Nourishing the Guardians of the Amazon: Food Sovereignty for the Huni Kuin

Along the Humaitá River in the Brazilian Amazon, the Huni Kuin people carry a living relationship with the forest. Their food, medicine, songs, prayers, and ecological knowledge come from generations of listening to the land. They are not separate from the Amazon’s protection — their presence, knowledge, and stewardship are part of what keeps it alive.

For generations, Indigenous peoples have protected the forest while outside forces extracted from it: land, timber, minerals, labor, medicine, and culture. Today, that extraction has reached a breaking point. In 2024 alone, 44.2 million acres of Brazil’s Amazon burned — an area larger than California — as deforestation, cattle expansion, illegal mining, river pollution, and prolonged drought converge into a crisis without a single cause or simple solution. For the 640 people living across six villages along the Humaitá, this is not an environmental statistic— it is the slow erasure of everything they depend on to survive.

Three years ago, our co-founder Txaná Tuwe was shot at by an uncontacted tribesman while fishing upriver — an arrow landed in his boat, caught in his shirt between his arm and torso. The Huni Kuin say their uncontacted relatives never miss, and village elders told him he survived because he had a larger purpose to carry out for his people. As illegal cattle ranchers and miners push deeper into Indigenous territories, both contacted and uncontacted groups are increasingly competing for the same shrinking resources — the same fish, game, water, land, and forest. Tuwe came home understanding that his uncontacted relatives weren’t attacking him, they were defending what little they had left. That understanding became the foundation of this work: if contacted villages had sustainable food systems in their own backyards, there would be less competition — and therefore less conflict — with their uncontacted neighbors.

When Tuwe first shared his vision with us, it was just a dream — not for lack of clarity or conviction, but for lack of a way to share it with the world. Kayawei Earth was built to close that gap. We amplify Indigenous voices by bringing leaders like Tuwe to global audiences — through ceremonies, cultural exchanges, and speaking opportunities — so that the healing and wisdom flowing out of the Amazon can be met with the resources and support flowing back in. In Brazil, our food security project is carried out in partnership with Associação Jiboiana, a trusted implementation partner working with Indigenous agroforestry agents and local communities in Acre since 2021. Across multiple Indigenous territories, Jiboiana has planted 50,000 saplings, established 12 village nurseries, drilled seven artesian wells now serving 800 people, and led 30 training workshops with local agents. Since March, we have raised $35,000 to fund one artesian well, fish ponds, and the continuation of their ongoing reforestation project in Novo Futuro.

Building on that foundation, this grant will fund the next seven months of that existing work: strengthening the community nursery, supporting Indigenous agroforestry agents, purchasing and transporting 500 fruit and native seedlings, and organizing two community planting mutirões where families come together to plant, learn, and care for the land.

What makes this model work is that the knowledge stays in the village. Indigenous agroforestry agents are not temporary workers brought into someone else’s vision — they are local stewards building the skills, confidence, and leadership to restore their own territory from within. When they are supported consistently — fifteen paid work days a month — the work becomes something the community can carry, adapt, and eventually share with other villages along the Humaitá. When we move to the next village, these agents come with us as trainers and living proof of concept.

At the end of seven months, success will be measured through tangible outcomes: 500 seedlings purchased and transported, planted areas maintained, two mutirões completed, local agents supported and paid, and the work documented through photos, videos, and reporting.

Research confirms that Indigenous lands are among the most effective barriers to deforestation — without them, Brazilian Amazon forest loss would be 35% higher. For Tuwe, this is not a statistic. It is the land he fishes, the forest his children grow up in, and the arrow that lodged in his boat and sent him home with a mission. When Huni Kuin families are nourished, the forest thrives. To protect the Amazon, we must protect the people whose lives, knowledge, and stewardship are woven into it.