As COP31 turns to children, “Forest Patrol”, a rainforest comic born in an Amazon classroom, reaches Ecuador
Forest Patrol, a children’s comic about the Amazon rainforest, created from the story ideas of schoolchildren who live there a UK community interest company, is being sent to Ecuador for the first time this week through the conservation charity Rainforest Concern
The shipment coincides with COP31 in Antalya, where Saturday 14th November is the UN climate summit’s day for children, youth, education and skills. The comic’s creators, film director Yousaf Ali Khan and comic artist John Erasmus, will be there from today, Friday 13th November, until 16th November.
Forest Patrol began in the Amazon. Erasmus and Ali Khan were in the region researching a different project when a visit to a riverside school inspired the idea. In 2012, a workshop organised by Christine Del Vechio Koike of the Mamirauá Institute, held on Brazil’s Children’s Day, brought local children together to contribute the story ideas. The children of the Amazon were the comic’s first collaborators and its first readers.
“Our generation failed the forest,” said Yousaf Ali Khan. “The least we can do is help children take up the mantle. They will be the next custodians of the rainforest and of nature, and a story they love is a good place to start.”
The printed comics are available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and the stories are free to schools everywhere. In the UK, schools receive the comic with lesson plans linked to the primary national curriculum.
A Forest Patrol app is also now live on the App Store and Google Play. A second phase is in development, planned for launch at COP32 in Addis Ababa in November 2027. More languages will be added, with Amazonian indigenous languages a priority, along with a read-to-me feature for younger children.
Everything the app earns goes back into the work of Amazonas Comics CIC, the community interest company behind Forest Patrol.
Antalya is the team’s first COP. They are there to prepare for Addis Ababa, and are looking for a partner organisation to share a stand at COP32.
Amazonas Comics CIC is a UK community interest company that tells the story of the Amazon rainforest in comic form for children.
•Amazonas Comics CIC is online at amazonascomicscic.com. If you can help them continue their work then please get in touch
More about Amazonas Comics
Comic and storyboard artist John Erasmus and writer and film directorYousaf Ali Khan conceived Amazonas Comics while staying on a floating research facility on the Amazon River in 2011; a place louder than any city and teeming with more life than anywhere else on the planet.
John’s comic book credits include work for Dark Horse, Marvel and Time Bomb Comics. His film and TV storyboard credits include The Raven, House at the End of the Street, Gotham, Lucifer, Wanderlust and Doctor Who.
For John, Amazonas Comics is a passion project which he hopes will contribute, through the education system, to the growing global environmental conservation movement.
“We felt like Armstrong must have when viewing Earthrise from the lunar surface. We decided we had to make some effort to raise awareness of this unique and vital environment. After all, the Amazon rainforest is the planet’s lungs, and we’ve already lost 20% of its ‘lung function’ through deforestation since the late 1950s – contributing significantly to our planet’s ailing health. Preserving what remains is essential to halting global warming and continued species extinction.”
Given John and Yousaf’s combined skills, the vastness of the Amazon, and the remoteness of many communities, a children’s comic made perfect sense.
“For 20 years, the scientific community has tried to get the message out – but it’s largely been ignored. Amazonas Comics aims to inform and empower the next generation, whose future has been undermined by this one.”
Yousaf and John both emphasise the importance of working with Amazonian communities to develop the comic’s characters and stories.
“Too many communities have been spoken for – disenfranchised and disavowed.”
With the kind support of the UK-based charityRainforest Concern, local teachers ran story workshops with schoolchildren in communities downriver from Tefé. Many of the comic’s storylines grew from the children’s ideas and local folklore. Maintaining and developing this grassroots approach remains central to the project.
The children of the Amazon are the future guardians of the rainforest, but they need support from all of us. Amazonas Comics distributes for free to small river schools along the Amazon River and over 300 schools in the UK.
Amazonas Comics CIC is online at amazonascomicscic.com. If you can help them continue their work then please get in touch
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who MagazineandOverkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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