Episode 4: Youth and Climate Justice in Brazil with Dani Assis

Our special guest today is Danielle Assis, a profound journalist and campaigner hailing from Brazil - a woman whose heart beats for climate justice, women's leadership, and of course, the impactful Amazonia de Pei project. She navigates us through the tumultuous political landscape of her homeland, where the recent elections saw President Bolsonaro locking horns with former President Lula. 

A pertinent theme that emerges in our conversation is the intertwining of religion and politics in Brazil, drawing chilling parallels with the rising right-wing extremism in the U.S and Brazil under President Bolsonaro. Danielle doesn't shy away from sharing her fears or hopes, shedding light on how progressive activists are countering these looming threats. Our focus then shifts to the Amazonian de Pei project, aimed at creating a safe haven for the Amazon rainforest by dedicating over 50 million hectares of public forest to indigenous folks, quilombolas, and conservation units.From discussing the complexities of Brazilian activism to its potential for ushering change, the episode is a rollercoaster ride through Danielle's activist journey. Brace yourself for an enlightening dialogue that not only offers a unique perspective into the world of Brazilian activism but also serves as a powerful testament to activism's transformative potential.

Transcript

Marie Berry: 0:03

Hello everyone, my guest today is Danielle Assis, a journalist and campaigner from Brazil who has mobilized for climate justice, abortion rights, women's leadership and more throughout her entire life. She is currently dedicated to the Amazonia de Pei project, a campaign to designate 57 million hectares of public land in the Amazon rainforest to indigenous communities and conservation units. I spoke to Danny in mid-October 2022, right after the elections between President Bolsonaro and former President Lula had gone to a runoff. At that pivotal moment in history, the stakes felt very high. Danny, like many other activists, had been mobilizing for years against the ravages of Bolsonaro's far-right government, and the prospects of him potentially winning another term had everyone deeply alarmed. As you'll hear throughout our conversation, danny's activism is grounded in a deep connection to others, to community, to land and to the better future we can build together. As she wrote once, despite our differences, we inhale, exhale and feel the pain of the world in ways far more similar than we often imagine. We connect, above all, through tears, fear, exhaustion and all the things that have no name.

Marie Berry: 1:25

I spoke to Danny in mid-October 2022, right after the elections between President Bolsonaro and former President Lula had gone to a runoff in Brazil. At that pivotal moment in history. The stakes felt very high and Danny, like many other activists, had been mobilizing for years against the ravages of Bolsonaro's far-right government, and the prospects of him winning another term had everyone deeply alarmed. A few weeks later, however, lula defeated Bolsonaro in the runoff and Danny, like many other activists and advocates for democracy and human rights across the world, celebrated. During our conversation, I'll note that Danny sounds a little bit tinny or like she's in a well due to some technical limitations, but her wisdom shines through, so I promise it will be worth it. Danny, tell us a little bit about you personally as an activist and in these types of movements. Like what does it meant for you and your kind of as a woman, as an individual, as a young activist? Like what has this work? How has it impacted your life?

Dani Assis: 2:41

I feel like, as I said, ever since I started getting involved in politics when I was 19 years old, I feel like my whole life is shaped around it somehow.

Dani Assis: 2:53

So my professional life, for sure like I've been working as an activist ever since. I've worked in political parties, I've worked in social movements, I've worked in electro campaigns, I've worked in NGOs, so everything is about social impact in a way. It's about activism in a way, and I have no intentions of getting out of it. I feel like I have to have this purpose in my professional life. I could not work for just any company or anything that does not have a purpose.

Dani Assis: 3:26

I think, first of all, my professional life is impacted by it. I feel like my academic life is impacted by it, so I have a master's. I graduated in journalism in 2018, I think yeah and then I did my master's last year and my dissertation in my undergrad was about politics. It was about social movements, it was about the occupation movements of the university, and my dissertation on my master's was about politics.

Dani Assis: 3:58

I did a master's in political communication and my dissertation was about women politicians in Brazil and how it is to be a feminist during both my government. So what I study is about politics and it's about activism what I work is about politics, it's about activism. I feel, my social life is also. It involves a little bit about around it because, as I said, the people you meet when you were doing your direct taxes, like occupying your school, occupying your university- they become your family.

Dani Assis: 4:33

They become people you trust so much people you spend through the good and the bad, the victories and other defeats. They become people you trust and you love and you care very much and spend most of your time with them, either because of work, either because of your activism outside of work, either because you just love to be around people who share the same values as you. So I feel like my whole life is shaped around politics and sometimes it can feel a bit okay, how can I get out of it? How can I alienate myself a bit? I also want to go to the beach and not think about politics and not be around people from work or people who are from the movement.

Marie Berry: 5:18

Totally.

Dani Assis: 5:19

But at the same time, as I was saying before, it hurts to get out of the bubble. So I like my bubble. I don't know if I want to leave it. I like to be around people who start to think that it's just me and I like to. I like to live this fully. I think for some people, they have no choice if they are political or not.

Dani Assis: 5:41

I feel like some people and some countries specifically, everything is political, like the price you pay for the bus is political, the price you pay for the bread you eat is political, the people you love is political, the people you work with they're all political. So we are political as well and we cannot step away from it. We do not have this right, I think. But also, yeah, trying to find some joy in everything and try to actually understand how you can be political but also be safe and being a good mental health state. I think you can do both. I think we can have boundaries.

Dani Assis: 6:29

I grew up in the agri-business culture, so basically it's grounded in very conservative values and very conservative ways of seeing politics and of seeing life. But ever since I was very little because I am a woman who loves other women I learned that I was bigger than that city and that I wanted to see the world. I wanted to do other things. I wanted to be close to people who I think that think more similar like I do. So I moved to Brasilia when I was 17 years old. Brasilia is the capital city of Brazil and it's two hours away from my hometown and it's where I first got involved with politics and first realized that we can actually make an impact and do social change and actually change all this conservative values that we grew up in, that we do not have to just conform to them.

Dani Assis: 7:28

we have ways of organizing and of acting collectively to change things. So I first I started studying journalism at the University of Brasilia, and communication for me, always felt like a tool for social change, because it's how we can express ourselves and how we can communicate to each other and tell them how we're feeling and how we want to see a different world. And I started college in a very complicated moment, in Brazil as well, so I started college in 2015, in 2016, we had a coup in the country.

Dani Assis: 8:08

The first female president ever elected in the country was impeached in a process that it's very, very complicated to explain, but it's legally contested everywhere in the country and as time goes by, we can see that it was really not fair at all with this woman and the political problems escalated really quickly. So I just moved from my hometown, which is very conservative and very difficult and politics is not happening at all, and I got to Brasilia, the center of the power in Brazil, so the capital of where everything happens in terms of politics in the country. It was a city built for that purpose.

Dani Assis: 8:55

So, it's a new city and was planned to be the capital and in that very harsh political moment of the country, so everything was so new to me. Yeah, I was like okay, I have a new life here, I can start things over, I can be myself here, I can surround myself with wonderful people, I can do politics, I can do communications, I can do all of these amazing things that I didn't know I was able to do. But we have this political moment that is very complicated and I think it was the start of everything that we're seeing right now in the country.

Dani Assis: 9:34

So it was 2016 and the new government that just got empowered and it will illegitimate is that a word? Illegitimate government is starting implementing some austerity policies in the country and a lot of budget cuts and education. So I was studying in the public university In Brazil. Public universities are very strong. They are the best ones in the country and they are free and it's amazing.

Dani Assis: 10:01

But at the same time, there's no budget. So the researchers, the professors, the academic staff everyone suffers a lot from the lack of money to actually do things. So there are amazing meetings, amazing structure, but, at the same time, lack of resources to do everything that we want to do and that we would be able to do if we had this money. And with budget cuts and education that the new government had announced, it wasn't possible to actually make the university survive. That's what we're facing right now.

Dani Assis: 10:33

Public universities in Brazil are I don't know. They might be destroyed because of lack of money, and it started in 2016 because of these austerity policies. So this unit movement from the university and all over the country started organizing to try to to make this stop, to try to make this policy this oh sorry, how do you say that Disasterity policy not passed in the national congress. So there were over a hundred universities across the country that occupied their buildings. So this movement occupied the buildings of this university all over the country, and I was involved in the occupation that happened at the University of.

Marie Berry: 11:18

Brasil.

Dani Assis: 11:20

I slept 45 days in the rectory building of the university. I was 19 by then and it was like the first time I was ever involved in those type of political tactics. And yeah, we spent like 45 days actually resisting in the university and saying, hey, this is our space, you're not going to cut any budget, you're not going to do anything to make all the research and all the amazing things that are being done here, you're not going to make it stop, because this is our place and we want to study and we want this place to be a free place and a place where we can actually learn and have structure.

Marie Berry: 12:05

But in the end, tell me more about that. I want to hear about those 45 days Like what was it like? What did you do for 45 days? Where did you sleep? What happened, and did people surprise you at all in those days in terms of what they ended up doing with their time or their energy?

Dani Assis: 12:23

So basically the first day it was after a general assembly we did at the university, so there were students from all courses, mostly undergrads, and we did this huge assembly with more than a thousand people participating. And we voted that we want to occupy the building and that we wouldn't be. How do you say that when people just stop studying?

Marie Berry: 12:46

I hope they like, if they were strike, Strikes yeah totally.

Dani Assis: 12:50

Yeah, we would strike and we would occupy the building because this movement was already happening in other universities. So, and people always expect the University of Brazil to be one of the least universities to do those types of things in Brazil, because we are in the center of the power.

Dani Assis: 13:06

So we are so close to the National Congress, we are so close to the Presidential Palace, so we are the ones that are actually responsible of doing something, because we are in the middle of the power of the country. So everyone was expecting this assembly to happen at the University of Brasil, like people from universities in. Rio, people from universities in São Paulo, people from universities in the North. They were like okay.

Dani Assis: 13:29

University of Brasil? When are you doing it? When are you doing it? And then we did, and after this huge assembly I think it was one of the biggest of the history of the University Everyone just marched to the rectory building, which is like where the administration building of the University is we marched together and we just like, we just like destroyed the door and entered the building and yeah, and we were like more than a thousand in the building and then we divided ourselves in groups, like there was the security group, the people that would be in front of the building to protect the occupation and to control who enters, who does not enter, who can be inside, who cannot be inside.

Dani Assis: 14:16

There was the communication group, which was the group, as part of that went to the communication room of the administration building where the communication of the University happens, and we stayed there. So the communication group occupies the communication room of the rectory building and we just started like setting up our beds. We started calling people like people who are not exactly students but like unions and other movements that were like supporting the student movements to bring food, to bring money, to bring some mattress, to bring like stuff so we could stay sleeping and like painting.

Marie Berry: 15:00

Basically, at the building.

Dani Assis: 15:02

So like we started calling and other movements started helping and bringing stuff to help the movement and I remember like we stayed up all night that day. We couldn't sleep. We were like planning how it would be the next day. We were planning how we would sleep. We were organizing all the sectors and rooms of the rectory building. So the security group, the communication group, the politics group, like people who were articulating with the administration how the occupation would happen, people that were planning the tactics that we would do at the National Congress. For instance, we had two big protests during the time we were sleeping there.

Dani Assis: 15:42

During those four or five days we organized two big protests in front of the National Congress. So there was a group specifically thinking about how this protest would happen and take place. There were groups that were thinking how we can bring people from other universities and for other regions of the country to be present in those protests that they as well. So the protest would be bigger and we could have like massive protests against the austerity policies of budgetary banks. It was very well organized. In the communication group we had like different sectors, so we had this, the people who were taking care of the social media of the movement. So we, in the first day, we created like a logo and a visual identity and a Facebook page, because at the time we used Facebook a lot and Instagram and we also created a radio.

Dani Assis: 16:39

So we we set up a radio like a web radio at the meeting as well, and we were like all the time talking with people who were outside and talking about how the movement was like and how the the discussions at the National Congress about this specific policy was being voted, and we also played some music and we had fun and we talked a lot about like because after 45 days you can involve a kind of relationship with all those people that are there.

Dani Assis: 17:13

So also a lot of gossip, so who's kissing who, who is living in the other one's door, and things like that. So it was a very special moment for me. I think I feel like this is where I first realized that we, even if we are living authoritarian moments, which was the case at the time we still can have democracy within the movements and we still can like create these safe spaces between us. So like it was like living a parallel reality when we were there, because the word was terrible and that was like no, I don't know no green light for us, because we were already like seeing that the country was drowning at that time, but at the same time, we were together and we were building something and we were creating a beautiful thing and we were like getting involved with each other and we were creating beauty, relationships and beauty, like amazing things. That, at least for me, like it changed my life.

Dani Assis: 18:18

It turned out I became an activist because of that that this is my work, this is my professional, my academic, my personal life. This is everything I am now, mostly because of those 45 days when I was 19 years old in Brasilia. So, yeah, I think like it, basically it's the the ground of what I do right now. Like, yeah, I came from the social movement and I came from this very direct tactic and. I came from this environment that, yeah, that was not favorable for us in that moment. That left because we could create something nice from it.

Marie Berry: 19:00

I think that's really powerful. Yeah, what was grounding your politics, both in that moment, while you were occupying the building, and also what continues to ground your politics. I mean, what is at the core of your work and your activism today?

Dani Assis: 19:16

That's intense. Yeah, what is at the core? What?

Marie Berry: 19:23

do you?

Dani Assis: 19:23

believe in. I feel like hope. I feel like realizing that we have an amazing country and that there are many things that are worth fighting for in this country. Because, like most of the time, it feels like we're losers, because most of the time we are like, in terms of politics, we cannot. Yeah, we are losers most of the time, but I feel like hope grounds me.

Dani Assis: 19:51

I feel like seeing that we have such a rich culture, that we have so many amazing people that are just like the best people in the world, like always smiling, always, like working so hard, always up to yeah, up to get out, get up and just live their lives, even though it's so hard.

Marie Berry: 20:15

Yeah, for sure.

Dani Assis: 20:18

I feel like fighting for these people, fighting for my people, I feel like my people gives me hope that this country can change and that, even though we seem losers right now, we actually can meet some stuff.

Marie Berry: 20:32

Oh, my gosh. Well, tell me what's going on in Brazil right now. I know there's obviously there was a primary election and we're sort of we're recording this interview on October 18th, so we're between the primary and then the subsequent election. Can you tell us a little bit more about what's going on, what the context and what is, what are the stakes in this current political moment in Brazil?

Dani Assis: 21:03

Yeah, so basically after 2016, when we had the coup, there was this far right movement that started brewing a lot in the country and it reached the power democratically in 2018. So Bolsonaro, which is the president for now, he was elected with more than 55 million votes, which is a lot. When you look like at the numbers, it's a bit scary like okay, 55 million people vote for this guy. It's a lot, and it shows that it's something that has been growing for a while, like it's not something that just showed up, it's not something that should surprise us. It's something that's being built for a long time and we say it started in 2016, but I think it started way, way, way before we had this process in 2013,.

Dani Assis: 22:02

Like this massive process all around the country that kind of plants the seeds of everything that's going on now, like the anti-established feeling, the anti-corruption feeling, the feeling that things should change, that they are tired of everything that's going on, they're tired of corruption, they are tired of I don't know a lot of things going on, and the solution they found was the far right and they started organizing and they started like actually gaining power through institutional politics. So it has a lot to do with religion in Brazil. So the evangelical religion is really growing and it has been growing a lot. The last time we had how do you say that it's not a poll?

Dani Assis: 22:56

well, like we, not a poll like when you, oh, I'm so bad at my university, no, you're great, you're so great, like when you just like start getting data about everyone in the country yeah, I just know how many Catholics how many. Muslims yeah, so the last time we had it it was 10 years ago and there were eight percent of evangelical people, and now we have more than 30 percent wow, wow, so it has been growing a lot and in a very radical view.

Dani Assis: 23:39

Like it's not. It's not like, yeah, it's hard to talk about religion and not be like I don't know, not have a little bit of prejudice but, they've been. They've been radical and they have a political project for the country. So they've always said like we need to be in the presidency, we need to be in the national congress, we need to be at power positions so we can actually dictate values of the society right so Bolsonaro himself he wants to said a couple times that if he could, he would make the fight with the constitution.

Dani Assis: 24:21

For instance, he's radically against the legalization of abortion. He would say before the 2018 election that he would rather have a dad son than a gay son and a lot of terrible stuff. Yeah, and he actually did that when he was in presidency the last four years. So it was just not these just discourse, like he would actually implement a lot of policies no that found the armed people and that have that have been really egregious.

Marie Berry: 24:56

I mean, we honestly it's. It's amazing to look at the parallels to between what Trump and the white nationalist movement on the far right has meant a part of really fomenting here in the US and what Bolsonaro has been able to do in a similar way in Brazil and it's you know, it's they're different in a lot of ways, but there's so many kind of eerie similarities across these contexts and so I mean, maybe one of my questions for you is really how have, how have progressive activist communities responded to these like growing threats from Bolsonaro, from the far right, from this really really kind of rapidly increasing percentage of evangelicals? What are activists doing to counter this and what have you personally been involved with?

Dani Assis: 25:44

Yeah, so basically still talking about 2018, when he was elected also, there was a lot of progressive people that were elected and people that never have been represented in the national Congress before. I feel I am confused right now about what's going on in the country, so I don't know how to explain to other people because I'm also a bit lost. I'm like okay, because we were hoping that this election right now. We were hoping that people would actually change and vote for Lula, and polls were showing that Bolsonaro was going to lose in the first round and we were expecting a whole different scenario from two weeks ago to now. Two weeks ago was the first round of the election.

Dani Assis: 26:33

Everything just changed Like everything we thought we knew about the country and everything Like we thought we were having the political reading about everything was going on. It was everything wrong. Like we were reading everything wrong.

Marie Berry: 26:50

And.

Dani Assis: 26:50

I feel like it's difficult to process, like how am I not able to understand the country?

Marie Berry: 26:59

Yeah.

Dani Assis: 27:00

It's like I thought it was something, but it's something completely different and we cannot step away from this bubble that we created and everyone is leaving their own bubble. So, like we, as progressive people, we are leaving this bubble where we think that everyone hates Bolsonaro and we think that everyone is mad about how he handled the pandemic, and we think that everyone wants to legalize abortion and gay rights and everything. But like, if you just step out, like one centimeter away from this bubble, it's a completely different country and it's scary, like, because then when we get to the elections and we see that people are actually still voting for Bolsonaro and then the polls were showing that he would lose, but he actually like got really close of winning and that he could actually win in the first round, if he's voting for the pandemic or if he was for a lot of stuff, it's like in what word am I living in?

Marie Berry: 28:01

Yeah.

Dani Assis: 28:02

And how different is this word from the word that my neighbor is living? Sometimes? I don't access, I don't have any access to that and I don't know. It's scary, it's scary.

Marie Berry: 28:15

That's so real and I think that resonates so much here in the United States too, where it's just unbelievable. You know to think that some people would harbor particular views, and then you meet them and they're not that different you know, and it's really hard, and I'm with you.

Marie Berry: 28:32

I mean, I think one of the big, one of the most challenging things right now for activists is this feeling that there's like, you know, there's not like the wall of opposition. The wall of these super conservative, anti-human rights, you know, attitudes is so thick that being able to fully, you know, dismantle it or to fully allow it to crumble just seems like something it's hard to imagine. I feel this really. Yeah, I feel this myself for sure.

Dani Assis: 29:05

And it's grounded in some stuff that we do not understand. Like religion, yeah right, like when you grow up in a religion like the evangelical religion, it dictates a lot of how you live. So, like all of your values, all of your relationships with family and with friends and work, all of I don't know, like everything, that it's not the priests. The priest is from the Holy Church. How do you say? Like the pastors? Maybe the pastors?

Marie Berry: 29:35

yeah.

Dani Assis: 29:36

Everything that the pastors say, you just obey like right. It's difficult, but when the pastor is saying that we, the progressives are, we the left wing, that we are like Satanists, because this is what they're doing here, Right. They're spreading fake news saying that we have a relationship with the devil, with the demon, because we want to legalize abortion and because we want to marry people from the same sex. Yeah, right.

Dani Assis: 30:08

Like those people already look at us with different eyes and it's like impossible to communicate with them. It's just impossible because it's about faith and it's about where you grow and it's about what the pastor is saying. It's about all the people that are around you that think the same way and it's impossible to access and it's violent to access.

Marie Berry: 30:29

Yeah.

Dani Assis: 30:31

And I think, as queer women feminists, we will not stop talking about abortion and sex, marriage and those things that are like those rights are not negotiable for us.

Marie Berry: 30:43

Right.

Dani Assis: 30:44

And we have to negotiate them with the religious people in order to win this election. And it hurts so much because if Lula, which is the candidate that is running against Bolsonaro, has to go to the TV, to the debate, to do some ads on Twitter or whatever, to say that he is against abortion, I feel like we are already lost.

Marie Berry: 31:08

Yeah.

Dani Assis: 31:09

Because this is the left-wing candidate saying that we will not legalize abortion in order to win votes, and I am advocating for this guy because the other side is just completely insane, yeah right. So it's like you feel a bit lost, because you're like okay, so what have I been doing all these years of activists that I have not been? I was not able to communicate with those people, first of all. So, and me as a communicator, as a journalist, I'm like, what type of a communicator am?

Marie Berry: 31:41

I Because.

Dani Assis: 31:42

I cannot communicate with them, I cannot access them, I cannot understand them. What type of social scientists am I? Because I cannot? This data it's just, it's wrong.

Marie Berry: 31:54

Right.

Dani Assis: 31:55

How can I read Brazilian society and do something strategically to change that, if I'm not accessing those people, if they are not showing up on polls, if they are not we cannot talk, so it's difficult. We are in a place where we're like okay, how can I actually change the world if I don't even know this world?

Marie Berry: 32:18

Yeah, that is a big, that is a big real question, and I mean I think it's you're in good company with that big, real question, you know. I think that's a lot of us are trying to seek answers to that how do we change the world right if we're up against these massive, massive challenges and systems? So, you know, one of the campaigns that you've been involved with recently has been focused on the Amazon Rainforest, and I'm curious to know a little bit more about that and whether you felt like there were some breakthroughs there or some some kind of new models for ways to do campaigns that perhaps did make a difference, or tell us a little bit about that campaign.

Dani Assis: 33:02

Yeah, yeah for sure.

Dani Assis: 33:04

So we've been talking and the organization I'm working on, that we want to do something about the Amazon because it's just even though there are many movements and many serious activists that have been working on this issue for a long time, the Amazon is just not something that the Brazilian people in general talk about.

Dani Assis: 33:27

So it's not something like you go to a family meeting and people who talk about the environment or will talk about the Amazon or anyone will care about that. So people know that the Amazon is there, but it feels a little bit distant. So if you are in Sao Paulo, which is a city with 20 million people in the south of the country, you know that the Amazon exists and you study this at school and you're like, okay, we have this big forest in the country, but, first of all, the chances you've ever stepped foot on there is minimal. Like you've just heard about it on books and movies and things like that, but you've never been there. We even have this like joke, like, okay, people go, people from Sao Paulo most of the time, like if they can travel, if they have the money to afford that, they go to Europe. They meet Europe and the US and a lot of other countries, and they've never been to the Amazon Like you go to your own country and it feels distant, it feels like something that no one can access.

Dani Assis: 34:35

And if it feels distant, how do you care about that? You will not care, like it's just not part of your daily life and it's not something that you actually impact you, and we were like we have to do something to make people that are in the cities and there are not located in the Amazon to care about the Amazon and to see that it actually has impacts in everyday life and that it impacts the food that we're eating.

Dani Assis: 35:00

It impacts the price of the energy we're paying here because, Brazil's energy is based on hydroelectricity, so, like if we are going through a moment of drought, for instance, this is something that will impact our pockets and it's something that is totally related to the forestation and the Amazon rainforest, because it changes the whole rain system and the whole region, and the Amazon is actually really present in everything that we do.

Dani Assis: 35:42

And it's not something just about the future. Oh, we have to preserve the Amazon because of climate change it is, but it's something that is already impacting our lives right now and we wanted people to be talking about it. So we were like what can we do? What type of campaign can we start doing to make this actually happen, to make people act for the Amazon and care about the Amazon and talk about the Amazon? So we came up with this plane to build a public demand view called Amazonia de.

Marie Berry: 36:17

Pepe.

Dani Assis: 36:19

It's literally translated as Stending Amazon. We want the Amazon to be standing, not like on the ground.

Dani Assis: 36:26

It makes sense in Portuguese, and we have this mechanism in the Brazilian constitution that allows the Brazilian population to present a view in the national Congress. So it's not just a parliamentarian or the president that has the power to present views to be discussed and to be approved and to become laws in the country. So the population can also do that through this public demand view, which is called Projeto de Lei de Iniciativo Popular. So basically, what we have to do is to collect a median and a half physical signatures so in paper it's digital One and a half million people have been in person, like a hand, signature Hand signature.

Dani Assis: 37:17

And presented in the national Congress and then it will be discussed as a regular view. Like it has the denormal.

Dani Assis: 37:28

I don't know, but it will go in the national Congress as a regular view and it will be approved, it will be voted, it will be sanctioned by the president afterwards and all those things. And we created this public demand view that it basically should destinate more than 50 million hectares of public forests in the Amazon which belong to the Union. It belongs, it's their public public lands in the Amazon, but they do not under care of anyone.

Dani Assis: 38:02

So, basically, like it's public but nothing happens there, so it's very susceptible to invasion. And it's where the deforestation rates are higher in the forest because, like, since it is not destined to anyone, it is not under care of anyone, anyone can go there and just deforest and just burn and just start planting soy or whatever the agribusiness wants to do with the Amazon. So, basically, you want to destiny all these 50 million hectares to indigenous people, kilombolas and conservation units, which are institutions here in Brazil that take care of the environment. So yeah, by destinating this amount of land, which is equivalent to 57 million football tanks, football fields, Football fields yeah, Million football fields.

Marie Berry: 39:08

okay, that's huge.

Dani Assis: 39:09

Yeah, it's a lot, it's huge. We kind of guarantee by law that these lands are being protected by people who know how to take care of the land, because they've been there ever since the world is world like, for thousands of years. They are the best ones to take care of the Amazon and it's proved by the UN, by a lot of important environmental institutions.

Marie Berry: 39:36

Will you say that one more time? So there's 15 million hectares. That is part of this, and the idea is to designate it as land that is under the protection of and say that one more time the groups and the entities Indigenous people kilombolas, kilombolas.

Dani Assis: 39:53

I don't know if you're familiar with the term.

Marie Berry: 39:55

No.

Dani Assis: 39:56

Kilombolas are people, the African people, who actually escaped slavery during Brazil's colony. So there was this resistance movement of the slaves in Brazil that they escaped the farms that they were working in the places that they were working and started creating communities that were like far away from the cities. So, yeah, to survive, and they exist even today, like those communities of kilombolas of like, escaped, enslaved African people who also, like, have this ancestral thing with the land because they've been there for 300 years, for 400 years, for a long time and they've been living in those communities in the forests and yeah in many different places in the countryside of Brazil.

Dani Assis: 40:52

Yeah, and we want to designate land to them as well.

Marie Berry: 40:56

Awesome, that's incredible. Wait, so tell us then what is the status of this and how did you, did you, get the signatures?

Dani Assis: 41:04

Yeah. So basically, like of course we want to present this view and we want this view to pass, but also for us it's really important the means to present this view. So, like we decided to have this campaign around the signatures and the physical signatures because it kind of obligates us to be on the streets and to talk to people and to not just like, send a link on Instagram and say, hey, find this. No, it's not just that, like. You have to first of all say all of these things that I just told you.

Dani Assis: 41:39

So like talk about the public land on the Amazon and the deforestation and how the rates of deforestation are high and lands that are not protected, and how indigenous people in the Lombolas communities are the best people to save the forest. So, like, everyone has the speech on the tip of their tongues and when they're talking about how you're putting these to protect the forest and to designate this public lands to people who know how to protect it and who actually have been fighting for the rights of the territory ever since this country exists, so you kind of make yeah, if you have to talk about people on the streets and, like during festivals or during a dinner, during a family dinner, to collect signatures, you're actually starting conversations about the Amazon, and this is our main goal. Our main goal I wouldn't say it's just the bill. I think our main goal is to make people talk about the Amazon and to make this a central debate in the country, because it is urgent, because, yeah, it is very, very, very urgent we need to start this conversation.

Dani Assis: 42:52

So at the moment that so there are many, many ways you can collect a signature. You can enter our website and just download a paper with 10 signatures. So you have a lot of things you need to fill. So you need to fill your full name, you need to fill your address, you need to fill your voter registration number because you need to be registered to vote in order to sign a public demand bill according to the rules of the public demand. So you like to download this paper with all this information and you can collect 10 signatures in one paper. So you can download it and collect from your friends, collect from your family. You can go to a family dinner and say hey, dad, hey mom, have you heard the?

Dani Assis: 43:38

word of the Amazon reference today and start this conversation in private spaces. But there are also other ways you can collect signatures. You can be a volunteer at an event, for instance. So we were at Rocking Rio last month.

Marie Berry: 43:57

Rocking.

Dani Assis: 43:57

Rio is one of the largest music festivals in the world. Like a lot of international attractions, like 10 days of festivals. I don't know if it's big, it's awesome, it's real. Like people from all over the country come to Rio just for this festival and we had a team of volunteers at the festival collecting signatures, so like stopping people at the festival. Hey, have you heard about the Amazon? Hey, you know about the public land in the Amazon that's not being protected?

Dani Assis: 44:24

Hey, do you know about the right of indigenous people to own the land on the Amazon and then just start conversations with people people that you know, people that you actually download the paper and go talk to them, and people that you don't know. If you're a volunteer at an event, for instance, we also have some collection points. So I don't know if you have a vegan restaurant in your neighborhood and you want to have some papers there to collect signatures of people, well, for your clients, people who are there to eat your food, you can also have that. So there are many ways that we can collect those signatures and we have to have those many ways, because a million and a half to the lot and we need to be spread all over the country as well, because okay, I could have a million and a half signatures from Sao Paulo.

Dani Assis: 45:18

Sao Paulo itself has millions of people, but no, you need to have at least five different states, according to the rules, and yeah, and you need to be spread all over the country, basically. So this is something really nice, because we're not just collecting signatures for people who are living in the Amazon region and we're not just collecting signatures of people who don't know anything that is going on there. We're actually making a movement that's national and that it's organized all over the country, which is really nice, because then we make people understand that what happens in the Amazon does not stay in the Amazon, that it is important that I am in Rio right now and that I sign something that's going to save the rainforest and it's also going to save the country and it's also going to save the planet.

Dani Assis: 46:11

Like it escalates the importance of doing what you're doing, and then we have, like, yeah, some narrative around it that it's really nice, like, oh, you have the power in your hands and it's really nice, oh, I love it. Yeah, I see it Cool yeah so, like literally, all you need to do is sign. Like the power is in your hands. We're saying also that we are the last generation that can save this, the rainforest, that can save the Amazon.

Dani Assis: 46:46

So there is a sense of urgency and also a sense of you can actually do something about it, because I feel like the problem with other campaigns about the environment, about the Amazon, is like okay, we have this terrible scenario, we might lose the forest, we might have, yeah, a disaster and kind of change as soon as possible and irreversible and very, very disastrous. Then we cannot do anything about it because, yeah, it's just bigger than us.

Marie Berry: 47:15

Yeah, fatalism, where there's just so there's so many the obstacles are insurmountable and that leads to this, really leads to inaction, because it paralyzes, I think, so many people, because the challenges we face really are so big, exactly, but this you can do something so simple to save it and to do your part, like everyone can be a part of it, and it's like people want to act.

Dani Assis: 47:46

People want to, so they can actually make an impact, but not everyone has time not everyone, I don't know and when you come with the plan and just say you just have to do this, you just have to sign this, you actually feel powerful to like they are doing something that is making an impact. And this is really nice to see that you actually have power to do stuff and to change things and to move forward.

Marie Berry: 48:14

I'm with you, I agree.

Dani Assis: 48:16

I actually think, like the, that Amazonia GP is one of the most creative in those in this sense, because I feel like we're using a mechanism, a democratic mechanism that is projected in the constitution, to create a movement, and it's like we are believing in the institution, which is something nice.

Dani Assis: 48:42

We are believing that we are able to change things through institutional ways and using democratic tools. And, yeah, and I think this is really nice because, like, we've been able to actually use a lot of culture as a mobilization strategy. So last month, in September 5th yeah, september 5th it was the Amazon day here in Brazil and we organized eight different festivals around the country and we also had an open call for actions. So there were over 600 actions happening all over the country during the week of the Amazon day and it was amazing to see how widespread the movement is. And I think this is nice because, like, when you say, oh, what creative tools you had in your movements and everything, I feel like the most creative thing you can do is to let it to lose control and let people be creative on their own.

Dani Assis: 49:46

Like I feel like losing control of the movement is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to a movement, and I feel like this is happening right now with our movement, when we have over 600 actions being organized in all five regions of the country and it goes from yoga classes at the park with like I don't know, 10, 15 people that go to the yoga class, but it has like the flag of the movement and people are collecting signatures at the yoga class and talking about the Amazon at the yoga class.

Dani Assis: 50:18

And you have a festival as big as the one that we had here in Rio, like with thousands of people listening to a very famous Brazilian singer, which is called Géa Resededo, in a free public event, and all of these thousands of people that were in this festival were also collecting signatures. And then you have, like school teachers who are mobilizing their schools and doing like draw contests in their schools about the Amazon. And then you see, like the videos of the little kids drawing trees and drawing cute stuff and saying, hey, you have to save the Amazon People who are very far away from the Amazon, small kids. They're not collecting signatures because they cannot sign.

Dani Assis: 50:59

You need to be 16 or over and have them be registered to vote in order to sign the bill. But you're educating kids around the Amazon and you're making the kids fair and sign it, and you're making the kids go to their houses after school and say hey dad, have you heard about Amazon? Hey dad, do you know that there's this big ring forest in the North of the country that we have to save? And then, like you, put all those actions together in one week of action to for the sake of the forest, and you see that people can get really creative and that there are amazing things that can grow when you decentralize things and you let people's creativity free, like not dictate how the movement should happen.

Dani Assis: 51:50

Hey you should do an event like this with a music presentation and with a place for people to sign. No, there's no perfect plan for this. Like you just say, hey, you can do any cultural activity or any educational activity, any political activity you want in order to collect those signatures and to talk about the Amazon. And it just surprises me and amazes me every time how creative people can be and how amazing things can grow. For that, and see how the movement has grown in all regions of the country, it's really beautiful, it's really nice.

Marie Berry: 52:26

Oh, that's so beautiful. I mean, I just think that's such a powerful statement around. You know this, the beauty that can be found in losing control and what can flourish and what can really really what can be generated in those moments in which nobody's telling you what to do. There's not this kind of directive coming from the leadership, but instead there's a real embracing of what people feel can be a joyful way of of creating something that can also support. You know the gathering of signatures and the education that comes around that. I think that's really great. You, you, you, you.