The Juruá–Yurúa–Alto Tamaya Transboundary Commission brings the political, cultural, and spiritual strength of the people of the Amazon rainforest to COP-30

Belém (PA) — Throughout the Conference, from November 10 to 18, the Juruá–Yurúa–Alto Tamaya Transboundary Commission will lead at least five events across different spaces — from the Blue Zone to the Museum of the Amazons, including the People’s COP, the Peoples’ Summit, and the Belém+10 Pavilion. These activities place the knowledge and practices of the border peoples at the center of the global climate debate.

The Commission’s area of action, spanning Ucayali (Peru) and Acre (Brazil), covers more than 3.5 million hectares of forest, home to 14 Indigenous peoples distributed across 35 Indigenous territories and 8 protected areas. It is one of the world’s largest concentrations of biological and cultural diversity, with five headwaters and river basins and 17 endangered species.

But this is also a territory at risk: invasions, deforestation, illegal roads, predatory fishing and hunting, violence against community leaders, and the absence of effective public policies have created an alarming situation. In response, the Juruá–Yurúa–Alto Tamaya Transboundary Commission was officially established in 2021, after years of joint mobilization, as a cooperative body that unites Indigenous and civil society organizations — along with allies such as universities — around the protection of biocultural diversity and the rights of Indigenous peoples.

In the words of Francisco Piyako, coordinator of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Juruá River (OPIRJ):

“The forest expands beyond the physical territory and becomes a way of thinking. Each word is a tree; each encounter, a branch that sustains the whole.”

This vision — in which the forest is both body and thought — guides the Commission’s work and inspires the dialogues to be held in Belém.

Events at COP-30

More than panels, the events will be rituals of dialogue and listening, addressing conservation, socio-ecological transition, the spirituality of the land, and climate justice. The activities reaffirm that responses to the climate crisis will not come from the same logic of exploitation that caused it, but from grassroots alternatives woven within the forests, villages, and communities — territories where ancestral knowledge and the science of care are deeply intertwined.

According to Jamer Magno López Agustín, president of the Regional Organization AIDESEP Ucayali (ORAU):

“The spirit of our participation in this global forum is to build a binational agenda that reaffirms our identity, so that we are better prepared for the continuous defense of our territory.”

More than a denunciation of threats, the program is a call to hope and to the re-enchantment of the world, inspired by cosmologies that understand the forest as a living, political, and spiritual presence.

For more information about the Transboundary Commission, visit www.ctperubrasil.org and follow @CTPeruBrasil on Instagram.