Indigenous genocide: Climate change is no COP30 out Belem, Brazil 1/12/26

 After watching movie filmed in decaying colonial Belem, "Where the River Runs Black" (1986) about an orphaned boy who was raised in the Amazon jungle is brought back to civilization by a priest who knows his late father, I had tears welling up.  Belem our first port of call in Brazil just past the equator straddles the brown waters of the mighty Amazon empties into the Atlantic where two hours of flow meets the annual water needs of NYC.  Gritty but real.  The Opera house, Teatro da Paz, built by the rubber barons in 1874.  The oldest and largest market in the Americas, Mercado Ver-O-Peso, and he tranquil Mangal Das Garcas with its giant lily leaves.  The majestic Belem Cathedral complete with a lily white nativity scene gushing colonial racism.  And the chai light: the Amazon Museum by the Estacio das Docas of the revitalized waterfront with huge pictures, searing sounds and powerful stories from indigenous leaders and shamans lamenting genocide brought on by illegal logging and soy farmers destroying their parched forest where climate change is forsaking the regular rains that nourish the forest and their communities.