BSC’s Gillian Davies, PWS attended the More Than Human Life (MOTH) gathering in the Sarayaku Indigenous territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon last week.
The Sarayaku People hosted Indigenous Peoples, scientists, artists, attorneys, and others in a multiday, interdisciplinary meeting, to advance “rights and well-being for humans, nonhumans, and the web of life that sustains us all” (https://mothrights.org/). Discussions and exercises shared knowledge across disciplines and cultures, with participants coming from across the globe to address climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and Indigenous rights.
We could see and feel climate change impacts on the Sarayaku community, with normal daily Amazonian rainforest rainfall dwindling and increased solar heat causing abnormally high heat and low water levels in the Bobonaza River. The Sarayaku worry that in the future, a dry riverbed could deprive them of their primary transportation corridor. Traveling home to Massachusetts entailed dodging the wildfire on the outskirts of Quito and the hurricane bearing down on Miami. Just like the pandemic, everyone in the world is sharing the hardships of climate change and the loss of climate and life-sustaining ecosystems.
BSC’s work on climate resilience and nature-based solutions is more critical than ever.
