WE ARE OCEAN travelled to Brazil to join the COP30 in Belém!
As an official Observer NGO to the UN Climate Conferences, ARTPORT_making waves partnered up with Brazilian artist Aline Baiana to raise awareness on the impact of oil extraction on Afro-Brazilian and traditional communities. Our mission is to amplify local voices, educate global audiences on their struggles, and explore how art can drive environmental action.
On 17th November we hosted an event at the Ocean Pavilion in the Blue Zone of COP30. We screened an excerpt of Baiana’s film Ouro Negro é a Gente (Black Gold is the People), that follows the Quilombola community’s fight to protect their ecosystems from oil extraction, drawing on ancestral knowledge.
This was followed by a fishbowl discussion in which we explored how interdisciplinary Ocean Literacy projects can amplify voices of local communities, fisherpeople, and native & Afro-Brazilian voices. We happily connected representatives of the local community with international stakeholders that participated in the conference:
Aline Baiana (Artist-Activist, Brazil)
Lider Gongora Farias (WFFP / MPP / CCONDEM / Redmanglar Internacional)
Emilie McGlone (Executive Director, Peaceboat US)
Anne-Marie Melster (Co-Founder, CEO, ARTPORT_making_waves)
Josana Pinto da Costa (Amazonian fisherwoman, WFFP)
Eric Terena (Artist-Activist, Brazil)
Later that day we shared the stage with India Water Foundation to explore water as a transversal system.
One strength of this COP conference was the civil engagement. We joined the Peoples Summit Flotilla on the boats of the Movimento dos Pescadores e Pescadoras Artesanais do Brasil. And we marched alongside 50,000 environmental and indigenous activists in Belém for the historic Great People’s March to protest the damaging extraction of resources from people and planet, particularly the Amazon.
Belém was a test of honesty. A Forest COP without forest outcomes is a contradiction. A climate conference refusing to name fossil fuels negates itself. Negotiators made eco-promises, while ecosystems are collapsing, adaptation money disappears, local communities are harmed & left exposed to greater climate danger. At ARTPORT_making_waves, we remain committed to climate justice, community solidarity, and art as a catalyst for action. We look forward with optimism, knowing many participants and governments felt the lack – and will take necessary action to resolve it.
Instead of defeat, we will focus on hope and collaboration – looking to 2026’s historic fossil fuel divestment conference, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands.
Photo Credits: Aline Baiana, Ouro Negro é a Gente, Film Stills
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Reference: “donation for WE ARE OCEAN“
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