Context

Indigenous-managed Amazonian rainforests sequester around 340 million tonnes of CO₂ each year—equivalent to the UK’s annual fossil fuel emissions. In stark contrast, non-Indigenous-controlled forests have become sources of carbon emissions (Veit, Gibbs & Reytar, 2023). Among the vital custodians of these precious ecosystems are the Wampís people, managing 1.3 million hectares of autonomous Amazonian territory, which faces ongoing deforestation and habitat destruction driven by illegal mining (Balzani Lööv & Da Silva, 2017).

These destructive actions constitute Ecocide—deliberate or negligent human acts that severely harm essential ecosystems vital to global biological health. Ecocide threatens the cultural heritage, livelihoods, and biodiversity of the Wampís Nation, which is inherently linked to the stability of Earth’s climate and global ecological balance (Rodríguez & Vega, 2022; Brienen et al., 2015).

Historically, the Amazon rainforest has functioned as a global carbon sink (Hubau et al., 2020). However, intensified deforestation, particularly from illegal gold mining since, has forced areas like Southeast Amazonia to emit more carbon than they capture, exacerbating climate crises (Gatti et al., 2021). The devastating practice of illegal gold mining is currently decimating Wampís territory, destroying their fluvial habitats, leaving toxic methylmercury pollution that strips all biodiversity, contaminates the food chain, and causes widespread harm—including neurological damage and birth defects (Larrea Burneo, 2023). In 2024,  Illegal mining in Wampis territory has now escalated in severity to unprecedented levels, bringing not only ecological destruction but increasing violence by the mafias coordinating the mining.

100% of sales revenues from this release will go directly to fund Wampís-led eco-initiatives to preserve their rainforest territory. The funding will also support eco-cultural initiatives that help preserve Wampís cultural heritage– embedded in their songs, crafts, and traditional knowledge– such as their Sharian leadership school. Unlike state-provided education, this school teaches Wampís eco-cultural identity and Indigenous knowledge to best equip young Wampís as future stewards of their rainforest territory. Fund distribution will be determined by a panel of Wampís leaders, led by Shapiom Noningo Sesen.

In 2025, a new collaborative research project between Aboutface and the Wampís community—funded by SEDarc—was launched to combat Ecocide by co-creating an evocative “Ecomusical Cartography” of The Iña Wampisti Nunke. This is their layered, multi-dimensional territory, containing human and non-human natural systems that unfold concurrently in an environmental entanglement of space-time (Layne, 2014: p.63–65): the past, the present, the future, transformation, and reemergence as an interactive manifold shaping ecology across all eco-connective planes. Embedded within the territory’s abiotic systems, such as rivers (Entsa), soil/the earth (Nunka), and atmosphere (Nayaim) (Wampís Statute, 2015, p.14), are spiritual entities that symbiotically reside in these ecological systems as self-aware non-human actors inherent to collective ecological wellbeing (Niederberger, 2022; Wampís Statute, 2015).