Trouble in paradise

We are visiting communities around the Acarcí river, the most beautiful place in Pára I have seen. It is a state almost devastated by logging and cattle ranching and this is one of the last large areas of forest where the people live in harmony with the land.

We headed down river this morning in one of the aluminium speed boats with Maria Luiza, one of the community leaders in this area. I immediately loved her. She is a feisty grandmotherly figure of 65. Fighting illegal loggers isn't want she planned to be doing in her old age, but it is a role she seems perfectly suited for.

Communities in this area have been fighting invaders wanting to exploit their natural resources for almost 20 years. It began when large fishing boats arrived with big nets and began taking all the fish in the rivers. The communities stood up to them, told them they weren't allowed to enter and stopped the large fishing boats.

Maria Luiza has been an active community leader since then and was involved in setting up the first community area of communal forest and farming in the area.

She says she could be living peacefully in her house, but she doesn't accept the way things are. She doesn't accept loggers invading the forest and their community areas.

And her activism has come at a cost. Her life is under threat. Just this past weekend at the logger's protest in Porto de Moz one of the people behind the protest was heard saying  that if they were finished with Maria Luiza and others, they would be finished with the problem.

Because of her years of work in this region, she knows many of the people in the area and she came along with us today to talk to people in another community about the extractive reserve and invite them to a massive meeting the community leaders are planning.

We headed down river, out the mouth of the Acaraí and further up the Xingu river. The wind was strong and the ride was rough and wet in our small boat. As we approached the beach of the community, waves began coming in over the back of our boat. Our boat lurched and the propeller hit the beach and with another large wave our boat was full of water and our lunch was beginning to float away.

Luckily I grabbed my camera equipment in time and several men from the community came running down the beach and helped us bail the water out and pull the boat on to the beach. Off to an interesting start.

The community is spread out around a point with sandy beaches, clean water, a lush forest and a peaceful way of life. The name is Céu Aberto which translates as Open Skies. These people are fighting to hold on to paradise.

It wasn't the warm welcome we received in the community of Por Ti Meu Deus where our riverboat is moored and we soon found out why.

The loggers had told them that we would poison their water.

The logger continue to feed false information to the communities to stop them from supporting the reserve and fighting for their rights. They tell them they will not be able to continue their lives living off the land. That they won't be able to fish or hunt for food. But poisoning them? This is a new low.

And some of the community people believe the loggers. They have little other information.

We are lucky to have Maria with us. She explains we are here to help them, to help them fight for the reserve and their rights and keep illegal logger out of the region.

Carlos asks the community members how much they can get for one log if they sell it in town. They tell us 25 reais, about US$10. Carlos asks them to guess how much that one log is sold for after it has been processed into flooring and other products. One man says 500 reais. Carlos tells him between 8,000 and 10,000 reais after processing. The man smiles, but in his eyes I can see the anger and pain.

These people live simple and happy lives. They take only from the forest and the rivers what they need to live. How must it feel to find out you are being taken advantage of? While you are making only enough to feed your family others are getting rich.

We talk with the members of the community in the school and some people have not been scared off by the loggers, they are still supportive of the reserve and say they will come to the meeting.

I get the feeling Maria has a secondary crusade as well. She is always trying to get the women in the communities involved, asking them to speak their mind and join in the activities with the men. She is a strong woman and she wants other women in the communities to take an active role in their future.

Maria says "together we can find a solution, because right now everything is being destroyed. We will create this, we can have rivers full of fish. This is not preservation, it is conservation."

I hope that we can help them achieve their goal. There is so much magic in this forest, the people's smiles and the laughter of the children. To lose this paradise to flooring, cabinetry and plywood would be a crime.

You can help by sending a letter of support to the Brazilian government asking them to take action to create the extractive reserve for the conservation of the forest and the communities' way of life.

Tracy

Posted by Amazon Team at November 28, 2003 08:20 AM