Since ancestral times, Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and other tropical forests have woven their lives in deep relationship with the forest. From it come food, medicine, knowledge, spirituality, and a sense of community. To care for this relationship, they built forms of organization based on reciprocity, balance, and respect for the territory.

Within this web of life, Indigenous women have held an essential place. They have been caretakers of the chacras—traditional Amazonian polyculture systems—along with seeds, food, health, child-rearing, and the transmission of knowledge. Their role has not been secondary; it has been central to sustaining family, community, and cultural life.

With colonization and the imposition of external models, that balance gradually began to break. Extractive economies, certain religious structures, and patriarchal systems progressively reduced women’s participation in decision-making spaces. Even so, their strength never disappeared.

Today, in the Amazon and other tropical forests, Indigenous women are reclaiming the place that belongs to them: at the forefront of the defense of territory, culture, and life. Guided by the memory of grandmothers and the drive of new generations, they lead processes of conservation, governance, connectivity, education, and community care.