Indigenous Peoples Protect the Amazon

The Ancestral Guardians

Around 1,5 million Indigenous people inhabit the forests of the Amazon, the immense green heart of South America. For decades, deforestation, fires, and constant illegal extraction practices have tried to silence its pulse, yet the Indigenous communities —like the living roots of the planet— protect what still breathes.

These communities do not merely guard trees; they safeguard memories. They do not simply live in the forest, they embody it.

 Today, the Amazon remains a carbon sink—absorbing 100 million metric tons more carbon dioxide than it emits each year—but it is on the verge of becoming the opposite: a net source of carbon.

Science measures the loss: 17% of the forest in the past 50 years.

 When we look beyond the numbers, we recognize that every lost hectare is also a story—a song that humanity needs to hear:

Like the Earth and its creative processes, these peoples defend not through distance, but through connection, building bridges rooted in ancestral traditions moved by respect. They care for the cycles of the jungle, the cycles of knowledge, cultivating spaces where community, land, and spirit are in dialogue.

More than 380 Indigenous nations manage 2.4 million square kilometers of territory. Studies by the World Resources Institute and NASA confirm it: where Indigenous peoples govern, the forest lives.

 In this reciprocity between science and territory, knowledge is not imposed but shared; technology becomes an ally of memory, and conservation is also a spiritual act.

The Earth has spoken through its guardians. Amazonian communities, aided by satellite tools like Landsat and the Global Forest Watch initiative, monitor the movements of the forest, issue deforestation alerts, and have managed to significantly reduce it.

“A 2021 analysis found that after 36 Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon began using these satellite alerts, deforestation rates dropped by 52% within a year.”

Their resistance is not merely defense, it is active hope.

We follow the example of Indigenous peoples, accompanying processes of transformation through listening, education, and action, honoring the interdependence between humanity and nature. Because under the care of those hands that weave unity, the Amazon continues to beat: for you, for me, for all.

In times of planetary crisis, these peoples do not act as victims but as guardians of hope— weavers of a possible future. Their voices, songs, and memories are also strategies of resistance and renewal.
Under their care, the Amazon is not merely a forest,it is a heart that beats for all humanity. And that pulse carries a message:
To remember that protecting the Earth is protecting ourselves.

Science confirms what tradition has always known: when human beings live in reciprocity with the Earth, the forest heals. In the following article from NASA’s Earth Observatory, the essential role of Indigenous communities as protectors of the Amazon rainforest is recognized, affirming what we communicate and promote at AYELE: that ancestral wisdom and spiritual connection with nature are real forces of conservation, balance, and life.

Read NASA’s Earth Observatory article here:

Indigenous Communities Protect the Amazon

Guardians

Within the world’s deep, the river sighs,
A million souls beneath its skies.
They guard the life, they tend the flame,
Ancient roots that speak our name.

The fire roars, the axes cry,
Yet still they stand — they will not die.
Science records, but spirit knows,
Where wisdom breathes, the forest grows.

Each fallen leaf becomes the ground,
A cycle endless, soft and sound.
When humankind walks Earth with grace,
The forest mirrors our embrace.

They are not victims — they are the prayer,
The keepers of hope, the lungs of the air.
The Amazon beats, eternal, divine —
Heart of the planet, and yours, and mine.