Ripa is one of the 18 Xavante communities inside a 330.000 hectare reservation in one of the states that have historically been losing Savannah and Amazon biomes to commodity agricultural expansion. Nearly 15 years ago native seed networks have been created in order to create a safety net for endangered fauna species and as strategy to monitor the territory. While the current political scene foments land deregulation, resource extraction and conflict, the prominence of the seed networks and the role of the women grows more important along their work of and knowledge as expert collectors serves to supply a growing regeneration market.

We published our work on "Washington Post",  "Folha de São Paulo" and on the French-speaking international channel TV5Monde.

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.



An Indigenous village works to save
a Brazilian forest, seed by seed

︎︎︎ PDF