Indigenous fire brigades in a whiteboard animation, for OPAN

In 2020, amid a war of narratives that blamed Indigenous peoples for the fires, OPAN (Operação Amazônia Nativa) wanted to show the opposite: Indigenous leadership in fire control, territorial protection and the recovery of burned areas. The video had to speak to local people in a simple, direct way, able to compete with the lies circulating on WhatsApp, and also serve as a report to the funder.

The script starts where the audience was: a confused family in front of the TV, asking who is setting nature on fire. The answer comes with humor. The most innocent party in the story is fire itself, which has been with us for millions of years and with which some biomes evolved. In the Cerrado, plants are adapted to it; in the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest, they are not. The problem is fire out of control, made worse by climate change.

From there, the film hands over to those who know: the Manoki and Myky brigade, the oldest of the three, created in 2008; the Xavante brigade in Bordolândia, which brings together Indigenous people and land reform settlers; and the Tenharim brigade in Amazonas, with 29 members across five Indigenous lands and a national park. Each people appears with its own features, such as the Xavante's ceremonial tie and body paint and the Tenharim's featherwork, based on each people's territorial management plans and the Prevfogo brigade manual.

Maps show where each brigade works, and the film ends with OPAN's jingle against criminal burning. We delivered Portuguese and English versions.