pgdki host: in an effort to satiate our needs, we humans are exploiting our planet to the limits. forests are being burned to make way for grazing and farming land, mines are dug in remote areas to extract valuable resources. houses, streets, factories -- we're building ever more, all at the expense of nature. welcome to “global 3000.” barely anywhere in the world is the rainforest more under threat

than in brazil. in 2021 alone, around 13,000 square kilometers of forest were lost to cattle farms, mines and logging. for brazil's president jair bolsonaro, the rainforests are an exploitable commodity. and it'she indigenoupeople who are suffering the most. some indigous territories in the amazon rainforest are legally protected. but such laws are willfully and systematically ignored. even the threat of force has no effect. our reporter vanessa fischer visited the karipuna people, whose fear is palpable. reporter: the brazilian state of ourondonia, located in theer southern amazon. its capital is porto velho, a faceless, concrete city. adriano karipuna is constantly on guard. he says most of his neighbors are suspicious of him, because he's fighting for the cause of an indigenous people. he moved here from his village

seven years ago. now, at the age of 37, he's studying law, all in a bid to save his people and his homeland. adriano: a lot of people in the city think we're out of place here. they think we should stay in our villages. but i'm no less indigenous just because i live in the city, or because i'm studying and want to gain knowledge. reporter: together, we head out to the land of the karipuna. the journey by car and boat takes nearly five hours. it's been many weeks since adriano has been home. he suddenly receives a message and immediately contacts his lawyer. a man appears to have died on karipuna territory and the

police are investigating. he was not a member of the community and no one knew him. it's possible he was involved in logging, like many who enter the area illegally. adriano karipuna gathers all the information he can, as it could support his people's ongoing lawsuit against the state of rondonia and the brazilian government. one of those observing the growing conflict is edjales de brito. today he's an independent environmental advisor for members of parliament, but he previously spent several years heading up the local environmental authority. edjales: a real disaster has been happening in brazil's environmental policy. it's like a demolition, and an orchestrated one at that. it's happening at local, state, and federal levels and with the involvement of the executive and legislative powers.

just to give you an idea, rondonia's state parliament held a simple vote -- in the middle of the night, incidentally -- voting to massively reduce two protected areas that are strategically important, the jaci parana reserve and the guajara-mirim state park. they didn't seek any expert advice first and there was no public debate. it was just because the two areas were reportedly stopping the expansion of grazing land for cattle. reporter: the state's highest court ruled that the decision contravened the constitution. but the forest is still being cleared. both areas border on karipuna land. adriano: this is where our territory begins, on the right-hand side of the river. we'll be in the village in 2.5 hours. reporter: we pass a number of giant samauma trees. they're known here as the queen of the forest. the territory of

the karipuna covers more than 150,000 hectares. a handful of filies and a ho of dogs ait ourrrival. the karipuna go hunting, conserving the meat with salt and leaving it to dry in the sun. the jaci parana river is a lifeline for the community. at the end of the rainy season, the swollen river offers welcome respite from the heat. relative humidity is nearly 90%. all the children attend a single elementary school class, they have to move to the city. right now, it's time for the manioc harvest, and everyone is involved. the tubers are first soaked in water for four days and then pressed to eliminate the toxins. manioc has a sweet-sour smell.

each family has its own plot of land and customers in the city. manioc flour is an important source of income. everyone here is short of money. the process of producing the flour takes many hours. roasting it in the heat is an art in itself. adriano: most brazilians don't care about the indigenous people's fight to survive. so often i hear this incorrect argument that indigenous people own too much land. and what do they need all this land for? and i always say, has anyone thought about why some major landowner has to have so much land? anyone? no one gives it a second thought. reporter: nearly 14% of brazil's land mass is reserved for indigenous peoples. their right to the land is anchored in the constitution.

the karipuna population was almost wiped out during the 1970's due tconflicts over landnd due to disease. adriano's mother was one of the few to survive. today, katiká karipuna is the matriarchal figure of the community, its cultural and spiritual anchor. adriano says she gives him strength and courage to carry on the struggle. what does she think of the repeated invasions of their land? in the past, they used to lie in wait, she says. adriano translates her words from karipuna for us. they defended their land with all means available. now things are different, there are laws which the karipuna abide by. she wishes she could say the

same for the invaders. the next morning, adriano's brother andré offers to show us where the illegal loggers have been at work. everyone's a little apprehensive. they never know what they might encounter. after well over an hour, we reach an opening. at first, it doesn't look that bad. but in the forest, we find swathes of devastation. during the dry season, the tree trunks are dragged over to the other side of the river. the illegal logging began here just over six months ago. they estimate that around 2000 trees have been felled so far and the trunks dragged away. the wood such as ipé or garapa fetches a high price, but many of these species are considered

at risk. andré: we are really concerned about the extent of the logging. it is so sad to come to a place like this and see this destruction. reporter: are you afraid to come here, i ask? andré: these days we're all afraid just to move around on our own territory. because the invaders often threaten us. reporter: how do they threaten you? andré: they issue death threats. reporter: then they discover something else new -- chainsaw chains have been left lying around. batiti karipuna explains that the loggers replace them as they wear down. so it's clear they're now cutting up some of the trunks here. the karipuna suspect that the loggers' next step will be to carve up plots of land. how can land that legally belongs to the karipuna, simply be claimed by others?

well, first, the newcomers register a plot of land online. then while their applications are being checked, they create facts on the ground. more than 80 such applications have been submitted for this area. adriano: it's as though it were completely normal to destroy the forest, to make way for grazing land or soy plantations. and so it just continues, and no one is called to account. no one seeks to prosecute these crimes against our national heritage. and for us, that's what this is. but not for these people, they just see the forest as a commodity. we want the forest to stay. reporter: they report all the violations chiefly to the funai, the government authority that is supposed to safeguard the rights of brazil's indigenous

population. no one at funai is willing to talk to us. the karipuna say the authority turns a blind eye to what's happening in the amazon. andré karipuna takes us to another part of the forest. we send up a drone to film the area. in the capital porto velho, we have an appointment at the federal prosecutor's office, whose job it is to uphold the constitution. the public prosecutor often acts as a regulator for issues affecting the environment and human rights. we ask her what tools she has at her disposal to stop this destruction. nothing that's quick, she says. lengthy civil cases that drag on for years. and otherwise? tatiana: we always try to keep pace with these crimes and to expose the criminal structures behind them

and to prosecute them. but there are no state measures that are preventive. reporter: is that frustrating, i ask? tatiana: yes, it is frustrating. we have had some successes, like with two of our operations in 2019 and 2020, where we were able to curb illegal activities on indigenous territory. flights over the area later showed that the deforestation was reduced. but new cases keep cropping up. as long as there are no public structures that tackle the problem at the root, all we can do is react. reporter: adriano is also in the city and

has arranged to meet a close ally. without laura vicuna from the missionary council for indigenous peoples, they might already have lost their fight. the council has helped to document all the illegal encroachments of recent years with gps, and it's supporting the karipuna's lawsuit. laura: with this legal action against the brazilian government, against the funai authority, and against the state of rondonia, the karipuna people are making it clear that there has been enough impunity, violence, and violation of rights. the message to the judiciary is, it's time for you to wake up and take action. reporter: the karipuna are pinning their hopes on this lawsuit, which may have to go through multiple courts. for them, everything is at stake. adriano: this is where i come from.

i am part of the forest, and all of this here. host: there are billions of buildings on earth and counting. enormous amounts of raw materials are required to construct them, including 50 billion tons of sand each year. 2021 saw the production of 4.4 billion tons of cement. sand and cement are key ingredients in the world's most important building material, concrete. amazingly, construction materials are rarely recycled. when a building is demolished, they end up on the scrap heap. but it doesn't have to be like this. reporter: these german buildings do not only look modern, but they might also pave the way to a circular future. they are built according to the cradle-to-cradle concept. the idea is to replace our

cradle-to-grave economy -- where we take, make, and waste -- with a circular onehere the products are designed in a way that its materials can be reused over and over again. nora sophie griefahn is the founder of the cradle-to-cradle lab. it's an ngo dedicated to spreading circular, regenerative design thinking across industries, politicians, and designers. nora: welcome to the cradle-to-cradle lab. you can come in here. we start here, you see from the lamps that it's from a mushroom material. totally made for biological cycles. reporter: according to the concept nora sophie griefahn's father michael braungart and his colleague william mcdonough created, everything we build must go to either what they call the biological cycle, or the technical cycle. that means the materials used to build the products need to decompose, thus becoming

nutrients for the soil or dismantled to become what they call technical nutrients and reused in other products. nora: we have a showroom here where you can see a lot of products that are already produced in a cradle-to-cradle manner. this flooring, as you can see if i move, i can actually take it with me. quite cool that you don't need to glue this. it is made out of recycled material. gluing in cradle-to-cradle is not the best idea to do, because it is quite difficult to disassemble. reporter: the lab uses these carpets that are totally made of recycled fibers. nora: again, it is not glued, and you can bring it back to the company and they can recycle it and make a totally new carpet out of it. reporter: nora sophie griefhan argues that there are a lot of natural alternatives to most of our

commonly used toxic products. nora: this material is quite interesting because it's a material that you can just take from the sea and use i you don't need to actually change it a lot. reporter: so-called neptune balls are basically dead sea grass that could be collected on shores and used as a high-quality insulation material. all these examples seem perfec and relatively easy to implement. but we need to change the way we have built our homes and products for the past decades. anupama: 50 years ago, we knew that there are negative environmental consequences if we have certain building habits. so, in the beginning we had felt that we required new knowledge to be able to build appropriately. but right now, we have a different problem. reporter: professor anupama kundoo is an award-winning architect, mostly known for her sustainable projects like these ones. anupama: when standardization is being imposed, then we must have the courage to question the limits of standardization. reporter:

and the construction sector is especially standardized, and rigorously conservative. some practices haven't changed in centuries. take concrete, for example. it is the second most used material in the world, only after water. if it was a country, it would have been the world's third largest carbon polluter, after china and the u.s. last year, we produced 4.4 billion metric tons of concrete. according to the un's projections, at this rate, we would be producing enough concrete to build the entire city of paris every week for the next 40 years. that is a lot of concrete. and for several reasons, this material is not widely recycled. a big one is standardized bad practices, says marcel ozer, a circular engineer focused on cradle-to-cradle applications in the construction sector. marcel:

if you use a gypsum plaster on concrete, on a concrete wall, it's white, it looks good. so, it fulfills the purpose. but i reduce the quality of the concrete by not being able to use it ler. reporter: so, gypsum plaster makes the concrete unrecyclable. but a similar looking silicate-based plaster does not affect the reusability othe concrete. or let's look at steel, a universally used material in construction that could have an infinite life cycle. just the simple decision to use bolted connections rather than welded joints would allow the structure to be dismantled, making it easier to reuse the materials. it's all about designing smarter. while these individual solutions are amazingly easy to implement, unfortunately, they alone will not be enough to make the construction sector environmentally friendly, says nora sophie griefhan. nora: we need the market, we need the politicians, and we need the society to go for these ideas.

and i think we are already in a stage where our society sees that we need to do something different. so, cradle-to-cradle can show the solutions for how this is actually possible. reporter: cradle-to-cradle is not a miraculous idea, it is just a guide for us to think and build in cycles. just like nature does. host: recycling agricultural waste -- what could be more natural than that? it may even offer an alternative to plastic. it's got scientists excited. products like paper made from leaves, and cups made from coffee grounds are already for sale. in switzerland, there's even an idea that could appeal to beer lovers. reporter: thesprototypes may look rather modest and non-descript. but it's what they're made of that's the big deal. they come from the waste products from two breweries in

lausanne. and there's more than enough of these leftovers to go around, says designer noemi niederhauser. noemi: even small breweries produce a lot of malted residue, the disposal of which they also have to pay for. so the idea is to use this waste and put it back into a circular economy. reporter: a binding agent is added to the residue left in the tank after the beer is first brewed. once pressed, the material resembles plywood. its color depends on the brewing process used. noemi: yes, it looks like wood. that was part of my goal, to make something that's reminiscent of material folks are familiar with, even though it's a recycled product. reporter: but unlike wood, the material can be pressed into pretty much any shape.

in june, noemi niederhauser presented her wastematter project at milan design week. in the house of switzerland, she was one of nine guests invited by the swiss arts council pro helvetia. as different as their products are, they all share the same approach, says the exhibition's organizer marie mayoly. marie: through design and with the emerging talents we have here, they are all bringing new ideas in order to have better, more sustainable projects and products for the near future. reporter: the material made from beer residue is still a niche product. but it still has a bright future, like all of the projects on display here. marie: they are very pragmatic and realistic projects. that's also part of our criteria actually when selecting them, when the jury

selects them, basically. it is also that they have to be market-ready, so there is a reality in which those projects are set. reporter: lausanne's numerous breweries could provide more than enough raw material for local production, noemi niederhauser says. when scouting for business partners, she shows them what her wastematter can do. noemi: what i'm presenting are the initial prototypes. i'm showing off the raw material and the shapes that it can be made into. it's meant to spark people's imaginations. now that the development of the material is completed, the prototypes here are really the first stage. reporter: larger pieces of furniture, like tables and chairs, could be next. all made from the leftovers of beer brewing. host: this week, we try a tasty

street snack from mumbai. reporter: in india, you can find delicious food on every street corner for just a few rupees. here in mumbai, babloo jaiswal is serving pani poori. his whole family helps to prepare the deep-fried dough balls early in the morning for him to sell in the afternoon babloo: i've been making this snack for 13 years. reporter: on good days, he sells up to 4000 pieces. babloo: the ingredients in my pani poori are a blend of onions, potatoes, green chutney, and spices. i use this mixture to make the fried dough balls and serve them with flavored water.

reporter: pani poori literally translated means water in fried bread, which is where it gets its name. one portion costs 30 rupees, about half a euro. it's said that women in particular like the dish because of its sweet and sour aroma, and because the spices tingle so nicely on the tongue. >> wherever there's a pani poori stall, there's always a lot of indian women around. i always eat it outside on the street. i love it for its delicious water and the filling. it is healthy and very tasty. reporter: pani poori is well-known across india, but under slightly different names. host:

and that's all from us at “global 3000” this week. thanks for joining us. let us know what you thought of the program. drop us a line at global3000@dw.com. and visit us on facebook too, dw global ideas. see you next time. take care. ♪ [captioning performed by the

♪ >> this is dw neils, -- dw news, live from berlin. that u.n. hailing this is a beacon of hope that will ease a global food crisis. ukraine says it does not trust russia's promises. also coming up -- a u.s. court convicts steve bannon of contempt of congress. trump's former aide refuses to testify in front of lawmakers investigating last year's