SUMAÚMA Journalism

For today’s Friday from the Amazon, Jonathan Watts (@watts.jonathan), one of the co-founders of SUMAÚMA, describes a reluctant awakening in Altamira, Pará. “I was dozing in the hammock, listening to the pre-dawn chorus of the howler monkeys, when I decided to record the soundscape and make this time-lapse video of the Xingu. It took some minutes to persuade myself to make the effort. The alternative was to snooze a little longer. A truly tempting prospect. Could there be a more perfect portal into that magical realm between wakefulness and sleep? A cool breeze blew in off the river. The forest purred with contentment. Clouds meandered upstream. Then the sky started to do its morning exercise routine, pushing the vision through shades of purple, orange and blue, turning up the shimmering radiance of the river and lifting the greyscale of the sumaúma leaves from silhoutted black to sumptuous green. All inside thirty minutes. A miracle. A daily miracle. Maybe even better than a perfect snooze.”

“The forest is alive. It can only die if the white people persist in destroying it. (…) We will die one after the other, the white people as well as us. All the shamans will finally perish. Then, if none of them survive to hold it up, the sky will fall.” What Davi Kopenawa says in his book “The Falling Sky” defines the current crossroads we are experiencing, with the climate emergency. SUMAÚMA is exclusively sharing an excerpt from “The Falling Sky,” a movie inspired by the book of the same name written by the Yanomami shaman and anthropologist Bruce Albert, set to premiere at the “Directors' Fortnight” showcase held in parallel to the Cannes Film Festival. The feature film looks at the funeral ritual of “Reahu,” a Yanomami ceremony where hundreds of the deceased's relatives gather with the purpose of erasing all traces of those who left, so that they fade into oblivion. The movie looks at the cosmology of the Yanomami people, the spirit world, the “Xapiri,” and the work done by the shamans to “hold up the sky” and cure the world of the diseases produced by non-Indigenous people. It also shows the encroachment of illegal mining, the siege promoted by the commodity people, and the Earth's revenge. “We are at the beginning of the end of the model of widespread predation of peoples and the planet invented a few centuries ago by the “commodity people.” Davi’s words are not, therefore, mere exotic prophecy, but a diagnosis and a warning,” Bruce Albert warns in the book. Directed by Eryk Rocha and Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha, the documentary, produced by Aruac Filmes, is a Brazil-Italy-France co-production in association with Hutukara Associação Yanomami and Stemal Entertainment with Rai Cinema, with associate production by Les Films d’ici. According to Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha, “The Falling Sky” is the cinematographic expression of the book's engrossing reading experience. “But especially of our relationship a

Far from Boa Vista, in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, in Yanomami Indigenous Territory, lives Indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa, the most prominent figure of his people and a tireless defender of the Brazilian Amazon and the forest-earth. SUMAÚMA invited Kopenawa to visit the trees being threatened with death. “These trees are here in the middle of the city and a person who was elected mayor does not recognize the soul of the sumaúma. The sumaúma is the one who calls the rain, who brings good energy to breathe, to not get sick. These trees are three powers,” said Kopenawa. In the Yanomami language, the word for sumaúma is warimari. Its leaves are used in Yanomami rituals to ward off and cure illnesses. “The Yanomami people use the strength of the warimari. The ones using the strength of the warimari are the healers, to fight illness or xawara. The healer uses the tree’s strength to get rid of the illness. So, this is serious,” Kopenawa explained. The three tree-people are awaiting the destiny the humans will determine for them. Read the article on sumauma.com/en

Already back in the Amazon, Maickson Serrão, @opavulagem, looks at the final document from the #COP28, with its unprecedented call for countries to make a transition away from oil use: “It could be more assertive, but it's a step forward. The COP is over, but climate change is very alive." See the video and follow our coverage of the repercussions of the COP-28 on our social media.

Indigenous communicator Elizângela Baré and Maickson Serrão, a member of the Indigenous and Ribeirinho communities, make a Brazil-Dubai connection at this #COP28! Maickson, who is covering the event in the Middle East, answered some questions from Indigenous people in Brazil, through Elizângela Baré, who hosts Radio SUMAÚMA along with Maickson. Access our Stories to watch the whole video!

Special reporter Claudia Antunes @claudiapantunes talks about the close of COP28 and what its outcome means. Read SUMAÚMA’s full coverage of COP28 and the fossil fuel issue on sumauma.com and our social media platforms.

Special reporter Claudia Antunes @claudiapantunes talks about the close of COP28 and what its outcome means. Read SUMAÚMA’s full coverage of COP28 and the fossil fuel issue on sumauma.com and our social media platforms.

Maickson “Pavulagem” Serrão (@opavulagem), a host at our Rádio SUMAÚMA, is in Dubai covering the COP-28 meeting. In this video, Maickson says he will bring “the heart of the Amazon” with him to the event. Follow us and Maickson on social media to see his coverage of the event.

An island and its people threatened by the Caribbean. There is a territory in Panama which, according to scientists, activists, politicians and journalists, will soon cease to exist. They say that Gardi Sugdub will be underwater, and its 1,300 inhabitants will become the first community of climate-displaced people in the Americas. The article is part of Colapso (Collapse), a Dromómanos project. Read it at sumauma.com. The Colapso project explores how the climate crisis and deforestation are impacting our lives. This is the fourth report that SUMAÚMA has published from the series. The project is coordinated by @dromomanos, a producer of independent journalism based in Mexico that investigates, educates, and experiments to tell the story of Latin America in collaboration with journalists from all over the region. Roberto Valencia (text and photos)

“I looked at that glowing being and thought, ‘How can I listen to someone so different from me?’” Eliane Brum, director of SUMAÚMA, writes a special report on fungi, these absolutely extraordinary creatures who inhabit this planet. The article is part of Colapso (Collapse), a Dromómanos project. Read it at sumauma.com. The Colapso project explores how the climate crisis and deforestation are impacting our lives. This is the fourth report that SUMAÚMA has published from the series. The project is coordinated by Dromómanos, a producer of independent journalism based in Mexico that investigates, educates, and experiments to tell the story of Latin America in collaboration with journalists from all over the region.

Raoni: ‘If it stays like this, we’ll disappear’. In an interview with SUMAÚMA, the most prominent leader in the Indigenous struggle in Brazil warns his own people about the nefarious effects of mining and asks for societal awareness about global heating. Watch the full video at sumauma.com/en

Josiel Juruna, coordinator of MATI, an independent environmental monitoring group, denounces that Belo Monte has caused the death of millions of fish eggs in a spawning ground along the stretch of the Xingu known as Volta Grande, one of the most biodiverse regions in the Amazon. Read the special report by Helena Palmquist for sumauma.com.