Raquel Maldonado Villafuerte trained as a pianist, conductor, and classical composer in La Paz, Bolivia, but ended up graduating as a music collector in San Ignacio de Moxos, an Amazonian village in Beni, bordering Brazil, 502 kilometers from the highland city where she was born. A collector, yes, but not of wild fruits. A collector of musical scores. At 26, fresh out of university, in 2004 she accepted the position of director of the San Ignacio de Moxos School of Music, a decision that transformed her life and, above all, the lives of the Moxos people, one of the Indigenous nations recognized by the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

The term “collector” is arbitrary. In reality, she defines herself as a director, composer, and musical researcher. However, “collection” is a concept that encapsulates her early years of work in Gran Moxos, the region of plains and tropical forests adjacent to San Ignacio, where the inhabitants live scattered in small communities. Upon arriving at the school, which had been founded by a nun of the Ursuline order, she understood that she could not limit her work to teaching folk and world music, but rather that she had to work on the long tradition of native music that had taken root in the region for centuries.

“We weren’t landing like aliens in a place devoid of culture; rather, there was a strong cultural and musical foundation. That was precisely the tool we needed to begin building a musical foundation,” Maldonado recalls. Soon, she discovered neighborhood festivals and the songs played there. And she stumbled upon a treasure she knew little about at the time: a musical archive containing several thousand scores. “Then, we decided to finish the work ourselves, and we found much more than we had imagined, because we quadrupled the archive,” she says.

It was then that the most intensive work of collecting began. “We conducted field research that resulted in the recovery of more than 7,000 pages of handwritten musical scores,” she notes. The musical texts had been handwritten by the Indigenous people themselves, from communities primarily located within the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS), a nationally protected area that, for years, has been threatened by the construction of a highway and the progressive encroachment of settlers. “These weren’t obsolete scores. We’re talking about a living culture that has never severed its ties with that Jesuit past,” he says.

The documents were copied and treasured by different generations of Mojeño people, even though many no longer knew how to interpret the musical notation transcribed on old papers inherited from their ancestors, and which were deteriorating due to the heat, humidity, and harsh conditions of the jungle. “That’s what’s so impressive. In the communities, traditional musicians continue to copy these manuscripts. Even though they have lost their knowledge of musical notation, they consider all this writing valuable and believe it has been saved by the Indigenous people themselves. They have copied them as one would copy a drawing.”

Music to ascend to the ‘holy hill’

In their book, The Jesuit Work in the Royal Audiencia of Charcas, historians Roberto Salinas and Mario Linares write that San Ignacio de Moxos was founded in 1689 by the Jesuit priests Antonio de Orellana and Juan de Espejo. Its establishment was part of the ambitious evangelization project of the South American Amazon region, promoted by the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church. It is named after the founder of the Society of Jesus, the Basque Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Before the Jesuit settlement, Iberian conquistadors had sporadically explored the Moxos plains, drawn by legends of gold treasures and the enslavement of indigenous people.

San Ignacio de Moxos is located 94 kilometers from Trinidad, the capital of the Amazonian department of Beni. In his Compendium of Indigenous Ethnic Groups and Ecoregions, anthropologist Álvaro Díez Astete states that the Moxos population numbers over 81,000 people, a figure that, according to data from the most recent Bolivian Census (2024), represents less than 1% of the country’s total population. Their language is Moxos, which has variants (Ignaciano, Trinitario, Loretano) and is descended from Antillean Arawak.

Their post-Spanish conquest cultural history was marked by the Jesuit presence, from which they inherited, in addition to the Catholic faith, the cultivation of certain arts, the most important of which was music. Anthropologist Fernando Hurtado also affirms that, despite the cultural clash with the European religious figures, “there were some changes that the natives readily accepted, among them, evidently, was music, which was one of the most important reasons for the spiritual conquest of the Moxos people.” In his research, The Indigenous Council of San Ignacio de Moxos, Hurtado refers to chroniclers of the colonial era to acknowledge that the Moxos people “were very fond of, very skilled at, and very predisposed to music due to their distinctly musical cultural heritage.”

The Jesuit mission remained in San Ignacio de Moxos for 79 years, between 1689 and 1768. However, its musical legacy was kept alive by the Moxos people. The Indigenous people began to preserve and copy the inherited musical scores. “We are talking about a heritage that has waited centuries to be reinterpreted and that has not been preserved by institutions like the Church or by famous figures, but by the indigenous people,” Maldonado emphasizes.

In fact, the musical documents were passed down from generation to generation, surviving dramatic historical events that befell the Moxos people, such as enslavement by rubber barons or conscription into the Chaco War (1932-1935) between Bolivia and Paraguay. For the conductor, the preservation of the scores is a symbol of the Moxos people’s commitment to keeping their cultural identity alive.

The archives discovered by the researcher and her collaborators date mostly from the early 20th century. It is believed that the transcriptions were encouraged by an Italian priest who arrived in the area in the first decades of the last century and breathed new life into musical training. It was then that the figure of the music copyist emerged.

The archived documents comprise pieces from various genres, formats, and musical styles. “There’s music ranging from Renaissance to Republican, likely brought by new priests, and it’s primarily choral music for Catholic catechism,” explains the orchestra conductor. These are the compositions performed by the Moxos Ensemble, directed by Maldonado, which they have recorded on eight albums and toured throughout Europe. However, this is not their only repertoire. It also includes pieces from the native and oral tradition of San Ignacio.

The project’s musical symbiosis is expressed not only in the alternation of missionary (Renaissance, Baroque, and Republican) and native compositions, but also in the incorporation of instruments created by the indigenous people themselves. In addition to violins and cellos, the Moxos Ensemble makes music with native flutes (adaptations of Baroque versions made with bamboo) and bassoons, monumental tubular wind instruments that replaced European organs and became part of the traditional liturgical ensemble within the Church.

The use of bass guitars continues to amaze Maldonado, considering the narrow-mindedness of the Jesuits of the time, who, while acknowledging the exotic beauty of Moxos cultural creations, viewed native instruments as inferior. Only such a tenacious musical vocation could overcome the mental prejudices, social adversities, and natural limitations they faced for centuries. Just as they preserved musical scores from the ravages of time, they invented instruments to ensure that music continued to be made. These are expressions of a strategy of cultural resistance that, as Maldonado recalls, harks back to the myth of the “holy hill”: a sacred place immune to the tropical floods of the Moxos plains, but also beyond the reach of the white slaveholder. A hill that is climbed with spiritual music that makes it holy. A path on which a collector of memories has accompanied them for more than 20 years.

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Before getting into the details, Roberto Ytaysaba, who is from Brazil, wants to make one thing perfectly clear: neither he nor the Anacé Indigenous people, whom he leads, are against progress. “We’re not against progress if it respects the communities, nature, spirituality, the autonomy of [native] peoples and Convention 169,” he clarifies, one recent morning in his village.

They’ve had electricity here since the 1980s. The school teaches ethnomathematics to the children. And, recently, the village inaugurated a clinic specifically for Indigenous people, something that’s the envy of this region in the arid northeast of Brazil.

However, as so often in recent centuries, a threat looms over them. “This project is an invasion, just like the Portuguese invasion in 1500, what they called the ‘discovery,’” this Anacé chief warns. Born in 1976 in a hammock, he’s known as Chief Roberto. He elaborates on his arguments — which are seasoned with history, metaphors and irony — in the communal kitchen, which is the heart of the village. As he speaks, a pleasant breeze tempers the heat.

The traditional lands of the Anacé are located in Caucaia, a municipality which is part of the Fortaleza metropolitan area. After resisting the Portuguese here, between the 17th and 18th centuries — what the colonizers’ chronicles referred to as the “War of the Barbarians” — they now face a formidable 21st-century adversary: TikTok, one of the world’s most popular social media platforms.

This Indigenous community has launched a peaceful battle with the support of lawyers, NGOs and the Public Prosecutor’s Office against the Chinese company. They fear that the mega-data center it plans to build on land which they consider to be their own will negatively impact them. They’re also concerned because no “free, prior and informed consultation” took place, as mandated by the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989 (an International Labour Organization convention, often referred to as Convention 169). Around the world, this convention is as frequently ignored by investors as it is invoked by Indigenous peoples.

ByteDance, the company that owns the social media network that has captivated hundreds of millions of internet users, has partnered with a Brazilian wind energy company, Casa dos Ventos, to build a 300-megawatt data center that will be the most powerful one in Brazil.

ByteDance “appreciates the license that has been granted [so that] TikTok can operate a data center in Brazil,” according to a statement responding to inquiries made by EL PAÍS. The firm adds: “We [are continuing our discussions] with local partners and look forward to collaborating with local communities in our commitment to sustainability, equity and transparency.”

In another statement, Casa dos Ventos notes that it “complies with all international and national conventions and regulations.”

Chief Roberto recalls that one of the first discoveries he made during this battle against the tech giant is that the cloud — the place for storing data — isn’t actually an ethereal space. Rather, it’s a physical place, one that’s located on Earth.

Like many Indigenous people in Brazil, Roberto Ytaysaba also has a Portuguese surname: Roberto Antonio Marques da Silva. The chief says that, in addition to his leadership roles, he works as a teacher and librarian at the local school, while also doing shifts as a security guard. He mentions that, after meeting his wife, he abandoned his plans to become a Catholic priest.

Chief Roberto grabs his helmet and rides his motorcycle a few miles, until he reaches a crossroads. On the other side, he shows EL PAÍS the field that’s apparently reserved for TikTok. It lies on what the Anacé people consider to be their traditional lands.

The plot is relatively barren, with a couple of small ponds, some trees and bushes, along with white stakes and numerous stones that gleam with silvery flashes. On the way to the site, the chief points out another encroachment… this one of a religious nature, he jokes. It’s a shrine dedicated to Saint Hedwig, erected by a local member of parliament.

Why would the firm want to place this data center in this particular spot, here in the Fortaleza metropolitan area? The answer lies at the bottom of the sea. The capital of the Brazilian state of Ceará is a major hub for the submarine cables that connect Brazil’s internet to the world.

Construction to house TikTok’s supercomputers will begin “this year or in early 2026,” according to the Brazilian company Casa dos Ventos. And “the first phase will be operational in the second half of 2027.” For now, however, nothing on the rocky site indicates that the project, which Brazilian authorities have placed great hopes in, is about to take root at this site. The government has estimated that, should it go through, the center will attract $9 billion in investment.

Brazil is campaigning to attract the growing data center industry. It aspires to become one of the international epicenters of the business. And, to that end, the country offers investors tax breaks, low costs and abundant sun and wind that, thanks to renewable energy, could power these supercomputers that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “Data centers are now the heart of the digital ecosystem, driving innovation, expanding connectivity and generating jobs worldwide,” Communications Minister Frederico de Siqueira emphasized, at the inauguration of one of these projects back in October. “The expectation is to attract other centers, [in order to] strengthen digital sovereignty and expand our data storage and processing capacity,” he added. Brazil is home to nearly 200 data centers, which, according to the government, employ two million people.

The government’s interest in the TikTok project is at its peak. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva even met with the company’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, at the latter’ request. This 30-minute-long meeting took place back in September, in New York City, where the Brazilian head of state was attending the UN General Assembly.

The traditional lands of the Anacé people still haven’t achieved legal recognition as an Indigenous reserve. Still, the community enjoys tacit recognition, because the authorities provide them with educational and healthcare services that are adapted to their culture.

The lack of formal recognition has been compounded by the effects of a schism, one that has a familial element. The new data center will be part of the Pecém Industrial and Port Complex. Ytaysaba explains that the reason this complex was built in the first place was because a splinter group of the Anacé agreed to cede the land (behind the chiefs’ backs), in exchange for their relocation. For this reason, the remaining Anacé, whom he leads, don’t recognize the agreements made by the dissenting relatives. Instead, they assert their right to these lands. “We want them back,” he demands. After that internal rift, these Indigenous people approved their own 26-page protocol for internal consultations.

The news that TikTok and its Brazilian partners were going to set up shop in Caucaia came to the tribe thanks to an article published by The Intercept Brazil back in May. It revealed the enormous quantities of water and energy that the project would require, while reminding readers that the city had declared a drought emergency in 16 of the last 21 years. The Indigenous people immediately set out to find allies. Natives and activists had to thoroughly research an issue about which they knew almost nothing. They soon began to mobilize in protest.

Letícia Abreu is a 32-year-old lawyer with Instituto Terramar, a local NGO. She advises the Anacé people. Sitting next to the chief, she points out the two issues that she considers to be the most contentious. Firstly, the data center project obtained its environmental license through a simplified process, without any mention of its scale. This procedure is now being investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, according to Abreu.

“These data storage facilities are plugged in 24/7,” she emphasizes. “They never unplug them. They require a huge water supply… and while [the firms] say they’ll only use renewable energy, solar and wind power don’t offer a stable supply.” Casa dos Ventos states that the project will operate with “a 100% renewable energy supply.”

The underlying problem, the activist lawyer from the Terramar Institute notes, is that renewable energy projects are often strategically installed in areas inhabited by traditional or Indigenous communities, where land ownership isn’t often legally recognized. This weakens the ability of those affected to defend their rights. Abreu also emphasizes that what they’re fighting against is inequality, not renewable energy. The NGO advocates for a just energy transition.

Chief Roberto confirms that a dialogue has been established with those pushing for the data center. Still, he finds their terms to be unconvincing: “They want to come and explain the project… but for now, we haven’t authorized [this],” he explains.

“First, they violate us. And now, they’re asking us to marry them,” he scoffs.

Like the vast majority of lower-income Brazilians, the Anacé Indigenous people are well aware of their rights. And so, when the project representatives sit down with the chief and offer to improve the electricity supply or internet connection in exchange for the community’s support, he becomes furious and responds sharply: “What kind of promise is that? That’s [our] right!”

They’ve told him the data center will operate with a closed-loop water system, but he fears that the village’s wells will run dry. He’s worried about the water supply, the impact on biodiversity, the heat and noise emanating from the facilities and, above all, that this project seems destined to pave the way for similar ones down the road.

The Anacé chief is using every means at his disposal to publicize his people’s struggle. On the day of his interview with EL PAÍS, he had just returned from the city of Belém. There, he had spoken about his battle against TikTok, in a debate held alongside the UN climate summit, COP30. And that’s precisely why, he says, he has a TikTok account, just like some one hundred million of his compatriots. “I only use it to amplify our voice, not for those silly dances,” he clarifies.

Reflecting on the power of the internet, he links the contemporary addiction to social media with one of the most influential chapters in Brazilian history. “We live in an era of digital slavery. The internet is like a chain that, instead of tightening around the neck, tightens around the brain. The data center is a kind of slave ship, because we’re at the mercy of a minority that manipulates us and encourages us to buy into a false kind of happiness.”

These are the words of the chief: a teacher, librarian, security guard and Indigenous leader in Brazil, in 2025.

Translated by Avik Jain Chatlani.

Article published in collaboration with Luminate

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With his blend of bully diplomacy, flip-flopping, and climate denial, U.S. President Donald Trump knows how to strike where it hurts. “They ripped the hell out of the Rainforest of Brazil to build a four-lane highway for environmentalists to travel. It’s become a big scandal,” he posted on Truth Social, just hours before the official opening of COP30, the year’s most important gathering for setting global climate policy, which was held in Belém, Brazil. Trump, who declined a personal invitation from Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and didn’t even send a delegation to Belém, focused on the unfinished works for the Avenida Liberdade to discredit the summit.

The highway is an old project that local authorities revived and included among new infrastructure efforts aimed at easing traffic during the event, which drew up to 50,000 visitors to this city at the mouth of the Amazon River. The project has been controversial because it crosses a natural reserve, involved cutting down trees, and still is not operational. Some residents argue it wasn’t necessary, since it only leads to a high-end shopping mall that already has two other access points. One recent morning, excavators were still at work, clearing a path through the trees.

Ercila do Socorro Coelho, 59, a retired cook, is certain that if tree clearing continues, temperatures in Belém — the capital of Pará, a state long at the top of deforestation lists — will become even more unbearable. Deforestation rates in Pará, which is larger than France, have dropped sharply thanks to political will and more resources.

Coelho doesn’t understand much of the acronym-laden jargon used by climate negotiators, but her life has been a masterclass in the devastation caused by floods and heat. “I hardly walk in the street anymore. As the doctors recommend, I try to go out between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., and after that, only by bus,” she explains.

She describes some everyday scenes: “When it rains, the pavement steams. I get home and go straight to the shower. You put water on the stove and it’s boiling in no time. At midday, the tap water is scalding hot,” she lists, sheltered in the shade of a building.

Belém is an oven for its 1.3 million residents and visitors alike, despite being surrounded by water and nestled in the largest tropical rainforest in the world. The city experienced 212 days of extreme heat (37.3ºC, 99ºF) last year — five degrees above the average of the past decade, according to Mongabay, an environmental news outlet. No other Brazilian capital sees as much rainfall. When torrential rains coincide with high tide, much of the city floods because it is below sea level. Coelho’s neighborhood is among the most flood-prone. Residents ironically nicknamed it Terra Firme (Solid Ground), a name that even appears on maps.

Despite the numerous projects inaugurated with COP30 in mind, Belém’s infrastructure remains precarious. The sanitation network is minimal, 60% of residents live in favelas, and traffic jams are a huge problem. To ease the strain on the roads, city officials were given leave during the entire summit, which ran from November 10 to 21.

This situation makes the COP30 host city a symbol of the 1,000 challenges faced by many cities in the Global South, which endure the daily impacts of problems rooted in industrialization in the Global North — whether in the form of tornadoes, hurricanes, or typhoons. Although extreme, Belém’s situation is quite common. About 35% of Brazilian cities (1,900 municipalities) are at risk of environmental disasters such as landslides, floods, and torrential rains, according to a federal government study. Around 20 ministries are working together with civil society on a national plan that includes adaptation and mitigation measures.

Brazil and other developing countries are calling on wealthy nations for money and technology to adapt to an increasingly hostile planet. “It is necessary to pay more attention, allocate more resources, and have more political will to prepare vulnerable countries for the effects that are already being felt,” Maurício Lyrio, the leader of the Brazilian negotiations at COP30, told the newspaper O Globo.

For Wendel Andrade, 38, a specialist in natural resource management and local development at the Talanoa Institute in Belém, adaptation should not take a back seat to mitigation and emission reduction. Andrade denounces “the severe loss of vegetation” that the COP30 host city has suffered in recent years, as well as authorities’ and residents’ disregard for trees.

Speaking as a researcher and resident of Belém, he says: “For many people, trees mean dirt, leaves, a hiding place for criminals, a place where the homeless urinate, an obstacle to getting the car into the garage… When in reality, a tree is an essential natural machine for living well. It is a cistern that stores water, provides shade, and offers thermal comfort.”

And although other Brazilians know it as the City of Mango Trees, for the dense, tree-lined streets dotted with mangoes that cool the streets in wealthy neighborhoods, Belém has four times fewer trees per square meter than the U.N. recommends.

Near the works on the Avenida Liberdade, another highway — the Marinha — has just opened to traffic, which also involved clearing a large strip of vegetation, residents explain. Where trees once provided pleasant shade perfect for picnics, there are now three lanes in each direction, one for parking, and another for bikes. Small trees have been planted, but it will take years before they provide any real shade. In two months, Belém’s “winter” will arrive, the season with the most rain and a slight drop in temperature. Then residents will see how the new highway holds up.

Andrade, from the Talanoa Institute, denounces that “when the world talks about nature-based solutions, Belém is reproducing an outdated model, with environmentally unsuitable projects,” such as cutting down trees or adding layers to the asphalt. He warns that the city “is a ticking time bomb” because in the future, the problems created by the current construction projects will have to be addressed.

“We need a robust reforestation plan, and above all, we must not remove mature trees,” says Andrade, who also points out the need to improve the management of the waste that clogs the canals. “It makes no sense to ask for money for adaptation if we continue to waste it.”

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), an alliance of governments, U.N. agencies, businesses and universities, estimated the enormous climate-related losses from last year: storms ($173 billion), floods ($33 billion) and earthquakes ($18 billion).

In Belém, fans are a constant part of daily life. “In my house, we have five for four people,” explains Cintia Andrade, 33, a sales consultant. Her face lights up when she talks about the newly introduced municipal buses. They have air conditioning, a huge relief for passengers before had to depend on whatever breeze came through the windows.

In Belém, they like the air conditioning nice and cold, and as soon as night falls, the city comes to life. People go to the gym, they go shopping. On Sunday at 11 p.m., hours before the opening of COP30, there were long lines of customers doing their weekly shopping at a centrally located 24-hour supermarket.

Ninahua Hunikui, an Indigenous man from Acre, is having a leisurely breakfast at a street stall in Belém with several relatives who traveled with him from his village to participate in COP30. They came to demand that their land be officially demarcated and thus receive legal protection — a claim he says he has already presented in France and Switzerland. On his way to the public event, he wears a spectacular headdress made of harpy eagle and macaw feathers, and his face is painted with black jenipapo and red urucú dye.

He says that in his village, which is home to 205 people, the impact of the climate is also evident: “Our water sources are drying up because of the deforestation by white people. In the 1970s, we traveled by boat, now you almost have to push with the small canoes,” the chief explains in Portuguese.

Hunikui, who is a teacher and doctor, adds: “They’re also destroying my medicines.” He’s referring to the plants the rainforest has provided for his people since time immemorial to heal their ailments. He traveled to Belém seeking the protection the law can offer, and with the intention of sharing, with anyone willing to listen, his recipe for saving the planet.

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