Miguel Pinheiro | Questioning Narratives: Systems of Influence and the Art of Framing
Everyone knows chocolate, and everyone has an opinion about the Amazon. Yet very few people have been inside the supply chains that connect Amazon communities to the global market. Through the lens of cacao—a fruit native to the Amazon and one of the world’s most traded commodities—this session examines how climate narratives, European regulation, and certification systems reshape the daily realities of the people who actually live and work in the forest. What happens when policies designed to protect the Amazon are built on assumptions that have never been tested on the ground? What gets lost when one of the most complex socio-ecological systems on Earth is reduced to a simple story about trees? Drawing on direct experience with local communities and the regulatory frameworks shaping life in the Brazilian Amazon, this session invites participants to look beyond the headlines and ask: What does the Amazon actually need—and who gets to decide?
About the Speaker
Miguel Pinheiro is a scientist, documentary filmmaker, and supply chain practitioner based in the Brazilian Amazon. Trained in Biochemistry and Neuroscience, he spent over a decade producing award-winning documentary work across Europe, Africa, and Brazil, covering the environment, land conflicts, forest economies, and cultural diversity. That journey led him to relocate permanently to the Amazon, where he now works at the intersection of regenerative agriculture, biodiversity sourcing, and regulatory compliance, navigating certification systems and stakeholder relationships from inside the forest. He writes Amazonia Prestige, a newsletter documenting what Amazon supply chains look like from the ground up, and the distance between sustainability policy and the territory it claims to serve.
About the Mastercourse
This webinar is part of the 'Climate and Political Influence in The Age of Information Crises' Online Mastercourse, held on the 17th-19th of March 2026, and hosted by Tactical Tech. This online mastercourse explores methods and tactics to navigate, investigate and expose how climate and political influence shape our decisions and choices as individuals, organizations, communities and societies.
How do we navigate information and misinformation overload while multiple crises are unfolding everywhere, all the time? And how can we do this as media, journalists, investigators or NGOs when our role is to inform our communities and work for the public interest while facing ever-increasing challenges?
Climate is at the forefront of technological, economic and political power interactions. Journalists and scientists investigate climate disasters, their causes and how societies can adapt to them; tech companies strive to appear greener while seeking new ways to mine the environment to increase efficiency and profit; political actors navigate the usual cycle of power-grabbing, survival and compromise; for activists, it is “now or never” – it has been like that for a long time. Each actor has their own public influence mechanisms, some louder than others, some less ethical than others. Who can be trusted and how can people make informed choices when they can no longer verify the message, the channel or the source?
About Us
The Mastercourse is provided by Tactical Tech, an international NGO that engages with citizens and civil-society organisations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society.
This mastercourse is part of the “Media Organisations for Stronger Transnational Journalism” (MOST) project, which aims to strengthen the resilience of independent media outlets in Europe by offering innovative business and audience development strategies, and a collaborative platform for the exchange of knowledge, resources, and content. The MOST project consortium is led by OBC Transeuropa and includes Le Courrier des Balkans, New Eastern Europe, European Pravda, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), El Orden Mundial, and Tactical Tech. The MOST project is funded by the European Commission CREA Fund (GA 101180285).
Credits and Licensing
This Mastercourse is produced by Jasmine Erkan and Laura Ranca from Tactical Tech's Exposing the Invisible project.
Video Editing: Sam Harper
Music: Theatre Of Delays - bensound.com (License Code: SXFLPHKIVPEMAFOF)
This Mastercourse is co-funded by the European Union and Swedish Postcode Lottery Foundation.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
