The New Awakening

PARIS - What does an Amazon native chieftain have in common with you and me? We are all worried about the future of planet Earth. Based in Brazil, we are surrounded by the beauty of nature and best and worst of mankind. That environmental focuses one on solutions.

New Awakening – Novo Despertar - hopes that bringing a change in perspective will help lead to specific solutions, incentives and sanctions. Urgency can reunite people and spark transformation; that is our hope.

My team and I are concerned by the lack of information on the impact of climate change. We are journalists by trade, so we interviewed and investigated. Our first strategic news coverage was the 2015 Paris COP21. With the help of the World Resources Institute and Uma Gota no Oceano, we interviewed attending indigenous leaders and international experts. We asked how does increasing temperature on the planet endanger different species? What are the visible effects? What is the role of indigenous people in this fragile equilibrium?

Indigenous lands are in danger, and the world is not paying attention. Indians have been decimated or removed from their lands, especially because of extensive farming and controversial hydropower energy projects. However, those communities are closer to the earth than the rest of us. We need to their knowledge.

That is why Rodrigo Junqueira, Bruno Veiga and I are currently working on a documentary on the impact of climate change on forests and indigenous communities. Through interviews, we hope to ensure that this wisdom reaches the general public. We see giving a global voice to native people as practical, moral and even spiritual solution to saving our environment.

Through the New Awakening - Novo -, international experts and indigenous leaders explain the risks of climate change, assess how governments are organized to address the problem, and analyze opportunities in the transition to a green economy.