Written by Thais Corral, co-founder of WEDO and co-organizer of Planeta Femea in 1992
From the Dreams of Rio ’92 to the Awakening of COP30 in the Amazon**
There are moments in history when the pulse of the world changes.
Rio 1992 was one of them.
And at its heart stood Planeta Fêmea —
a gathering, a fire, a seed.
Planeta Fêmea was not just a women’s tent at the Earth Summit.
It was a planetary womb,
a space where thousands of women recognized in each other
a truth that had long been silenced:
there is no environmental justice without gender justice,
no climate future without the wisdom of women,
no sustainable development without care at the center.
In that vibrant mosaic by the sea,
women from every continent —
Indigenous leaders, Afro-descendant women, farmers, youth, elders,
academics, healers, activists —
wove a tapestry of resistance and possibility.
It was there that precursor voices rose like constellations:
Bella Abzug, the thunder of feminist diplomacy.
Peggy Antrobus, weaving the politics of justice with the ethics of care.
Wangari Maathai, teaching the world that planting a tree
is an act of liberation.
Vandana Shiva, reminding us that the Earth is a living being,
not a resource.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, whose leadership reframed sustainability.
Dona Raimunda, the babaçu nut-breaker from Maranhão,
whose song for the protection of the palm forests
brought the global stage back to the wisdom of the land.
Schuma Schumaher – feminist leader in Brazil
These women — and thousands more —
built a movement that transformed global governance.
At Planeta Fêmea, the first Women’s Caucus was born,
a method of feminist diplomacy that carried its power
to Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul, and beyond.
Rio ’92 taught the world that policy can be infused
with music, poetry, and community.
That environmental agreements must reflect the lived experience
of women who carry water, grow food, heal forests,
and rebuild life after every crisis.
Today, more than thirty years later,
the winds shift again.
COP30 unfolds in the Amazon —
the lungs of the planet, the cradle of humankind,
the territory where the future will be decided.
And it feels as if Planeta Fêmea has returned,
more mature, more urgent,
its spirit rising once again through the voices of women who march,
who refuse to let the planet slip into collapse.
The women marching today in Belém
carry the legacy of the ones who stood in Rio:
the fierce, the tender, the visionary, the steadfast.
They march because they know
that the climate crisis is not gender-neutral.
It deepens inequalities,
threatens ancestral lands,
and amplifies the burdens already borne
by women of the Global South.
They march because the feminine is not fragility —
it is root, river, regeneration.
It is political imagination grounded in the body and in the Earth.
It is the courage to protect life
even when the world insists on destruction.
women who embody the ancient knowledge
that caring is a revolutionary act.
From the mangroves of the Guanabara Bay,
from the villages of Maranhão,
from the highlands of Kenya, the forests of India,
the islands of the Pacific, the Andes, the Sahel —
these women anchor their lives in their territories
and protect them with love, science, and ancestral power.
Today, at COP30,
the legacy of Planeta Fêmea blooms again
as a call to the world:
Women are not a side event.
We are the frontline of climate action,
and the carriers of the future.
The Amazon receives this message like a prophecy —
that the Earth will only heal
when the feminine is once again honored
as a force of restoration, justice, and imagination.
Planeta Fêmea lives.
And in the Amazon, it rises anew
with the strength of generations
and the unstoppable power of women.
