Loggers take over air waves

Most communities in the region are catholic, but there are a few that are not. On the Guajara river, the community of Ipiranga is divided into catholic on the left shore and evangelical right shore.

We left the Captao Darios this morning and headed up the Acaraí river to visit Paraíso do Senhor Jesus, and evangelical community, to talk to the community people about the creation of the extractive reserve.

It takes us about 20 minutes by speed boat on a wide river with steep shores, covered with trees. The landscape is very different from the other two rivers we visited before. There, instead of steep shores with trees, there were empty floodplains as far as the eye could see.

The plains are great to raise buffalos, which is the main economic activity in the region. Here, with no plains around, people live more from wood extraction and the few crops they grow.

Paraíso is a relatively large community, with about 30 families. We talk to a few people about the reserve. As in all the other communities, they have several doubts about the reserve. For the past few days we have heard a lot of propaganda on the Porto de Moz radio telling people that after the creation of the reserve they will have to obey very strict rules concerning what they can hunt, fish or extract from the forest. The radio is owned by the mayor Gerson Campos who also owns a saw mill in town.

The people from the community of Pedereira who came with us, explain that that is not true. Unfortunately the minister is not here, so we cannot have a word with him. He would be a key person in this village to explain to people exactly what a reserve will mean for them.

But we take a quick look at the church, made out of bricks and concrete, as opposed to all the other churches here made from wood. There are a few benches in there, a table for the minister and a drum. There is also a water pit next to it, from which the whole community takes water, instead of taking it directly from the river.

At the 'farinha house', the house where people make 'farinha', flour from manioc, they were also making beiju or tapioca. That is made from a white powder also extracted from manioc, which when fried turns into little white balls. The beiju itself looks like a white pancake, with a rubber texture.

As we go back we pass by the house of an old lady. She is sitting in her door and we have a chat with her. She tells us that she came here when her oldest boy was just three months old, 30 years ago now.  She loves this place, put it is hard to make a living here. "We all live from our sweat," she says. Nobody gets any help from the government, no pensions, nothing. She is clearly disillusioned with all good intentions as nothing ever comes from them. She says she puts all here faith in the only one who can really make a difference.

Although there are some doubts because of the misinformation campaign by the loggers, many of the people in this community are positive about the reserve once they have all the facts and are eager to participate in the joint community meeting.

Merel