Indigenous elder and global Amazon defender Raoni Metuktire, 93, has raised urgent alarms over Brazil’s push for new highways, rail corridors, and offshore oil exploration, warning that these projects pose a direct threat to the rainforest’s survival. Speaking during COP30, Raoni said that expanding infrastructure through protected areas would irreversibly damage rivers, forests, and Indigenous territories. Scientists have long warned that the Amazon is nearing a “tipping point,” and Raoni stressed that such developments risk accelerating deforestation at a moment when the forest has already lost nearly 20% of its original cover.
Raoni urged President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government to withdraw or reconsider projects that cut through Indigenous lands or open new fossil-fuel frontiers. He argued that short-term economic gains cannot justify the long-term climate consequences, as the Amazon stores over 150 billion tonnes of carbon and plays a critical role in stabilising global weather systems. His appeal adds pressure on Brazil at COP30 to align development policies with forest protection, and to uphold Indigenous rights as central to safeguarding the world’s largest rainforest. More