I recently contributed a section on how to communicate about the Amazon for the “Amazonia in Danger” report, a collection of 22 articles written by 55 authors from different fields. The effort, organized by the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA), was published last week in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Here’s a brief summary of my contribution. From doom to agency: Talking about saving Amazonia Many stories about the Amazon read like elegies. Drought, smoke, lawlessness—each headline darker than the last. I’m guilty of this at times. The problem is not that these stories exaggerate; it’s that they leave most readers stranded between grief and guilt. Doom, however accurate, can demobilize. The question is how to move the story from despair to agency. That doesn’t mean softening the truth. It means bringing it down to a size people can grasp, where action feels plausible. One starting point can be disciplined optimism—the kind that pairs diagnosis with “how.” When an Indigenous group gains title to its land, a mayor enforces a zoning plan, or a rancher adopts integrated crop-livestock-forest systems, those are not anecdotes. They are small proofs that systems can still respond. Communicators can help these stories spread. That means pairing solutions journalism with accountability: checking if agroforestry delivers ecological and economic benefits, if enforcement really deters land grabs, and if ‘deforestation-free’ clauses amount to more than press releases. Verified results build a kind of ledger—something funders can point to and citizens can believe in, and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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