"I feel as if I've been swallowed. And in the creature's stomach, I walk with the sensation of being drowned. My nose hurts, with the same pain we feel when we are struggling to breathe. That's my perception of the blue zone of Cop30, the official area for the negotiations. The architecture makes me think of the stomach of an animal. My eyes hurt, seeing so many people coming and going through the main corridor."
"The place of nature within the blue zone is ornamental. People are always running, never walking, always in a hurry. This accelerated rhythm, for a moment, courses through my body. For a moment I walk faster, think faster, breathe faster. The haste feels contagious. Then I realise: I can't let myself be accelerated. My investigations aren't rushed, my writing isn't fast-paced, my listening isn't either. The monster of haste from non-Indigenous society hasn't entirely consumed me. I fear it nonetheless."
The blue zone of COP30 feels like being swallowed by a creature, producing sensations of drowning and breathlessness. The venue's architecture evokes a stomach and the corridor is crowded with hurried people amid decorative plants and animal paintings. Nature within the conference space appears ornamental rather than living. The accelerated pace of negotiations briefly affects bodily rhythms, but there is resistance to adopting that haste. A long river journey from Altamira to Alter do Chao and into the Amazon contrasts expanded forest time with the conference's narrowed urgency. Forest life follows specific seasonal and daily timings, such as fruiting and a tinamou that sings only at dawn, noon and dusk.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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