Daiara Tukano addresses the Climate Action Assembly II at the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, USA.

Good morning, thank you so much for being here. I’d like to thank a lot. I know it doesn’t seem like full of people but the people that is here willing to listen to Indigenous voices are really the most important persons to us because Indigenous peoples work for too long with non-listen and there is too little time to say once again that Indigenous territories protect more than 82 percent of biodiversity in the world. We protect as it was said before the sources of clear water We protect in the forest the knowledge the memory the history of the life that says resides in our planet.

I have been to many Indigenous territories under attack, we must say no to oil exploitation, gold exploitation, wood trafficking. The deforestation is growing, also by the pressure of the agribusiness industry. And so we need to understand that we must divest we must take action to protect the Amazon forest in so many ways. But especially standing side-by-side with Indigenous peoples.

Some years ago I went to the Guarani Kiowa territory in Brazil and I saw a full village under attack. The sugarcane plantations put fire on the village and the bounty killers were shooting. They gave me the responsibility to take the kids and so just the elders remain in the village and they keep praying. They were praying with so much love and so much faith and I just asked Grandmother, Grandfather, what are you praying? What is the word that we are saying in your prayer before this terrible attack? And they just explained to me, “We are praying for the heart of the white man to be cleared of all his pain. We are praying to the heart of the farmer to be clear of all hate. We are praying so he can have good health. We are we are praying for his family. So he can be happy and he stops attacking us.”

So I thank the great spirit Mother Nature the grandfather and the grandfather mother of the universe for keep this wisdom of a wider love for life in each Indigenous nation and I celebrate this opportunity of union in diversity. Thank you so much to the Parliament of the World’s Religions.