Watch Our Earth Day 2025 Conversation with Benki Piyãko
- TreeSisters
- May 29
- 2 min read
To celebrate Earth Day 2025, TreeSisters hosted a powerful live discussion with Benki Piyãko, spiritual leader of the Ashaninka people and founder of the Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute, alongside key members of his team.
For over five years, TreeSisters has partnered with Yorenka Tasorentsi to support community-led reforestation in the Brazilian Amazon—blending traditional knowledge with innovative practices to heal ecosystems and strengthen Indigenous leadership.
Watch this rare and inspiring discussion, and hear directly from those living and leading the restoration of one of the most vital regions on Earth.
During the event, we received a few thoughtful questions we didn’t have time to answer live. Here are their full responses:
What are your next actions internationally, in particular in France ? As inspiration for what to do next.
Our team currently does not have an agenda for Europe but our partners our continuing to plant. Benjamin plants thousands of trees in Vernessac, Federico continues to plant in Puglia, Tomaso in the UK, Julien in the north of France. We hope to grow our network of actions to ensure that these actions are taken in more place.
Can I ask, do you have a Nature Recovery Action Plan? If so, could you tell us a bit about how you decide, as a community, on your top priorities, for saving species, when nature is under so much pressure and there are such limited resources for nature recovery work.
Our top priorities are always food and livelihood sustainability so we plant all types of fruit species from the region, protected wood. We focus on a variety of species and also create fish ponds to ensure that the river can repopulate. Although there are limited resources, our work is to keep spreading the message to bring awareness and convince those who can help.
What does it look like when visitors come with psychological illness and are healed by the traditional medicines?
When we speak about psychological illnesses, it’s not necessarily an actual illness but could be depression for example. People come and use our traditional medicines in order to connect to nature, to the surroundings and notice that their life is worth a lot more than what they can see. There are different plants that can be taken to clear the body of certain toxins, hence improving mental well-being as well.
You can learn more about our two projects in partnership with the Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute through the links below.
