Still image from a Bonn, Germany, press conference recording with several JTA allies, including the MAB/MAR member Francisco Kelvim, June 2025. Photo Credit: Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

In this Allies Spotlight, we feature the Movimiento de Afectados por Represas (MAR) and the Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB). The Spanish and Portuguese names translate in English to the Movement of People Affected by Dams. The MAB finds its origins in Brazil and has been resisting damaging hydroelectric and other megaprojects since the 1980s. One example of the group’s victorious grassroots advocacy involves holding the World Bank accountable for its harmful lending practices. Connecting with these efforts, the MAR, founded in 2016, works coalitionally with MAB and organizes throughout Latin America and internationally. (Learn more about their histories in this Spanish-language report.) Throughout their histories, these organizations for “el agua y la vida” (“water and life”) challenge extractivism and false solutions. The JTA is honored to be collaborating with the MAR and the MAB, as we anticipate international climate talks and grassroots actions in Belém, Brazil, this November. 

JTA organizers are participating in planning meetings for the upcoming Peoples’ Summit, to be held November 12-16, in Belém. This transborder convergence will follow the IV International Meeting of Communities Affected by Dams and Climate Crisis and will coincide with the COP30 UNFCCC negotiations. (Check out the MAR’s Instagram page that contains a IV International Meeting event preview!) Planning for the Peoples’ Summit includes several axes of focus, including “Just, Popular, and Inclusive Transition.” Discussions to prepare for this upcoming grassroots convergence in November will strengthen already established relationships among the MAR, MAB, and JTA. 

These organizations have engaged in climate justice and just transition advocacy together during recent international climate talks. In June 2025, during the Bonn, Germany, UNFCCC intersessional, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), JTA, and other allied groups coordinated a webinar that included the MAB’s and MAR’s Francisco Kelvim. In his webinar presentation, Kelvim explained that Bonn provided an important space for “building the process of the Peoples’ Summit.” A few days later, a press conference organized by the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice again brought together the IEN, JTA, MAB, and MAR. For more on this global gathering, read JTA’s Fernando Tormos-Aponte’s blog post, which highlights the continued fight for just transition with allied groups, in and beyond UN spaces.

Another area of collaboration between the MAR and JTA includes the forthcoming edition of enMARcha, a movement magazine. The latest edition focuses on “el Internacionalismo, y como este hace un llamado a la acción, para tejer las resistencias, construir poder popular” (“Internationalism, and how it makes a call for action, to weave resistances, to construct popular power”). Stay tuned for a Spanish-language article by JTA’s José T. Bravo, which will be available on JTA social media and on our website, after the MAR communications team releases the new edition! 

Thank you, the MAR and MAB members, for your tireless efforts toward environmental and climate justice!