A new WACC-supported initiative aims to generate widespread awareness of the environmental protection and climate justice efforts of local communities across the Brazilian Amazon, placing their solutions, voices, and concerns at the very heart of policy responses.

“Local Voices for Climate Justice in Brazil” is being implemented by WACC partner Rede de Notícias da Amazônia (RNA), a Brazilian non-profit association of 20 radio stations founded in 2008 to democratize communication in the region. Long-time global partner Alongside Hope is supporting the multiyear project together with WACC.

Barriers to just climate policy

Advancing climate justice is quite complex in the Brazilian Amazon, says Lorenzo Vargas, WACC Director of Programmes.

The communities most affected by climate change – including Indigenous peoples, family farmers, urban poor populations, vulnerable women – are often excluded from media representation and climate policy processes, he notes.

Extractivist economic models, illegal mining, agribusiness expansion, deforestation – all threaten ecosystems and livelihoods, while misinformation and weak communication channels further marginalize grassroots voices.

Vargas says that despite growing international attention, most recently during the global climate negotiations COP30, local communities still have limited access to platforms where they can influence public debate and policy.  

3 pillars to communicate climate justice

“Local Voices for Climate Justice in Brazil” intends to move the needle towards climate governance where grassroots communities are seen and heard.

Strengthening local partner RNA’s capacity so the network is better positioned to advocate for the integration of local voices into climate policies is the first, and immediate, pillar of the 3-year project, says Vargas.

This will take different forms, from technical, organizational, and financial assistance for stations in different municipalities to support for editorial planning and coordination.

From a programming perspective, the project will focus on developing high-quality, reliable environmental journalism that reflects local priorities.

Enhanced advocacy capacity makes up the project’s third pillar, with a focus on mapping opportunities for policy dialogue, showing up in these spaces, and expanding a multilateral web of partnerships.

“By training communicators to cover socio-environmental issues and climate justice, they are closer to the communities to be covered,” Vargas notes. “In addition to obtaining information, the idea is to present communication as an instrument of struggle and resistance.”

Focus on gender justice

In Brazil, people working in community communication are mostly men, which reflects gender inequality that exists in all the communities in the region, Vargas says.

The project is committed to achieving gender parity in the group of trained citizen reporters, with women making up at least 50 percent of the network of communicators. There is an emphasis on promoting women’s leadership on environmental public policy issues, he adds.

RNA will work with its members to produce content that considers the dynamics of gender and deterioration of Amazon ecosystems, especially the differentiated impacts of this phenomenon on men and women. Women’s leadership on environmental public policy issues will also be promoted.

“With an estimated audience of some 1.5 million listeners across the Brazilian Amazon, we expect this initiative to foster more inclusive climate governance processes and position local voices as crucial contributors to regional and international climate policy debates,” says Lorenzo Vargas, WACC Director of Programmes.

“Local Voices for Climate Justice in Brazil” builds on a multiyear project to strengthen voices of the Amazon in Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador, also supported in partnership with Alongside Hope.