While world leaders gather at the UN Climate Conference (COP30) in Belém, in northern Brazil, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) is presenting its own proposals to confront the climate crisis, and the capitalist model it argues is behind it. The People’s Summit, an autonomous event organized by grassroots movements from 62 countries, runs from Wednesday (12) to Sunday (16) alongside the official COP.

In an interview with Radio BdF, MST national leader Ayala Ferreira said the movement sees popular agrarian reform and agroecology as concrete paths toward transformation. “Popular agrarian reform is both a necessity and a solution when we talk about confronting the environmental crisis, the capitalist system, and global warming,” she said.

Ferreira emphasized that rural communities have long developed practices of resistance rooted in land democratization and agricultural methods aligned with the limits of nature. She added that MST will bring to the COP “the voices of our rural comrades” and examples of settlements that have become models in environmental restoration and healthy food production.

The movement’s activities during the week include fairs, seminars, and field visits to agrarian reform settlements, as well as participation in the “barquiata”, a riverboat protest marking the start of popular participation at the COP, and the March for Climate and Solidarity Among Peoples, scheduled for Saturday (15). Around 1,300 MST members are expected to take part.

“We will present our national plan to plant trees, produce healthy food, and strengthen education and rural culture,” Ferreira said. “We want to show that the countryside is a territory of life, not of the destructive logic of capitalism.”

The MST will also set up a ‘resistance front’ at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), featuring agrarian reform products and debates on food sovereignty. Visitors will be invited to take part in the ‘paths of agroecology’, a series of immersion activities in nearby settlements.

“Belém will become a melting pot of good practices, good experiences, and powerful encounters,” Ferreira said. “We will make history at COP30 with the largest popular participation ever seen at a climate conference.”