Desertification & Climate Justice: A Sabiá Center Publication Outlines Ways to Address the Climate Crisis

By Darliton Silva
Communications Officer at the Sabiá Center

This Wednesday, September 2, in Gravatá, in the Agreste region of Pernambuco, the Sabiá Center is launching another publication in the “Conhecimentos” Series: the booklet “Desertification & Climate Justice”. The launch will take place during the State Seminar “The Role of Family Farming Amid Climate Change,” organized by the Federation of Rural Workers and Family Farmers of the State of Pernambuco (FETAPE). The event marks the conclusion of the project “Every Time I Take a Step, the World Shifts,” an initiative aimed at educating the union’s rank-and-file on the environment and climate change.

For Aniérica Almeida, regional coordinator of the Sabiá Center, the seminar also represents an opportunity to further the discussion on the role of agroecology in the face of the climate crisis. “For us at the Sabiá Center, this is a most opportune moment to discuss how agroecology can effectively contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts,” she says.

To talk about climate from the perspective of the Semi-Arid Region is to talk about territory, history, and struggle. The climate crisis and inequalities are not inevitable natural phenomena, nor do they affect everyone in the same way. They are linked to political, economic, and social choices made over time, based on a development model that concentrates decision-making, resources, and opportunities.

For a long time, Brazil’s Semi-Arid Region was trapped in a narrative of scarcity. There was a lack of rain, a lack of water, and a lack of a future. This image, repeated so often, helped obscure the essential truth: the problem was never just the climate. What created and deepened inequalities was a long history of land concentration, control over water, destruction of the Caatinga, denial of rights, and political neglect.

The booklet “Desertification & Climate Justice” aims to broaden this debate by linking the impacts of the climate crisis to inequalities and to the strategies developed by the peoples and communities of the Caatinga biome to address the challenges of desertification and climate change.

The publication is the result of a parliamentary amendment introduced by Federal Deputy Carlos Veras, through Funding Agreement No. 442002/2024 of the National Secretariat for Traditional Peoples and Communities and Sustainable Rural Development, of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (SNPCT/MMA) – Transferegov.br Portal No. 972660/2024.

Would you like to learn more about the publication “Desertification & Climate Justice”? Visit VOAflix, the Sabiá Center’s digital archive: voaflix.centrosabia.org.br: