Newsletter #2: Mangroves, cacao and a summer full of encounters

A note from Priscila

This summer has been hard to ignore: record heat, fires across Europe, rising water temperatures. A reminder, if we needed one, of why protecting the world’s largest rainforest matters. Welcome to our summer newsletter.

Meet the Amazon’s most underrated ecosystem

Mangroves rarely come up in sustainability conversations. And yet, they might be one of the most powerful ecosystems on the planet. Brazil’s Amazon coast holds over 1 million hectares of mangroves – 80% of the country’s total. According to the sources linked below, they:

• store several times more carbon than upland tropical forests,
• reduce wave energy by 70–80% – more effective than concrete coastal walls,
• create nursery grounds for the fish that most of Brazil’s small-scale fishers depend on,
• provide the foundation for thriving agroforestry systems.

In the floodplains where mangroves grow, families have harvested açaí alongside cacao, cupuaçu and Brazil nuts for centuries – in integrated systems that protect the coast, store carbon and sustain livelihoods at the same time. For the 80,000+ people living in traditional coastal communities across Pará, this isn’t theory – it’s how life works. And clearing mangroves releases several times more CO₂ per hectare than clearing rainforest.

At the Hamburg Sustainability Conference this summer, a whole session was dedicated to mangroves as a nature-based solution. Notably absent from that conversation? Brazil’s Amazon coast. We’re working to change that.

Voices from the Amazon: Noanny Maia

Noanny grew up hearing about cacao long before she imagined it would become her life’s work. Her grandfather farmed native várzea cacao on the island of Tauaré (Pará) in the 1920s, while her grandmother turned the leftover cacao nectar – considered scrap at the time – into jams and sweets.

Noanny became a lawyer, building a career in Belém, far from the land. Then in 2020, her father died of Covid, and everything shifted. Noanny and her sisters moved back to Mocajuba for their mother – and to reclaim the land their family had always belonged to. Together, they founded Cacauaré: turning what was once a discarded byproduct into jams, nibs, ceremonial cacao and chocolate bars rooted in ancestral knowledge.

It’s about keeping her grandparents’ island culture alive, and proving that Amazonian women can build something that belongs entirely to them.

Amazon Week Berlin 2026

This June, Ka’a Harmony co-organised its second panel at Amazon Week Berlin, now in five European cities, bringing together politicians, climate finance professionals, Indigenous leaders and Amazonian socio-bioeconomy entrepreneurs. In partnership with ASSOBIO and the Amazon Rainforest Investor Coalition, we facilitated market access for Amazonian bioeconomy products in Berlin – connecting 32 brands to the German market, engaging around 45 European actors and organising tastings at some of Berlin’s most respected specialty stores.

Hamburg Sustainability Conference

In July, we attended the Hamburg Sustainability Conference – one of Europe’s most diverse sustainability gatherings, with 40% Global South representation and a 50/50 gender split. One word captured every panel: capital. Nature finance is no longer a niche conversation; it’s becoming the centre of global climate strategy.

Rooted in Color and a growing team

On 12 September, we brought the Amazon into a studio in Kreuzberg: “Rooted in Color” combined a cacao ceremony, storytelling from the rainforest and intuitive painting. The cacao comes from women-led cooperatives in the Amazon – and before we drink it, we share their stories.

And our team keeps growing. We believe what is needed is a women-led climate justice movement – not women-only, but women-led. That belief shapes everything we do.

Help us tell more stories

Every story like Noanny’s takes time, trust and real relationships with communities. To keep doing this, we are looking for 20 monthly supporters who believe the Amazon’s stories deserve to be heard in Europe.