Activists from Indigenous and Afrodescendent organisations from 22 countries across the Americas gathered in the Ecuadorian Amazon last October to attend an urgent meeting in response to the rise in illegal mining.
They were invited to the community of Serena by local leader Leo Cerda, the co-founder of the Americas-wide Black and Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM), to forge a coalition to combat extractivism, structural racism, and the climate crisis.
‘A movement is built by many, not by one. We need to start thinking about local strategies with a global impact,’ Leo told us in an interview.
In this short film, LAB speaks with activists and environmental defenders from across the region to learn about their work and get a sense of the many different struggles which unite under this shared goal.
As Lucía Ixchiu, Indigenous Coordinator at BILM, states:
The future is Indigenous, Black, and Afrodescendent; it will come from the communities. We are the living alternatives to the climate crisis.
For more on the Anti-Mining Camp in Serena, read this piece by Rebecca Wilson and Eliana Lafone for NACLA.
N.B. You are free to republish this film on your website with the appropriate credits. Please get in touch for the link.