Every year, rainforests the size of Portugal are destroyed. three quarters of this area is used for monocultures such as palm oil, soy, grain or cattle farms. In addition, there is the mining of oil and ores. Only the destruction is sustainable here.

In the remote regions of the Amazon rainforest, a hardly noticed struggle is taking place. Indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador are organising resistance against the destruction of this habitat and even more: It is about life as we have known it so far.

Millions of years of earth’s history are now threatened with destruction. This very century. Before we have understood the rainforest, it will be vanished. The wealth of the few risks the wealth of life.

Before we have even understood how prosperity for all is possible, how we can think the social question, the ecological and economic together, before the politicians give in, the excavators, the power saws, the bulldozers will do their work.

The event „Amazonas Akut” addressed the destruction of the amazon rainforest. Representatives of indigenous communities spoke about the resistance against the overexploitation of nature and humans.

„Amazonas Akut” was organised by Christina Korak and Rafael Schögler from the Institute of Translation Studies, the Iberoamerica Institute and the Institute of Romance Studies in Graz in the course of the „Tribuna Festival” 31st of March 2022.

Three programmes were produced in the course of the festival: Peninah Lesorogol, Christina Korak and Walther Moser conducted interviews with representatives from the sciences and organisations.

Rafael Schögler is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Translation Studies and works on indigenous cosmovisions and the question of the translatability of indigenous knowledge. together with christina korak, he organised the „Amazonas Akut” event.

Philipp Sudi describes himself as a traveller. he founded „Earth Prayers” together with others with the aim of collecting and redistributing money for projects in countries of the global south.

Alonso Jimenez Arboleda is an architect who has lived in austria since the 1980s. He is honorary consul of the Republic of Colombia in Styria and president of the Iberoamerica Institute.

Alberto Rodríguez Herreros is the managing director of the Iberoamerica Institute in Graz and he teaches Spanish at „Treffpunkt Sprachen, Centre for Language, Plurilingualism and Didactics” at the University of Graz.

Videos from the Festival and Talks

Programm of the Tribuna Festival.

Interviews at the Tribuna Festival recorded at the 31st of March, 2022 by Peninah Lesorogol, Walther Moser.