally.
Here are six Indigenous women activists you should know.
1. Zaya Guarani
Zaya Guarani is a world-renowned Indigenous Brazilian model, activist, speaker and actor who is making strides in the fight to protect the Amazon in the fashion industry and beyond.
Growing up in Rondônia, Brazil, near the Madeira River in the Amazon, Guarani experienced first-hand the devastating impacts of climate change and illegal industrial activities on her community.
Her home state is now included in the Amazonian Arc of Deforestation, an area where tropical forests are vanishing quickly due to logging and mining activities, which forced her family to often move from one area to another.
While currently living in New York City, far from Brazil, Guarani remains vocal about her Indigenous Brazilian roots, advocating for her community and fighting against deforestation in the Amazon.
Throughout her career she has used her platformer to champion Indigenous rights and climate justice.
Guarani joined forces with Indigenous activist Dayana Molina to create Indigenous Creatives Latin America, a collective that champions Indigenous representation in the fashion industry in Brazil and South America.
As an advisor for The Slow Factory and the UN Spotlight Programme, she is intentional when it comes to collaborating with brands and organisations that share her commitment to a socially and environmentally responsible future.
Guarani, understands the important role Indigenous peoples and their cultural teachings play in combating climate change, even as they face its impacts.
“As indigenous people, we serve as guardians of an entire ecosystem, yet some still seek to exploit our land livelihoods.”
In a 2024 interview with Atmos, she said:
2. Helena Gualinga
Helena Gualinga is a passionate Ecuadorian environmental and human rights activist from the Kichwa Sarayuku community in Pastaza, Ecuador.
Coming from a long line of women in her family who were advocates for Indigenous women’s rights and land defenders in the Amazon, Gualinga witnessed the struggles her community faced against oil companies encroaching on their land without consent.At just 10 years old, her journey into activism began when her community achieved a significant victory in 2012, winning a landmark case at the inter-American Court of Human Rights that affirmed Indigenous rights to free, informed consent regarding resource extraction.
At just 10 years old, her journey into activism began when her community achieved a significant victory in 2012, winning a landmark case at the inter-American Court of Human Rights that affirmed Indigenous rights to free, informed consent regarding resource extraction.
Since then, she has emerged as a dynamic spokesperson for her community and co-founded Polluters Out an International youth-led coalition, focused on kicking the fossil fuel industry out of every aspect of society.
At 17 years old she made her mark at the COP25 Climate conference in Madrid, when she called out the Ecuadorian government for continuing to allow oil extraction on Indigenous lands.
Her activism has been recognised in various publications and her inspiring story was captured in the documentary Helena Sarayaku Manta.
Now 23 at the time of publishing, she carries forward her family’s legacy of advocacy, inspiring youth globally to join the fight for the Amazon and our planet’s future.
3. Vanda Witoto
Vanda Oregta Witoto is an Indigenous woman from the Witoto tribe.
She is a nurse, climate activist, and Indigenous community leader from Manaus, Brazil.
For years, she has been advocating for her community’s rights and well-being in Parque das Tribos, also known as Tribes Park which is the first recognized Indigenous neighbourhood in Manaus and has faced historical neglect.
Witoto has worked to address critical issues impacting her neighbourhood of 700 Indigenous families from 35 ethnic groups.
These issues include poor sewage systems and waste management, both of which threaten local health and the Amazon River.
As a nurse working during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she personally drove sick neighbors to hospitals when ambulances refused to respond, and with the help of her mother volunteered to distribute handmade masks to the community.
Witoto was also among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, which helped to dispel misinformation in Indigenous communities.
Driven by her neighborhood’s struggles and the poor official response to COVID-19, Witoto ran for federal deputy in 2022, at the age of 35.
Her campaign advocated for Indigenous rights, improved education and healthcare, support for underrepresented groups, women’s economic empowerment, and sustainable development in the Amazon.
Though she did not win, she contributed to a historic wave of Indigenous women seeking political representation.
The now 37-year-old continues to advocate for the fundamental rights of Indigenous people and nature through her women-led organisation, The Witoto Institute.
She has also attended international climate summits including the COP27 conference in Egypt, where she spoke about the challenges forcing Indigenous people to leave their ancestral homes and their familes for urban areas in search of work, food, and safe water due to economic and environmental pressures.
4. Nina Gualinga
Nina Gualinga is a prominent activist and leader from the Kichwa community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
At 31, she has spent most of her life working to protect the rainforest and its inhabitants against the threats posed by oil and mining companies.
Her activism journey began at just eight years old when she witnessed an oil company’s attempt to exploit her community’s land without their consent.
Inspired by the local women in her community who refused the selling of their land, Gualinga committed to advocating for environmental justice and Indigenous rights.
In 2018, her activism was crucial when she and five hundred Indigenous women from the Indigenous women-led organization Mujeres Amazónicas, also known as Amazon Women, presented a mandate to Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno.
This mandate included 22 demands addressing land rights, gender-based violence against Indigenous women, and climate change.
This moment was monumental, despite the threats and attacks the activists faced for speaking up.
5. Nemonte Nenquimo
Nemonte Nenquimo is Indigenous Waorani woman dedicated to protecting her ancestral territory, ecosystem, culture, economy, and way of life.
For generations, the Waorani people from the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest have stood resolutely against outside forces threatening their ancestral land.
In 2015, Nenquimo co-founded the Ceibo Alliance an Indigenous organization, aimed at protecting Indigenous lands from the threats of planned oil concessions.
In 2018, she was elected as the first female president of the Coordinating Council of the Waorani Nationality of Ecuador-Pastaza, an organization that represents the Waorani of the Pastaza province.
Her advocacy work over the years has not gone unnoticed.
Nenquimo has won numerous awards for her activism, including the prestigious Goldman environmental prize.
She has been recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2020, and has been named a United Nations Champion of the Earth.
In a groundbreaking 2019 court case, Nenquimo successfully challenged the Ecuadorian government, which resulted in the protection of 500,000 acres of Amazonian rainforest and Waorani territory from oil extraction.
In 2023, she campaigned in a successful referendum to protect the country’s Yasuní National Park from oil drilling.
6. Txai Suruí
At just 28, Txai Suruí is a notable Brazilian environmental activist known worldwide.
A member of the Paiter Suruí Indigenous community in Brazil, she founded the Indigenous Youth Movement of Rondônia and leads the Associação de Defesa Etnoambiental Kanindé, a community organization that has worked with Indigenous people for over 30 years.
Suruí hails from a family of activists her father is Chief Almir Suruí and her mother is the legendary activist Ivaneide Suruí, both known for their work in combating deforestation in the Amazon.
Following in their footsteps, Suruí has carved her own path as defender of the environment and advocate for Indigenous rights.
Her activism can be seen in governmental halls and climate summits around the world, but also on the ground with Indigenous communities, and on social media where she advocates for her community.
As the first woman in her community to earn a law degree, she used this, along with the support of her peers, to successfully sue the Brazilian government for changing its 2005 carbon baseline to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement’s carbon reduction objectives.
In her powerful COP26 summit speech addressing world leaders, she said, “Indigenous people are at the forefront of the climate emergency and must be at the center of decision-making.
We have solutions to postpone the end of the world; let’s stop spreading lies and false promises.”
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“Disturbingly, many who are returning to Odinani Igbo are not returning to embrace and reflect the highly distinguished Igbo value system”
InsiderNotes
Money💰 has been so elevated in today’s Ndi Igbo that the deep value system that made their ancestors philosophers, spiritual adepts, observers of nature, republicans are hardly found in Ndi Igbo of today.
One of the foremost values of ancient Igbo is, Ome ife jide ofo.
This means in whatever you do, stand on truth.
Truth was highly revered more than anything to the extent, Ozo institution, the most noble class in Igbo society of old, was nothing but an assembly of men of truth.
Today, the words of onye Igbo, old and young, especially those in business, politics, even religious set ups, cannot be relied on.
The ugly impression out there is that an Igbo person can do anything for money.
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This means in whatever you do, stand on truth.
Truth was highly revered more than anything to the extent, Ozo institution, the most noble class in Igbo society of old, was nothing but an assembly of men of truth.
Today, the words of onye Igbo, old and young, especially those in business, politics, even religious set ups, cannot be relied on.
“The ugly impression out there is that an Igbo person can do anything for money”
EyeOpener👀
When fake products are mentioned, the first suspect that comes to mind is an Igbo person.
Moving on, our Igbo ancestors built their lives around, Ometalu ya bulu.
This principle that clearly reminded them, you must reap what you sow, restrained them from indulging in damning acts that will attract curses upon their house.
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Today, many Ndi Igbo have replaced this value system with forgiveness of sin.
Modern Ndi Igbo are prone to commit all manner of sin with hope that their sins will be forgiven once they ask for forgiveness.
Our ancestors feared the retributive justice from the mother earth, izelu mkpu ani.
They were careful not to heap untold hardship upon themselves and their children because they believed you must reap what you sow.
Igbo value system was built on these two principles, Insistence on Truth (Ome ife jide ofo) and Karma (Ometalu ya bulu).
It is on these two principles that societal order and behavioural traits were formed.
Thus, our ancients developed the habit of being restrained and philosophical in their approach to life.
45'MEDIA 