Inside COP: The fight for the Amazon
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As ministers arrive in Belém for the crucial second week of COP30, forests move from the backdrop of the summit to the main stage. Protests began at dawn on Friday and have continued through the weekend - among them, several activists carried a giant Brazilian flag, emblazoned with the words “Amazȏnia Protegida” (“Protected Amazon”).
From the streets outside to the plenary halls in the Blue Zone, trees, land and Indigenous stewardship are shaping this summit’s conversation. In this episode, Paul Dickinson and Fiona McRaith dig into this moment of forest urgency and turn their attention to one of the biggest themes of the COP30 Action Agenda: protecting these crucial ecosystems, carbon sinks and centres of cultural and biodiversity.
Paul speaks with some of those behind the Race to Belém initiative - a real-world case study in how one Brazilian state, Tocantins, is rewriting the rules of forest protection. We hear Christiana Figueres speak to Mindahi Bastida about what genuine stewardship means and why so many Indigenous communities are the best equipped to care for their native lands. And Fiona reports to us from a project in the Amazon rainforest itself, where she met local producers building a sustainable bio-economy from the forest’s living wealth.
The Brazilians have brought the world to the Amazon and put forests at the heart of this COP. What will be the legacy of COP30 for the forests of Brazil and beyond, that so desperately need protecting?
Learn more:
🌴 Read about the Tropical Forests Forever Facility
📊 Explore the Forest Declaration Assessment and its 2025 report
🌍 Check out the official COP30 website for background and announcements
🎤 What do you want to hear on Inside COP? Ask us on SpeakPipe or on our socials where you can also see more behind the scenes moments and to watch our videos:
Instagram @outrageoptimism
LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or via this form.
Lead Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Planning Producer: Caitlin Hanrahan
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
With thanks to Groundswell and Global Optimism.
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
With thanks to Groundswell and Global Optimism.
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Inside Cop. I'm Paul Dickinson. And I'm Fiona McGrath. Today we're going to talk about the centrality of forests to this whole process because they're absolutely the heart of it. And here we are in the Amazon. Thanks for being here. |
| 0:23.1 | Sophie, Tom and Cristiano have left us here. |
| 0:26.6 | How are you feeling now? |
| 0:30.8 | It's like halfway through this whole extraordinary process. |
| 0:35.6 | I've arrived yesterday, so I'm kind of like, I haven't got my head |
| 0:38.4 | around it, although I've actually been to the incredible buildings and seen the sort of vastness |
| 0:43.6 | of it all. And I've met lovely people who I've worked with for years and had that whole kind of like, |
| 0:48.8 | oh, wow, you know, the world's here moment. But how has it been for you when you think about |
| 0:54.0 | the last week? It was recording |
| 0:55.8 | Saturday, so it's kind of like a weekend juncture point coming out on Monday. What's in you |
| 1:00.7 | about the last week? You know, the in-between weekend of cops are always these collective |
| 1:06.8 | inhales. Sunday is the day of rest tomorrow, and all of us, I think, will be observing |
| 1:13.1 | that, including the negotiators. And it typically signals this shift from when ministers |
| 1:18.8 | begin to arrive, listeners who have been following along inside cop will remember that this is |
| 1:24.4 | when the high-level segments have traditionally been. So this is when the |
| 1:29.0 | signals from Heads of State typically would come in to kind of galvanize and re-infuse more energy. |
| 1:33.8 | So I'm curious to see how that comes up in the second week of cop. People will be listening to |
| 1:39.1 | this on Monday morning. And I know I was in Rio. I know many delegates who I've met have been in |
| 1:44.0 | South Paulo or Rio beforehand. So this feels like a longer sprint. So I'm curious to see how. And I think that's one of the reasons I'm really anchored and buoyed by one thing, in particular this weekend. Though I know there are many field visits, I joined one. I'm in the Amazon, which we'll talk about in a little bit, but there was also a major march. Yeah, I heard about that. Today, |
| 2:05.4 | actually, Saturday. Thousands of marchers hit the streets of Bilem calling for climate action. |
| 2:10.7 | This is exciting. The past few cops, we haven't seen this, partially because of the countries where |
| 2:16.0 | the cops were hosted didn't support it. |
... |
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