Indigenous leaders travel 9,000 kilometers from Brazil to Geneva
Dear Chris,
I hope this email finds you well and healthy. I wanted to share a bit about our Indigenous delegation from Brazil that will be attending the 19th session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva. Please contact me if you have any questions or might be interested in speaking to some of our delegates. If you are in Geneva, please attend our side event on July 15. We will be sharing coverage of the delegation on social media, so be sure to follow us on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , Threads , BlueSky , and TikTok , as we share Indigenous voices from the ground and report on key actions and takeaways. Thank you so much for your time. Agnes
Agnes Portalewska
Senior Communications Manager
Cultural Survival
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A ‘uwẽ-Xavante Leaders Take Brazil’s “Green” Railway to the United Nations
A’uwẽ-Xavante leaders travel 9,000 kilometers from the Brazilian Cerrado to the United Nations in Geneva to ask the question behind the “green” energy boom: who pays for the world’s clean transition? GENEVA, Switzerland (July 9, 2026) — Among the A’uwẽ-Xavante people of Brazil, dreams are not metaphors. They are how knowledge travels: Elders receive songs, ceremonies, and guidance for their communities while they sleep. To dream, the Xavante say, they need their territory whole. Now, a federal railway known as Ferrovia de Integração do Centro-Oeste (FICO) is set to cut through it. From July 13 to 17, A’uwẽ-Xavante and Xikrin leaders will bring that warning to the 19th session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), where they will launch the international campaign “Let the A’uwẽ-Xavante Keep Dreaming” and confront a paradox at the heart of global climate policy: infrastructure and mining projects sold as climate solutions are advancing over Indigenous territories without Indigenous consent. A Railway Called “Green,” A Territory Called Home
The Ferrovia de Integração do Centro-Oeste (FICO) is promoted as low-carbon logistics for Brazil’s agribusiness exports. For the A’uwẽ-Xavante, it is something else entirely: a project advancing without genuine Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), threatening the sacred places, waters, and food systems that sustain their ceremonial life.
For the A’uwẽ-Xavante, the territory is the living world that holds their food, their rituals, their memory, and their capacity to dream. Fragmenting the territory, leaders warn, would fragment the people.
Their delegation arrives in Geneva with documented concerns: fragmented consultation practices, pressure on communities, and a State presenting a project as “development” that risks deepening a long history of violations against the Xavante, a Peoples who survived removals and epidemics in the twentieth century and returned to their lands to rebuild.
From the Cerrado to the Jequitinhonha: the Pattern Repeats
The delegation’s message extends beyond one railway. In the Jequitinhonha Valley, lithium mining for the global battery supply chain is pressing into the territories of the Aranã Caboclo, Pankararu, and Pataxó Peoples and Quilombola communities. There, the Jequitinhonha River is not a resource; it is a relative. When its basin becomes a sacrifice zone for “clean” energy, an entire way of life is placed at risk.
The question the delegation puts before States, corporations, banks, and investors is simple: there is no just transition built on unjust ground. No climate solution can rest on the violation of Indigenous rights, the hollowing-out of FPIC, or the conversion of living rivers and forests into sacrifice zones.
Join Us in Geneva
Side event: “Let the Xavante Dream: Who Pays for the Energy Transition and Development in Brazil? Addressing Conflicts Where Corporations, State-Supported Infrastructure, and Indigenous Rights Collide”
When: Wednesday, July 15, 2026, 10:00 a.m.
Where: Room XI, Building A, Palais des Nations, Geneva
The event will feature Indigenous leaders, human rights defenders, and international experts, and will mark the official launch of the advocacy brief “Let the A’uwẽ-Xavante Keep Dreaming,” developed in partnership with A’uwẽ-Xavante leadership and combining litigation, international advocacy, and a global solidarity campaign.
Interviews available in Portuguese, Xavante (with interpretation), Spanish, and English before, during, and after the session.
The Voices Arriving in Geneva
Hiparadi Dzutsi Wa Top Tiro (Xavante), chief of Abelhinha Village in the Sangradouro Indigenous Territory, coordinator of the Rede Cerrado, and founder of the Associação Xavante Warã and the Mobilização dos Povos Indígenas do Cerrado (MOPIC). A lifelong defender of the Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse savanna and Brazil’s forgotten frontline.
Missia Ihiwe Urace (Xavante), leader of the Areões Peoples from the Mutum community, Areões Indigenous Territory, and Secretary of Sports and Leisure for the municipality of Nazaré, Mato Grosso.
Bekroiti Xikrin (Xikrin), youth leader, teacher, and researcher. Manager of the Komrê Xikrín Indigenous Association, master’s student in Languages and Literature, and advisor to the Ação Saberes Indígenas na Escola initiative, carrying Indigenous knowledge into Brazil’s schools.
The delegation is accompanied by Cultural Survival staff Edson Krenak (Krenak), Brazil Program Manager; Djalma Ramalho (Aranã Caboclo), Brazil Special Projects Associate; and Thais Soares Pellosi, Executive Assistant.
Source: industry press release.