A day into a river voyage between Santarém and Belém, a dozen or so passengers on the Karolina do Norte move excitedly to the port side of the boat to see the cafe au lait-coloured waters of the Amazon river mix with the darker, clearer currents of the Xingu.
“That confluence is like the people on this boat,” said Thais Santi. “All from different river basins, but coming together for this journey.”
Santi, a public prosecutor from the frontier municipality of Altamira, is one of more than 100 participants, along with Indigenous leaders, climate scientists, artists, youth activists, doctors and other forest defenders.
For each of the three nights, the majority sleep in hammocks strung across the second deck like two tightly arranged rows of chrysalises. During the day, there is a packed “forest university” programme of panel discussions, music and film. Some were even fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of river dolphins.
The Voyage to Resist the End of the World was arranged by the Amazon news organisation Sumaúma (of which this writer is a founder) and the Santarem-based NGO, Health and Happiness. It is one of several fluvial civil society activities that aim to make the colour, flavour and sound of Cop30 unlike anything seen in the history of climate summits.
Recent conferences have been dominated by corporate lobbyists and billionaires who fly in on private jets. In the authoritarian petrostates of Dubai and Azerbaijian, protest has either been forbidden or strictly limited.
Brazil, on the other hand, has said civil society must play a fundamental role in pushing negotiators to be more ambitious.
This conference desperately needs a helping hand. Last week, the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, acknowledged that it was now inevitable that the world will miss the target of limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels because national plans to cut emissions have fallen far short of what was needed. He urged delegates to “change course” to prevent the Amazon rainforest from becoming a savannah.
The need for a radical shift is all too evident along the route of the voyage. Indigenous villagers told the Guardian they suffered the worst drought of their lives last year, which devastated their food gardens, dried up rivers and left them stranded.
The political winds are not favourable. Under Donald Trump the world’s richest nation, the United States, has once again abandoned the Paris agreement. Europe is divided. And the world’s biggest emitter, China, has underwhelmed with its targets.
A shortage of accommodation and highly inflated prices for the rooms have led many official delegations to bring fewer people or not come at all, but many nongovernmental groups are finding alternatives by travelling on boats that can then double as lodgings when they arrive in Belém.
With music, workshops and campaigns along the route, they are coming from all points of the compass.
From the west is the Yaku Mama flotilla (Water Mother), an Indigenous-led journey of more than 3,000km through Amazon rivers to Cop30. Conceived as a “journey that seeks to reverse the path of conquest and transform it into a path of connection, unity, and resistance”, the flotilla launched in mid-October from the banks of the Napo River in Coca, Ecuador on boats festooned with a banner declaring “End Fossil Fuels – Climate Justice Now”.
From the south will come The Answer Caravan from Mato Grosso – the heart of Brazil’s soy and corn production. Led by the venerable Indigenous leader Rãoni Metuktire and Goldman prize winner Alessandra Korap Munduruku, its primary focus will be to shine a light on destructive monocrops like soya and plans for ever more destructive transport projects, such as the planned Ferrogrão railway. After a nine-day road and river journey, it is scheduled to arrive in Belém in time for the main civil society demonstration on 15 November.
From the north, the Flotilla 4 Change is making a near zero-carbon voyage across the Atlantic dedicated to earth defenders. The first of its sailing ships should arrive in Belém on 6 November. Three more vessels will follow over the following days, carrying a total of 50 people.
Then there is the Laraçu Scientific River Caravan, which is a collaboration between 10 academic institutions in France and Brazil. And, of course, Greenpeace’s venerable Rainbow Warrior, which will open its hatches to the Belém public at the weekend.
The efforts to move the dial on climate action have come in many other forms. Youth activists, science institutions and climate campaigners have planned demonstrations, released studies and attempted to show politicians that the overwhelming number of people in the world want their governments to do more.
There are multiple risks in this region. As well as the pirates that operate on the river, there are the continual threats faced by some land and environmental defenders.
“I cannot share social media posts about this journey because there are people who might send assassins to kill me if they knew my location,” said one activist, whose name has been withheld for his safety.
The crammed sleeping deck on the ship on which the Guardian is travelling has not, so far, detracted from the sense of togetherness engendered by a shared voyage. “I would like the Cop to be more like this,” said Indigenous leader Juma Xipaia, a threatened Indigenous defender who is the subject of a documentary funded by Leonardo Di Caprio. “It is a meeting of voices. Here, we are really speaking and listening to each other and that is making us stronger … I wish we could feel the same about the Cop.”
The flotilla was arranged by the Amazon news organisation Sumaúma and the Brazilian NGO Health and Happiness.
