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Dozens of protesters – including members of indigenous communities and youth activists – stormed the headquarters where the second day of COP30 negotiations was being held in Belém on Tuesday and clashed with security guards to demand climate measures and forest protection. The demonstrators, chanting angrily, demanded entry to the Blue Zone for the United Nations Climate Summit, where thousands of delegates from countries around the world are attending the annual event, which is being held for the first time in the heart of the Amazon region in Brazil.
Some waved flags bearing slogans demanding land rights or carried signs reading: “Our land is not for sale.” “We cannot eat money,” Gilmar, an indigenous leader from the Tupinamba community, near the lower reaches of the Tapajós River, told Reuters. “We want our lands to be free of agribusiness, oil drilling, illegal mining and illegal logging.”
The demonstrators were quickly blocked by UN security guards, who manage security in the area, where some clashes were recorded and access to it was closed. At least one security guard was injured.
“We wanted to invade the place specifically to show which cities should be at this event,” Helene Christine, from the PSOL party’s Juntos youth movement, told Amazonian media. He added, “We believe that the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) does not represent indigenous peoples. The organization is intended for businessmen. Oil exploration in the Amazon Delta is destroying the environment.”
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