Belém (PA) 11/13/25 — At the Peoples’ Summit, the debate on popular feminism and women’s resistance in their territories reaffirms the political and transformative power of women who, for decades, have sustained the struggles for social, climatic, and environmental justice. It is they—Indigenous, Black, Quilombola, riverside, fisherwomen, peasant, and urban women—who, from different corners of the country and the world, bring their voices and experiences to the center of the discussion about the planet’s future. Today, more than ever, it is known that where there are women, there is standing forest, quality food being planted, and communities resisting the advancement of the corporations responsible for the climate crisis.
According to Eunice Guedes, an articulator for the World March of Women (MMM), this agenda is born from a collective and historical construction. “This struggle comes from afar. Since the Rio de Janeiro Forum in 1992, when we created Planeta Fêmea (Female Planet), we have continued to reaffirm that the rights of women and girls—in all their diversity—are fundamental in the defense of life and territories,” she states.
She emphasizes that climate and environmental crises affect populations unequally and have a direct impact on women, girls, and trans people in vulnerable situations. “These tragedies are not accidental. They have structural causes and primarily affect women in the Global South, who lose their homes, their loved ones, and often face violence in shelters and displacement spaces,” she warns.
Ediene Kirixi, a leader of the Munduruku people, led the March in Defense of Territory and Against Large Projects and Carbon Credits through the Peoples’ Summit space alongside chieftains, women warriors, and men warriors, denouncing threats to territories and traditional ways of life. In her speech, she highlighted that popular feminism is also a form of resistance and re-existence. “Our bodies and territories are targets of attacks, but they are also spaces of care and strength. It is we who sustain life in the communities, who care for the land, the water, the home, and the elders. Talking about climate justice is also talking about gender, race, and territorial justice,” she declared.
Among the agendas defended by axis 6 are the right to territory, free access to babaçu palm groves, and the strengthening of agroecological and solidarity-based agriculture and extractive activities, as ways to guarantee autonomy, food sovereignty, and the conservation of socio-biodiversity.
The debate reaffirmed that there is no ecological transition or climate justice without women on the front line. It is they who, with ancestral wisdom and collective strength, move territories, build alternatives, and point to new horizons for coexistence between peoples and nature.
Picture: Carolynne Matos