I’m 21 years old and took part in the first Mycelium-SUMAÚMA Forest-Journalist Co-Training Program. I was born in the Amazon, in the district of Vitória da Conquista, Gelado River, in the municipality of Novo Repartimento, in the state of Pará. I arrived at the Sister Dorothy Sustainable Development Project in the town of Anapu, Pará, on July 16, 2022, after my family and I had traveled all night from Gelado in search of a better life, of a place where we could plant and harvest. I live in a rural area with my mother, father, three younger sisters, and an older brother. Since August 2024, I’ve been studying agriculture at the Federal Institute of Pará technical school in Castanhal. When I’m in Anapu, I get up early to make my lunch for school. I love to read and, whenever possible, spend hours admiring the sky and rainforest. I dream about changing the world but still don’t know how. This film-poem is my attempt to convey the distress and indignation we feel when we see our very dreams burning up in the Amazon.
By Maria Soares.
Two years of SUMAÚMA: time for deeper Amazonization, by Eliane Brum
SUMAÚMA turns two years old. It seems like 10 to some of us, because planting a tree of stories in the Amazon demands all of our bodies. But because SUMAÚMA is a life project and not a business plan, I can tell you all we have come to a new place at this moment – and it is an important place.
As expressed in our sowing manifesto, we have a commitment to make the newsroom progressively more Amazonian and within ten years – now eight – mostly Amazonian. And this is also true for leadership positions, because as we know, real transformation only comes when power is occupied by those who didn’t count and weren’t counted (or were miscounted). This is an even more difficult mission than practicing good journalism in times when Nature is being destroyed and the truth is being destroyed – both of which are connected.
For this reason we created Micélio, our forest-journalist co-formation program, and we held our first edition at our home base, on the Xingu River in Altamira. On August 23, Raimunda launched her book at the university, arriving there by boat. Nothing could be more symbolic – and nothing could be more real – than a writer who for nearly ten years looked at the “pen” with horror (usually wielded by persecutors, including journalists’ and writers’) and who has now appropriated the instrument of destruction, converting a violent pen into a curing pen.
For the point of arrival to also – and always – be a point of departure, we are launching a funding drive to make our tree stronger. It’s impossible to make a world alone; those who believe in our manifesto need to commit with more than likes (although we do really like the likes). I want to ask you to engage with our campaign through the Apoia.se platform, which is being shared on our social media. We need money to support our journalism, and the best way to guarantee independence is with donations from those wh
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.
