to prepare for a trip to the Amazon means encounter, even before the departure, in a series of images that the great forest of northern Brazil and its river, immense, winding, and promise to evoke.
Even I had the privilege of experiencing such emotions in a living experience that now rediscovering be the most significant of my life.
I started on November 15 last year for a project of cooperation (on which I work for several months), which provided the delivery of sixteen solar-powered radio to one of the indigenous groups that live isolated in the Amazon rainforest.
To reach this isolated indigenous population we started from Santarem, a small town in north-eastern state of Para, where he was waiting for a hot and humid, sweltering and sticky. With a small plane with four seats, after an hour and forty flying north towards the border with Suriname, you land on a runway no more than 500 meters long, where there are waiting for them, the Zo'è . Now there's
their Zo'è. Defined by anthropologists as the last indigenous people "intact" of the Amazon, have been known in the early 90's as one of the last indigenous peoples to come into actual contact with Western society. Impossible not to be swept away by their kindness, their innocence to a first sight seems unreal but then you understand what these people are one with the forest. What
the Amazon rainforest is no longer intact, it was known for a while '. But the figures released today by modern satellite techniques reveal that the damage caused by the activity of deforestation are much worse than they thought. Apart from the well-known environmental damage caused by deforestation, there are moral reasons, cultural and social safeguard this precious ecosystem. The gradual advance of organized economic development in remote regions threatens to destroy the last tribal people, whose isolation has allowed the preserve of traditional lifestyles in perfect harmony with the natural environment. These vast repositories of community heritage of traditional knowledge and experience that link humanity with its ancient origins. Their disappearance is not only a loss for society as a whole, which would have much to learn from their traditions, but the serious dangers threatening the forests they inhabit and protect for centuries.
Now, the climate and environmental balance of the planet, that so much care about the West, can not ignore the preservation of these inhabitants of the great forests and the protection of their traditional lifestyles. The key to the survival of this population resides in recognizing their right to land and other resources, and inalienable right to collective ownership of their territories. In other words, we need new strategies to rethink the complex relationship between man and environment. And it was through the lively activities of some NGOs, supported and followed closely by the Italian Greens, which is taking shape a new strategy "antideforestazione" which is to promote trade in forest products directly by the villagers on the banks of the Tapajos , the tributary of the Amazon. A closer look because the effects of deforestation have a serious impact on a social level and that the impact on local populations, whose survival is intimately linked integrity of the forest. The idea pursued by international organizations is to promote the economy of the forest to face the last battle against the invaders: the sojeros, ie soy producers that break down the rainforest to make way for their plantations. The activities of these NGOs has been successful in a few years to reduce child mortality by 75% and vice versa to increase the level of education, to create an inexpensive alternative that can stop the desperate flight to the suburbs of big cities. Have introduced micro-credit through the collection of rubber by siringueiros has developed considerably crafts the forest. Moreover, thanks to a system of information exchange and a postgraduate course, the design of handbags and accessories in rubber is improved. On the Internet, has begun direct sales of products made of natural rubber. E 'nato a newspaper on the web to connect the various communities and has been launched to promote a sustainable tourism circuit that is beginning to bear fruit.
All these interventions have blocked the migration of peoples of the forest, determined to choose to stay, giving him a hope against the horde of gunmen and sojeros.
And 'in fact, soy, most of GM, the accused number one this dramatic deforestation. The forest die under the onslaught of chainsaws and fire, with the main aim of creating large areas for cultivation manforte giving the accelerated growth of agribusiness.
The data are staggering: since man began the attack on the Amazon is gone 680,000 km square, France and Portugal put together, only in 2004 have disappeared over 25,000 square miles of Amazonia, an area the size of Sicily ; Brazil is the biggest exporter of soybeans after conquering the Chinese market and within two years will surpass the U.S. as world's largest producer.
In May, the President Lula visited China with the governor of Mato Grosso Blairo Maggi, a descendant of immigrants from Brescia, the largest private grower of soybeans in the world. Maggi is the one who with the support of the Brazilian government has created a network of port terminals along the rivers of the Amazon. The ships are outfitted trucks that come from the soybean crops inside the forest to make more widespread exploitation, irreversible destruction. The world's largest corporations, like Cargill, Bounge, Monsanto, have in turn set up their terminal Arapiuns and Tapajos rivers. Large tracts of forest have been sold for figures less than 20 euro per hectare. A Ulianapolis is already planting transgenic soybeans. In less than two years
plantations came to cross the Amazon River and endanger the lives of Indian peoples living in the area of \u200b\u200bXavantes the sources of the Xingu River 'and the indigenous isolates Zo'è: a population was discovered only a few years ago. If you do not stop this destruction of the Amazon rainforest in 2035 will be transformed into a semi-arid savanna.
This environmental devastation is unprecedented in a climate of violence covered by the silence and unknown to the public.
The Amazon and the question of the Indians but did not appear among the priorities of the Lula Goven. In PT (trabahadores party) won the line developed and industrialist who is sacrificing on behalf of the gross domestic product, the future not only in Brazil but to the entire planet. And in the face of the massacres of Indians silence reigns supreme.
What is happening in the Amazon must be stopped if we are to protect the delicate balance between the environment and the people who inhabit it and defend it, and ensure that 600 million tonnes of CO2 per year continue to be cleaned from the forest.
The Amazon forest is still belittled, but the northern hemisphere seems to have forgotten that with the decrease of these areas are also limits the prospects of humanity.
