“We are showing the Brazilian government and companies that we don’t need a dam to generate energy. We are showing the Brazilian government and companies that we are capable of anything.”
– Alessandra Korap Munduruku, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize

Earlier this year Amazon Watch and our partners at GivePower installed a solar microgrid in the remote Munduruku village of Sawré Muybu, an important regional hub located on the banks of the Tapajós River amid vast preserved Indigenous forests in the Brazilian Amazon. Together, we are excited to take you behind the scenes of this powerful project in a new video.

Planned closely with longtime partners in Brazil’s Munduruku nation, this was Amazon Watch’s first Power to the Protectors solar installation since the COVID-19 pandemic. The project now provides steady clean power to village homes and communal buildings previously reliant on costly, intermittent, and polluting diesel generators.

As Alessandra Korap and Sawré Muybu Chief Juarez Saw remind us, solar power demonstrates Indigenous people are taking the lead on viable energy alternatives to destructive hydroelectric dams and fossil fuel projects, lighting a brighter future for remote Amazonian communities.