In the Amazon, fire spreads faster than the forest can recover. Between 2024 and 2025, 16 million hectares have been lost, and 99% of that destruction comes from fires deliberately set for profit: to clear land for illegal grazing, opium poppy cultivation, and unregulated infrastructure.
Every tree that burns adds fuel to climate change, triggering a domino effect that reaches far beyond the rainforest. This devastation wipes out not only ecosystems, but also cultures, livelihoods, and identities rooted in the land.
It’s a catastrophe that seems unstoppable, even local politicians appear powerless or unwilling to intervene. What makes the Amazon truly untouchable? In these regions, one thing remains sacred: religion.
Even the most lawless people hesitate to cross that line. That’s why we’re creating something new: the first Churches of Nature.
Caritas Riberalta is a local organization that is part of the global Caritas network, working in the Bolivian Amazon to protect the rainforest and improve the health, education, and well-being of the most vulnerable communities.
Caritas Riberalta promotes innovative initiatives that unite environmental protection, faith, and community engagement, among them, the Churches of Nature project, created in partnership with local communities.
C
hurch of Nature is a project that restores fire-devastated land by replanting native trees using agroforestry methods that preserve and enhance biodiversity.
The land is consecrated by bishops, transforming these regenerated forests into sacred "living churches."
Each site is designed in harmony with the surrounding ecosystem and is cared for by local communities.
The agroforestry method combines trees with crops such as bananas, coconuts, and pineapples to enhance biodiversity while helping Indigenous communities enrich the land with fruit-bearing trees for their subsistence.
This approach improves soil fertility, reduces erosion, increases water retention, supports climate mitigation through CO2 absorption, and creates healthier habitats for people and wildlife.
The Church of Nature is open to all faiths, and to those with none. It unites people around a single purpose: defending the forest at all costs.
By creating a network of living places of worship, the project seeks to protect irreplaceable ecosystems, support Indigenous cultures, and ensure that the biodiversity of the Amazon, and other at-risk regions, survives for generations to come.
The Church of Nature project is supported by Patricia Gualinga, an internationally recognized defender of women’s and Indigenous rights from the Pueblo Kichwa de Sarayaku, an Indigenous community in the Amazon. She also represents Indigenous peoples at the United Nations.
Patricia Gualinga
