When a 2018 fire burned across 73,000 hectares (180,000 acres) of the Santana Indigenous Territory, located in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna, the local Bakairi people waited helplessly for authorities who came far too late. That devastating experience was a turning point. The community mobilized to create a volunteer fire brigade, largely composed of Indigenous women, Mariana Rosetti and Paola Churchill reported for Mongabay in October. “It’s not just young girls,” Edna Rodrigues Bakairi, a local educator and member of the brigade, told Mongabay. “There are women aged 40, 45, 50 who can fight the fires. They come from all age groups, and they all act with courage.” Of the 45 trained volunteers, 25 are women ranging from teenagers to grandmothers. They were trained by Paulo Selva, a retired colonel from the Mato Grosso state fire department who recognized the urgent need to empower Indigenous communities to defend their territories from the growing threat of wildfire. “The fire department only addresses issues related to fires that occur within its areas of operation, but more than 45% of forest fires occur outside of that legal condition,” Selva said. To help fill that gap, Selva created the nonprofit Environmental Operations Group Institute. With the organization, he travels to Indigenous communities across the region to offer trainings on firefighting and prevention, first aid and survival skills. During a visit to the Santana Indigenous village in 2021, Selva found that women were an obvious choice for the role. They tend to spend more time in the community,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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