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“My dream has come true,” said Gilvana Freitas, a resident of the Gibrié de São Lourenço quilombo in Barcarena, when interviewed by a young Indigenous woman on the Caribé do Gibrié internet radio station in November 2025.

“The dream of everyone in our community was to see our community no longer invisible,” she said, celebrating the station’s inaugural broadcast, produced by and transmitted directly from the very community where she was born.

Caribé do Gibrié was created by Indigenous and Quilombola people from across the Brazilian Amazon during a radio workshop held in Barcarena in the state of Pará, a week before COP30 kicked off in nearby Belém.

These communities are breaking down barriers by projecting their voices through microphones and onto the airwaves.

They’re using communication as a powerful tool in their struggle against a system that pollutes their environment and seeks to remove them from their territories.

Throughout this article, we will share excerpts from this inaugural broadcast and explore how communication helps Amazonian communities carry their stories beyond their territories.

The opening of the first Caribé do Gibrié broadcast, aired on 9 November 2025.

“The radio station is a way to guarantee our permanence”

“Creating an internet radio station is a way for us to carry our voice further and to guarantee our permanence here,” says Josenite Santos, a community leader and secretary of the Quilombola and Indigenous Community Association of Gibrié de São Lourenço.

The community created Caribé do Gibrié to tell their own stories and resist marginalization by Barcarena’s municipal government and nearby industries.

Local tradition is reflected even in the program’s name: Caribé is a traditional Amazonian dish made from cassava flour.

The first broadcast took place at the end of a radio workshop organized by the Floresta Digital Community Network, a joint project developed by the organizations Saúde e Alegria and DW Akademie, with support from the European Union.

The workshop brought together Quilombola and Indigenous participants from nine communities across four Amazonian states, including representatives of the Gibrié community, and took place on Gibrié territory.

The location was chosen both for its proximity to Belém and to take advantage of the momentum around COP30.

Each community selected by the Floresta Digital Network received EUR 17,500 to purchase equipment and attend the workshop, sending at least one representative to bring lessons learned back to their community.

Covering 500 hectares and spanning five neighborhoods, Gibrié is home to around 350 families and has been officially recognized as a quilombo since 2016.

However, since 1985, it has faced pressure from companies operating locally with the approval of the municipal government. 

The quilombo is surrounded by an industrial complex that includes a facility owned by Norwegian mining firm Norsk Hydro, which has been accused of polluting the Guamá River with bauxite waste.

Alongside reports of environmental contamination, residents say they have faced sustained pressure to leave their land.

“Companies think we are there to block development,” says Santos. “There is no dialogue when they decide to install themselves here.”

“There is environmental racism as well, but people often ignore it. We don’t have regulations to protect those who safeguard the forest. We face threats of losing access to electricity, water and sanitation.”

Mário Santos, president of the Quilombola and Indigenous Community Association of Gibrié de São Lourenço, discusses ‘climate genocide.’

Josenite Santos says the support of the Floresta Digital Network has enabled the people of Gibrié to purchase the equipment needed to set up their radio station and to engage local young people.

The goal is for Caribé do Gibrié to begin operating on a regular basis in March 2026.

“We want to promote environmental preservation and ensure our permanence in the face of municipal authorities and the companies [through the radio station],” says Santos.

Valter dos Santos Freitas is known by his artistic name Mestre d’Bubuia. In local culture, the word bubuia is used in the expression “estar de bubuia,” meaning “to float” or “to wait for the tide.”

A musician and composer of traditional rhythms from the state of Pará, such as carimbó, he represented the community during COP30 by performing at a concert in Belém. He also serves as the administrative director of the Gibrié Quilombola and Indigenous Association.

Freitas says he has seen increased awareness around the Amazon since it hosted the world’s largest climate conference in November.

“But there is no concern for those who are defending the forest, because capital just sees the river as a transportation route for barges and merchandise,” he points out.

Valter Freitas, also known as Mestre d’Bubuia, performs live on air.

Freitas once worked as a bricklayer and helped build the industrial complex that now surrounds the territory. He now suffers from throat allergies due to prolonged exposure to aluminum dust at work.

For him, the radio station is an essential platform to publicize the community’s resistance.

“Besides being discriminated against by the state, which fails to provide what we need, the municipal government does not recognize us as Quilombolas,” he says. “These projects bring visibility so that we can remain in this struggle.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

The internet radio experience isn’t unique to Gibrié. Across the Amazon, traditional communities use communication as a tool to gain visibility.

Beyond sharing their struggles, they also aim to spread their culture, bringing the broader population closer to Quilombola and Indigenous traditions.

Among the criteria when selecting communities for the project were the presence of women leading social projects, the capacity to reach at least 900 people in each community, and representation from different Brazilian states within the Amazon region.

The organization aims to amplify social initiatives already operating in each selected community. In Gibrié, for instance, it’s investing in meliponiculture and community-based tourism.

The workshops and the creation of web radio stations allow communities to take control of their narrative. Rather than being the subjects of news coverage – or invasion – they come up with their own stories to tell.

As an exercise during the scripting of one of the pilot programs, one participant asked another: “We’d like to interview you. What do you want to talk about?”

The interviewee decided to speak about an environmental preservation association created within her own territory.

Through the workshops, Indigenous and Quilombola participants were taught to overcome shyness and gain confidence and clarity on how they want to tell their own stories.

“I want to take my work much further”

Most of the workshop participants were young people – some with communication experience within their communities and a desire to build on their existing projects.

Among them was 19-year-old André Lopes de Melo, an Indigenous Kumaruara activist living on the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve.

Melo’s community regularly faces land invasions and illegal fishing on their territory. At the age of 14, he started posting about those crimes on Instagram.

“There is a way for me to complain – because my territory is being invaded – and that way is through communication and social media,” he explains. “Denouncing these violations is part of the struggle.”

“That’s why I love this work: because I can document through video and photos that these invasions and environmental problems are happening and affecting us.”

Melo also creates videos about stories and legends from Indigenous worldviews, as well as narratives from previous generations. 

“We realized that young people in our area need this kind of information and that the content also helps explain where we come from,” he says.

Now, he hopes to create a podcast to interview people from other territories in the Amazon about their struggles.

“I still want to take my work much further, because we’re not only facing these issues here,” Melo points out.

Listening to stories from previous generations, such as those told by his grandmother, is also essential to preserving Indigenous culture: “these stories have very deep meaning.”

Dirliane Freitas Loureiro interviews Gilvana Freitas, a resident of the Gibrié quilombo, about dreams.

Another young participant in the workshops was 23-year-old teacher Dirliane Freitas Loureiro. She comes from São Tomé do Breu, a community in Mazagão in the state of Amapá.

Her community is made up of around 30 families, whose main source of income is the production of cassava flour.

Loureiro explains that some of the main challenges they face are climate-related, affecting agricultural livelihoods as well as transportation and logistics in riverside communities.

Her community already has a web radio station – Rádio A Nossa Amazônia (Our Amazon Radio) – which she hopes to grow by applying what she learned through the workshop and with the financial support provided by the project.

“The radio goes far beyond broadcasting music – it’s part of people’s lives,” she explains.

“I know my own reality, but people will only know it if I tell it.”