COP30 in Amazon: Belem landscape, food and people

EVen before I started my trip up to feliz lusitania and 30 hours of quick, midway crossways the world for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), I knew that it would feel like home. A mix of instinct and reading parts of “Brazil: A Biography,” on the colonisation, the conflicting identities of a huge country, I could sense that it may be a place like India.When I landed in Belem, all worn out, the landscape reminded me of parts of West Bengal, Kerala, Goa, and the northeastern states. It has a little bit from all of these places. Parts of Belem are highly urbanised with tall buildings, malls, offices, and hotels. Others are like a small town with open drains, marshes, roadside eateries, and children playing football in the spaces between homes.Almost all homes are completely covered with iron grills, perhaps for safety. It is uniform across all kinds and sizes of houses. Grills cover the entire facades.A crowded city Belem is a crowded city in the Amazon on the banks of the Guama River. The river and its delta look similar to the Sunderbans. If you take a boat ride in the delta, the mysterious rainforests surround the river with some trees tall like guardians on the islands. Parts of the rainforest landscape also remind one of the Dibru Saikhowa region on the Brahmaputra. Belem clearly is in transition, like many of our Indian cities.It was indeed a bold decision to host the COP in Belem, whatever the reasons. Jader Barbalho Filho, Brazil’s minister for cities, told me that the administration had to prepare residents psychologically to receive international guests. “A lot of people from outside and inside Brazil did not believe that Belem could host a COP. And you see what happened here now.”Brazil invested over $1.2 billion in federal funds alone to ready Belem, with a population of 1.4 million, for over 50,000 delegates and visitors. It had to retrofit its airport and port, among other infrastructure interventions.“I am talking only of the federal budget. It is over $1.2 billion,” Filho said. “But it was important for us to host the COP and draw the world’s attention to the Amazon.”I agree. It is perhaps important to draw people’s attention to the Amazon that is not only rainforests and rivers but has bustling cities, indigenous communities, and is struggling with severe climate change impacts, land diversion, and deforestation.COP30 is the largest global event the city has hosted. One could see pride among people about that. The COP30 venue faced thundershowers nearly every day. There was a fire in its blue zone on the penultimate day of the conference.The peopleResidents wanted to inquire how we liked Belem and offer help to COP30 attendees. On the day the COP30 blue zone caught fire, some of us journalists were waiting midway between our apartments and the COP30 venue, looking for transport. A family came to us and asked how they could make us feel comfortable. Belem’s people love chatting. It does not matter if you speak Portuguese or not. They use the Google translator to make long conversations with visitors.I had one such long conversation with an indigenous journalist during a short visit to an island nearby. She told me about the struggle to come out of the Amazon and join the mainstream as a journalist. Their culture and views reminded me of my conversations with the Kondh people in Odisha or the tribes in parts of the northeast. The common thread is that they do not view themselves to be outside of nature. The people are also nature. “The Amazonian people are nature, like the river, stones, animals, birds, and trees,” the journalist said.Food in Belem Belem’s food is also similar to India’s northeast. Manicoba, a local delicacy of Para state, is a plate of rice with broth of cassava leaves and meat. The herbs are pungent and have an acquired taste, very similar to say eating Kangsoi, a broth in Manipur.I was also extremely intrigued to find what looked and smelled exactly like umourok or the bhoot jolokia in faraway Belem. It has a huge variety of peppers, and their aromas fill the air when you pass by the vendors in the market.There is a mandatory short evening shower in Belem, like most rainforest regions. The rain can sometimes be so intense with lightning and thunder. Parts of the COP media centre would start leaking. Nevertheless, the daily evening shower after a hot, sultry day reminded delegates, negotiators, and observers of where they were, in the midst of the Amazon.The other element that really brought life to the climate negotiations, which are otherwise like a match where every player wants to save their turf, were scores of indigenous people who came demanding justice. They were outside the COP30 venue, in the green zone, some selling handicrafts near the entrance.There were protests by indigenous people from the Amazon, who came from different states to make their presence felt and demand protection of the Amazon and recognition of their rights over the forests and rivers.