Indigenous leaders end world voyage with prayer for nature

GRANEROS, Chile: The leaders of 22 Indigenous peoples from five continents held prayers for nature in Chile on Sunday at the end of a 46-day pilgrimage around the world.

The “Indigenous sages” carried out an ancestral ceremony of the Anasazi people, who lived in the Chaco Canyon before European settlement in what was to become the US state of New Mexico.

It was a ritual that, for the first time, brought together peoples from all over the planet — travelling together on a journey that began in Italy and passed through India, Australia, and Zimbabwe before concluding in Chile.

During their closing ceremony, representatives of peoples such as the Khalkha of Mongolia, the Noke Koi of Brazil, and the Kallawaya of Bolivia sang, danced, and prayed to the rhythm of drums, around an altar where they lit a sacred fire.

“The feathers represent the continents, and today, for the first time, we have the five continents,” said Heriberto Villasenor, director of Raices de la Tierra, an NGO dedicated to the preservation of Indigenous cultures.

At the end of the event, the leaders embraced and shared a message, urging greater care for the environment.

“We are part of nature. We are not separate from it. We are at a critical moment when so much destruction has taken place, much of it at human hands,” Rutendo Ngara, 49, a representative of the South African group Oba Umbuntu, told AFP.

The leaders also shared their concerns about what is happening in their own home regions.

“Unfortunately, they are trying to extract uranium in Mongolia. It is an important element that is supposed to remain underground,” Tsegi Batmunkh said.

In January 2025, the French nuclear group Orano signed an agreement with Mongolia to exploit a large uranium deposit in the southwest of the country.

The leader of Brazil’s Noke Koi people, Yama Nomanawa, called for an end to the “destruction of the Earth” — particularly in the Amazon basin.

According to a 2024 study published in the journal Nature, scientists estimated that between 10 and 47 percent of the Amazon region will be exposed to forest loss by 2050, which could lead to widespread ecosystem change.

“The Earth is crying out very loudly, but no one is listening. The jungle is screaming; it is not being respected by humans. Let’s protect life, save life here on the planet,” the 37-year-old Brazilian Indigenous leader said.