Where the fight for the forest began

We are in Ipiranga, a small community of few hours by river boat up the Guajara river, a tributary of the Amazon river. This is the battlefront. Where communities' traditional livelihoods clash with the loggers and fishermen who want only to exploit the resources they depend on.

We travelled up the Amazon from Gurupá and entered the small river yesterday where we had to leave the Arctic Sunrise at the mouth because the water levels here are too shallow in the dry season.

We are travelling on the western edge of the proposed extractive reserve.

We have stopped in the community of Ipiranga. A small community of no more than 20 houses stretched on either side of the river. It is the dry season and the water levels are low exposing green fields around the houses and the long skinny stilts the houses sit on.

Yet even in the dry season, it is almost impossible to go from one house to another on foot. There are small streams in between the houses leading into the fields that separate the houses into many small groupings.

Around the houses are fields where they keep buffalo, and in the dry season plant some small crops. The pungent smell of buffalo manure and occasionally drying fish fills the air.

The people here survive on subsistence farming and fishing including some small sales to the local market and people passing through.

But there aren't nearly as many fish as there used to be.

We went to visit a family just 200 metres down stream from where we are docked, still we had to take one of the small aluminium boats. Jacinto and Maria Costa da Silva, have 11 children, but most of them have already left the community, some for the bigger cities and now there are just six people living in their house including a grandson.

Jacinto said that their used to be lots of fish, including pirarucu, the biggest fish in the Amazon. But then commercial boats came from the big cities like Belem, with big boats capable of making ice and carrying as much as 50,000 tonnes of fish.

Their fish started to disappear and this is when the communities here first started talking about creating an extractive reserve.

Extractive reserves are areas protected by law for conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources by the traditional communities inhabiting them. This model was developed in the 1980s by forest dwellers under the leadership of Chico Mendes and the National Council of Rubber Tappers and adopted by the Brazilian federal government in 1990. These reserves guarantee local families the collective right to land and its natural resources, allowing them to keep on living from their traditional economic activities, while preserving the environment.

But the official proposal for the reserve is was a long way off and the fish stocks all but dried up.

Now Jacinto says the biggest threat is from the loggers.

We all sat in his small house with his wife and children and he told us about his life and the current situation in Ipiranga.

Jancinto was born here and lived here all his life. Then there used to be forest, but loggers came and cut some of the trees, the land dried out and much of what we can see down river was destroyed by fire.

However, they used to go to a forest about six kilometres away where his brother lives to gather timber to build their houses, collect vines, fruits and seeds and hunt small animals.  But three years ago a local logging company showed up and showed the locals papers that they own the forest and the locals were not allowed to use it anymore. Now Jacinto and others like him have to buy their timber from small time loggers in the area.

This is a tall price for someone who has always made his living from the forest. They produce their own food and the only income they have comes from the small amount of fish they sell which can be anywhere from US$10 to $75 a month depending on how good the fishing is.

Jacinto says the logging companies bring no benefits to the communities. When we ask if the companies hire local people for the logging, Maria shakes her head and gives us a desperate smile. Jacinto says they hire people from outside and bring them in.

Two years ago Jacinto went to Santarem to learn more about extractive reserves, he now believes that the reserve will help them, his children and grandchildren.  He said it would be much different if the reserve was already well established. His children and grandchildren would be able to taste beautiful fish and different palm fruits. But now they can't because they are cut off from the forest by the logging companies.

He hopes that Greenpeace will be able to help them get organised to establish the reserve. There are 20,000 people spread out over 8 million hectares, most with no electricity or radio contact, so it is a slow process and with every day the creation of the reserve is delayed, the loggers advance on their territory.

We thank them for their hospitality and head back to the river boat in the full heat of day.

After lunch Paulo suggested we do some piranha fishing "better we eat them before they eat us". But seems his enthusiasm got the better of him when he gets a good nip from one of the piranha and ends up being sent to the doctor. Only a flesh wound though. I think I'll pass on a swim today.

Tracy

For more information about the proposed extractive reserve, read "Heroes of the new wild west".

Posted by Amazon Team at November 10, 2003 07:00 PM