Yaku Mama Navigation Diary: The Flotilla Was Born from a Dream

By: Leo Cerda

In this entry of the Yaku Mama Navigation Diary, I want to share the dream that started it all. Our struggle is for racial, social, and climate justice. The Amazon is at a tipping point — it’s now or never. We need to amplify our voices and claim our rightful place in decision-making spaces, demanding that climate finance reach our communities directly and effectively.

It’s not enough to acknowledge our role; it is essential to ensure resources that strengthen our autonomy, our initiatives, and our right to live in and defend our lands. If we fail to provide real and sustained support to those of us protecting the forests, we risk losing them forever — and without forests, there can be no future for humanity.

Let this call resonate loudly: the world must listen to, learn from, and collaborate with Indigenous peoples to achieve true and lasting solutions.

The Yaku Mama Amazon Flotilla carries a shared message: we are not alone, and Indigenous communities offer powerful climate solutions grounded in lived experience. As we travel along the rivers of the Amazon, we carry an invitation — to life, to hope, and to reconciliation — challenging the legacy of violence, exploitation, and colonization. This journey is not one of conquest or destruction, but of unity, reconnection, and solutions from the territory itself — a living testament to the strength and resilience of the Amazon and its peoples.