“Only when our land rights are guaranteed, can we protect our people,” says Levi Sucre, a leader of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Forest Peoples, AMPB. Their communities have managed to close the borders and guarantee food sovereignty for up to two years, where the public policy favours their autonomy. Indigenous and local communities of tropical forests have been continually fighting for land rights, direct funding and respect for our traditional knowledge. During the pandemic, our struggle is more important than ever. “We fear what we have always feared, and our fears have grown now that the world’s eyes are entirely focused on the pandemic”, says Dinamam Tuxá, of the Indigenous Peoples Articulation of Brazil, APIB, as the illegal invaders of their lands continue to put at risk a way of life that could hold the key for a better future of humanity.