Dom phillips Reporting Grant
Pulitzer Center’s Amazon Rainforest Journalism Fund
SEEDS FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: HYPERLOCAL SOLUTIONS IN INDIGENOUS LANDS

About the project
Despite the centrality of the environmental agenda in the new government, saving Amazonia will be no easy task. And this process, complex and multidimensional, begins by getting to know the initiatives already underway and learning from their possibilities and limitations.
From agricultural production in community gardens and the circular economy generated by them, to the traditional seed bank with an increasing involvement of Indigenous youth, Serra da Lua shows the way to save the Amazon.
The second-largest Indigenous community in the state with a population of almost 10,000, mostly of the Wapichana and Macuxi ethnic group, the region is made up of 32 communities divided into nine Indigenous Territories.
Faced with a world that yearns for environmental solutions, this project will document the complexity of this struggle, focusing on the solutions it produces and the lessons to be learned, by Brazil and the world, to save the Amazon and halt climate change.
Read more on Pulitzer Center.
Published Stories
- Could Indigenous communities in Brazil hold key to climate justice? - Al Jazeera
- Com roça e criação de peixes, terras indígenas de Roraima buscam aliar tradição e sustento - Folha de São Paulo
- How to Protect Our Planet: Learning From Indigenous Communities in Brazil - OptOut News
- Amazônia: Sementes para o Amanhã #1 Piscicultura, Comunidade Tabalascada - Um Só Planeta
- Sementes para o Amanhã: comunidade indígena na Amazônia encontra na piscicultura uma fuga da contaminação por mercúrio e agrotóxicos - Um Só Planeta
- Amazônia: Sementes para o Amanhã #2 Plano de Gestão Territorial e Ambiental, Comunidade Novo Paraíso - Um Só Planeta
- Sementes para o Amanhã: plano de gestão local apoia comunidades indígenas no manejo sustentável dos recursos naturais - Um Só Planeta
- Amazônia: Sementes para o Amanhã #3 Semente das Artes, Comunidade Mangueira - Um Só Planeta
- Sementes para o Amanhã: recursos da floresta se transformam em biojoias e artesanato pelas mãos de projeto em comunidade indígena - Um Só Planeta
- Amazônia: Sementes para o Amanhã #4 Roça Estadual da Juventude, Centro Caracaranã - Um Só Planeta
- Sementes para o Amanhã: Roça Estadual da Juventude trabalha com sementes nativas e instiga jovens indígenas a preservarem tradições - Um Só Planeta
- Amazônia: Sementes para o Amanhã #5 Avicultura da Juventude, Comunidade Canauanim - Um Só Planeta
- Sementes para o Amanhã – jovens indígenas encontram na avicultura um caminho para o desenvolvimento da comunidade - Um Só Planeta
SELECTED CLIPS
‘Everything is a priority’ –
How a family living in an informal occupation in Brazil manages their expenses.
What’s your money worth? A series from the front line of the cost-of-living crisis, where people who have been hit hard share their monthly expenses.
Erecting the wooden shack in Ocupação Vitória in early 2021 meant that Mariele and her family were now official inhabitants of one of the dozens of informal occupations that Brazil’s Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) has established across the country.
When families can no longer afford rent, communities like Ocupação Vitória become an alternative to homelessness. These spontaneous settlements have been growing since the foundation of MTST in 1997 – when, faced with the lack of adequate housing in the peripheries of increasingly populated urban centres, thousands of workers started to fight for the constitutional right to decent housing.
Read full story on Al Jazeera.


Why a Lula-Maduro alliance has Venezuelans in Brazil worried
‘I listened to everything Lula said… but he didn’t mention us.’
President Jair Bolsonaro has been openly hostile to refugees and migrants. But during his tenure, the Brazilian government set a regional example for the welcome it provided to Venezuelans escaping poverty and starvation.
As Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva prepares to succeed Bolsonaro on 1 January, some are questioning if he will continue the same level of support, especially as he looks set to restore ties with Caracas and forge a left-wing alliance with President Nicolás Maduro.
Read full story on The New Humanitarian
Andean glaciers are melting, reshaping centuries-old Indigenous rituals
The Snow Star Festival, an annual religious celebration, has been an integral part of Andean tradition and beliefs. But climate change and COVID-19 are threatening that.


Rural black communities in Brazil face both extreme drought and racism
“Life in a quilombo is a celebration”, says Nego Bispo, who grew up in the Quilombo do Saco-Curtume, in the Brazilian northeastern state of Piauí. In recent years, however, climate change has discouraged festive spirits in these communities.
Centuries ago, quilombos emerged as rural communities where formerly enslaved people could live safely. While some of them originated in lands bought or inherited by those emancipated, most of them were built by enslaved men and women who managed to escape plantations.
Read full story on Climate Tracker
MORE of my work
Reported stories
In English
- Briefing: Lula’s first steps on humanitarian action, 100 days in - The New Humanitarian
- Lula at 100 days: President stalls in quest to reshape Brazil - Al Jazeera
- Instagram Account "Contragolpe Brasil" identifies Jan. 8 rioters - Latin America News Dispatch
- Can Lula reverse Brazil’s climate destruction? - Gal-Dem
- With Lula set to take over, what role can Brazil play on climate? - Al Jazeera
- Indigenous neglect, hunger, and police violence: Brazil’s presidential in-tray – The New Humanitarian
- In Denmark, Syrian refugees are stuck in camps with rapists and war criminals - The New Arab
- Resilient communities are essential for dealing with refugees – and involving residents is the key to making it happen - International Service for Human Rights
- As long as there is war, Ukrainians won’t process their trauma - Média Iksž
- “We call it a dream village”: how Slovakia is welcoming Ukrainian refugees - Média Iksž
- Third-time lucky for one Syrian grandmother in Denmark - EU Observer
- Denmark: Refugee grandmother told to return to Syria - Al Jazeera
In Other Languages
- Atores chave no combate às mudanças climáticas, povos indígenas se preparam para levar demandas à COP 28 - Um Só Planeta
- Marco temporal já atinge comunidades indígenas mesmo antes de ser julgado - Folha de São Paulo
- La inmigración venezolana y una dudosa acogida de Bolsonaro - crisis
- Brasil está longe da meta de zerar o desmatamento ilegal até 2028 - Folha de São Paulo
- “Lo chiamiamo villaggio dei sogni”: come la Slovacchia accoglie i profughi ucraini - Il Moscone
- A luta de mãe que perdeu filha vítima de poluição em Londres - BBC Brasil
- Mulheres são mais afetadas por mudanças climáticas - Folha de São Paulo
FIRst person & opinion
In English
Photography