This story written by Amazônia Real and translated by Liam Anderson originally appeared on Global Voices on November 26, 2025
During a debate in the Blue Zone at COP30, the 30th United Nations Conference on Climate Change, climate scientist Sineia Do Vale — also known as Sineia Wapichana — argued that the first step toward effective climate policy is to ensure the rights of Indigenous peoples over their territories. The reason is simple: they can be part of the solution by integrating traditional and scientific knowledge effectively.
COP 2025 was held in Belém, in Brazil's northern state of Pará, from November 10 to 21. The state capital, over 400 years old, is regarded as a gateway to the Amazon region, the world’s largest rainforest, which spans the territories of nine countries.
Do Vale also speaks as co-president of the Indigenous Caucus, a group that brings together Indigenous representatives in intergovernmental fora, as an official representative of Indigenous Peoples for the COP30 Presidency, and as coordinator of the Department of Territorial, Environmental, and Climate Change Management (DGTAMC) of the Indigenous Council of Roraima state (CIR). She has been working for over 30 years using Indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge to protect the Amazon from extreme weather events.
“We have been following this whole issue of climate change, and we are working on the adaptation of Indigenous peoples [to it],” she said in an exclusive interview with Amazônia Real.
On November 12, Do Vale led the event “From on the ground to the world — and back: Indigenous pathways to adapting to climate change,” with the participation of the Norwegian Ministry for the Environment (NICFI), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Green Climate Fund, Global Partnership of Indigenous Peoples for Climate Change, Forests, and Sustainable Development (Elatia) and the organization Tenure Facility.
“We have developed our plans to address climate change so that they can actually be implemented, mainly by Brazil’s Climate Plan, to show them as solutions,” the scientist explained.
According to Do Vale, communities see the impacts of high temperatures, droughts, floods and fires and then develop their own coping plans, using Indigenous knowledge alongside non-Indigenous institutions, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Tradition has given them solutions based on their own knowledge systems.
Indigenous peoples rely on natural indicators to assess the impacts of the climate crisis. The signs show in the forests, the plants, and the waters. The birds singing and the planting and harvesting cycles are part of their ethnological calendars, and also help Indigenous people to monitor climate change. They can observe and understand the behaviour of aninga, a plant that grows abundantly along Amazonian riverbanks, in flooded forests, and in streams. This plant indicates flooding and drought in rivers, helping prevent disasters.
“It is in these natural indicators that we are increasingly looking to for guidance, observation, so that Indigenous people can continue to do all this maintenance of biodiversity, of the forest, the water,” the scientist observed. When she was recounting examples of drastic climate changes, she mentioned the case of Roraima state, where rural areas with cultivated biomes suffered severe fires in 2024, which hit 80 percent of the zone.
In early 2024, the number of fires in Roraima, northern Brazil, broke historical records. Between February 1 and 23, the National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) detected 1,692 fire outbreaks. This figure surpasses the 1,347 outbreaks during the same month in 2007, which, up to that point, was the highest number recorded since the federal agency began monitoring fire outbreaks in the Amazon. In comparison, the increase between periods was 449 percent.
“When you have this high number of fires, it destroys the biodiversity that we have there. Medicinal plants, various types of birds that live in this ecosystem. For us, this has a big impact on the Indigenous communities,” Do Vale said.
The loss of biodiversity and plant species, such as the buriti palm, represents a profound and irreparable harm to Indigenous peoples. “When a buriti tree is burned, for some people it may not have any value, but for us it is an important plant. It has leaves for making houses, fruit that feeds [us], and a spiritual connection with the forest, the water, and the animals that Indigenous people have from a long coexistence,” she said.
Ana Paula Wapichana works with a community brigade of Indigenous people in Roraima and has dedicated her work to fire prevention in Indigenous territories. In conversation with Amazônia Real, she emphasised that climate adaptation is an urgent challenge for Indigenous peoples.
“We are here to seek solutions on how to contain the climate changes that are happening. We want the world to be on alert. We try to improve so this no longer happens, so that in the future our children can live better,” she said.
Wapichana explained that her work focuses on controlled burning techniques used to control and prevent forest fires, especially in agriculture in Roraima, one of Brazil’s ecological regions most affected by droughts and fires in recent years.
While noticing the lack of other Indigenous representatives from the Amazon at the decision-making tables, Wapichana nevertheless highlighted the shared sense of Indigenous presence at COP30. “I consider that each of us represents our peoples. I know not everybody was given entry [to COP], but we are here representing the lived experiences of those who were left out as well,” she said.
During her public speech, Sineia Do Vale stressed the urgency of ensuring the presence of and listening to Indigenous peoples in decision-making spaces on climate, as well as funding to continue their work mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis.
“There needs to be funding to continue doing what Indigenous people have always done voluntarily. The funds are mechanisms which we are preparing for, mainly to directly get the [necessary] resources for working on the issues that we are already dealing with, which relate to adaptation, but Indigenous lands are also [important to] mitigation [strategies], so we work on these two areas without disconnecting them,” she explained.
The panel at COP30, attended by Amazônia Real, sought to create a space for strategic dialogue to build policies and mechanisms that ensure direct financing for climate adaptation actions implemented by Indigenous peoples in their territories. Among the expected lines of work are the development of practical policy recommendations aimed at the UNFCCC, the Global Goal on Adaptation (GAA), and national adaptation plans, as well as the development of ethical and equitable pathways to include Indigenous peoples in climate finance mechanisms.
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