Altamira and the real issues of the Amazon: big business versus people and animals? (more talk less travel this time)

It's two years today 6th June, as I'm putting the finishing touches to this blog post, since Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were murdered in the  Brazilian Amazon, by people involved in illegal fishing.   And a lot of things changed on that date.  MANY environmental defenders and journalists have been murdered before and since, but their deaths were widely reported and have had - and continue to have - wide repercussions throughout Brazil and through the world.   The issues continue.... here's an  article about the ongoing danger for environmental journalists, and here's an article about the Dom Phillips Foundation  being set up by Dom's widow Ale who I was lucky enough to meet when I was in Salvador in March this year. 

For those who don't know, Dom's sister Sian was my choir leader for ten years and I play music with her; and her speech at her brother's funeral  committing to keep Dom's message alive inspired me to organise a festival about the Amazon in my home town, and was part of the inspiration behind my journey to Brazil and to Brazilian Amazonia in particular. 

And after Salvador and other parts of Bahia, Recife, Fortaleza, and far too long in Sao Luis, finally I got to Amazonia.   I was running out of visa days cos I'd committed to go back to Sao Luis for Sao Joao festival, so the time I spent in Brazilian Amazonia was shorter than I'd have liked  I've been in PERUVIAN Amazonia for a week now, and look forward to writing about these places in a future blog. .   I was first in this area in 1984,  exactly forty years ago - the second reason for my being here in South America (more details in my 'storytelling session' in an earlier blog).  

The title of this blog post is 'the real issues of the Amazon: big business versus people and animals' - and I was very happy, in a strange way, to be in Altamira in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon back at the end of April: a place where the problems were upfront and in your face, away from the tourism-rich and beach-rich places I'd been hanging out in up to now.     But of course it's never as easy as that, saying 'big business versus people and animals.....' . We need minerals for our smartphones and the batteries for our electric cars that are meant to be SOLVING the climate crisis - and they come from mines, which wreck lives.... We need clean energy, hydroelectric power: but dams to provide hydroelectric power wreck lives.... 

Here, in an example half way across the world, is a BBC world service piece that I heard a while back: about Sami reindeer herders in the far north of Sweden in a fight against  a local authority plan to mine materials to build a new green infrastructure in Sweden...  What's the answer?  Is it possible to have a solution that works for everyone? 

In Altamira this definitely didn't happen.  It was Lula's previous government that signed off on the Belo Monte dam..

.. 

did they take any notice of the protests? of the rights of the people living in the area of the dam?   I said in  my last blog, I reread Eliane Brum's no holds barred book  "Banzeiro Okoto: The Amazon at the Centre of the World"  about the effects of the dam on the river and the people who lived by the river in preparation for my trip before I arrived in Altamira...  Here's a  summary of the issues that Eliane wrote for the Guardian in 2018.     Guardian journalist Jon Watts is married to Eliane: they founded the independent journalism organisation Sumauma to be able to report on the Amazon without being at the mercy of the print press which is in many cases owned by big business...  (I make a monthly contribution to support it equivalent to the cost of the gym membership I cancelled cos I never used it.  You can do that, or just get their regular newsletters by mail or by following them on facebook https://www.facebook.com/sumaumajornalismo  or instagram SUMAÚMA (@sumaumajornalismo) ).

Jon spoke at the conference I helped to organise in honour of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira as part of the 'For Dom, Bruno and the Amazon' festival, and when I told him I was going to be travelling to Amazonia overland, he invited me to stay for a few days in Altamira with him and Eliane.  (Wow what an offer).

One of my principles on this trip is never refuse an invitation... so I set off by overnight bus from Santarem at the end of April..... and eventually - after the most delicious hot chocolate i'd ever had in my LIFE, at Cacauway Jon met me and took me back to their beautiful place on the outskirts of Altamira. 

They were both busy working journalists, so he'd set me up with Thiago, a wonderful neighbour who often acted as a guide for visitors, who arranged an amazing programme for me.   .... it was going to include a visit to the dam, meeting some local people whose lives had been affected by the dam, and a local RAP BATTLE (!)

 .  We started by going out for dinner locally in a beautiful restaurant, the Ver o Rio, on the Xingu river, with a fantastic display of local indigenous artefacts . I've only just discovered while checking my photos that it's actually a curated exhibition entitled 'the igapos que habitam em nos" . Wikipedia says "Igapó is a word used in Brazil for blackwater-flooded forests in the Amazon biome. These forests and similar swamp forests are seasonally inundated with freshwater. They typically occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes." so "the Igapo who live within us... "

and now it makes sense why it was such an impressive show and why i was moved to take so many photos: 

This is the exhibition explanatory cover

and here's an auto Google Translate rendition of the text: 

The fresh waters of streams, creeks, igapós, lakes and ponds are fundamental to human existence.

Igapó. The Tupi-Guarani linguistic family defines it as a river with roots, an exuberant place, full of life, where the piracema occurs. [The word "piracema" is of Tupi-Guarani origin, from the creation story, and means "rise of the fish' ].  The igapó provides the necessary protection for the reproduction and development of multiple forms of life. Entangled by vines, it ensures fertile paths.

 The exhibition "Igapós que habitam em nós" presents the faces, ways of life, artifacts and foods of the indigenous peoples of the Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Territory, the Arara Indigenous Territory, the Arara Indigenous Territory, the Arara Indigenous Territory of the Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Territory, the Kayapó Indigenous Territory of the Kararaô Indigenous Territory, and the Juruna, Xipaya and Kuruaya Indigenous Territory who live in urban and rural contexts. Using the strength and beauty that come from traditional wisdom and nature, we have created a fertile path in art, generating an encounter of ancestral exchanges that nourish the cultural spirit of the communities. Embark on our canoe and sail through the exhibition that relates the Amazonian reference of the igapó with the abundance of indigenous art and culture. 

CONCEPT: Silvia Dinkelmann 

REALIZATION: Unyleya Socioambiental A

PPOINTMENT: Norte Energia 

S. A. CURATORS: Maria Josina Lopes de Oliveira Fila, Geilson Silva, Alany Pedrosa  Gonçalves and Deusmar Mateus Correa

COORDINATION: Silvia Dinkelmann and María Josila Lopes de Oliveira Filha

PHOTOGRAPHS: Danilo Marroco

PROJECT AND ARCHITECTURE: Storch & Lougon - Architecture and Interiors

ASSEMBLY TEAM: Ivanildo Costa, Winicio  Catete

PARTNERSHIP: Ver o Rio Restaurant

When I first arrived in Brazil I was freaked out by the hype about being robbed: I was absolutely terrified when I got out of my first taxi in Pelourinho before we found our accommodation round the corner (I got over it after a couple of days).  And arriving in Altamira, I was very aware of the hype of it being 'The Most Dangerous City in Brazil'...    but being there with friends was a very different story. 

We talked about this and of course there's something about privilege, we could be sitting comfortably in our cosy restaurant whereas just round the corner something's going on related to a completely different reality....  so we have to remember that. Another example of what I think I see isn't necessarily reality. 

Jon took me out on the Xingu River on his canoe at 6.30 a.m. on my first morning...it was GORGEOUS.

Thiago's wife, Erika, is a tropical medicine expert and advised me on a horrible bite I'd had for a week or so which was still really hurting and didn't seem to be recovering at all... and I spent a lot of time talking to their friend Nurit Bensusan., who's an environmentalist and  had just published a beautiful new novel,  "As Sete Vidas de Juarez Transamazonico"  - the seven lives of Juarez Transamazonico.   Back in 1971 when the Transamazon Highway was about to be started, a boy was born... and featured in newspapers as the first baby born in in a "brave new world'"/ 

Eliane too writes about this advert. Juarez was of course nowhere near being the first baby born in this area, think hundreds of generations of indigenous families... .  But there you are.  Nurit in her book - which is a beautifully designed work of art in itself - imagines seven potential lives of this mythical 'first baby' and it's well worth reading if you can read Portuguese....

Here's what I wrote at the time to my 'daily whatsapp group' about my time in Altamira.  [You too can join this group for daily-ish updates, see the link below]

So today was the first time I've seen the 'real.story'. actually that's not true seeing as, from the moment we arrived in Salvador ,  we saw people lying on the church steps all night and people begging for food. But today I'm in Altamira . I read my hosts book again on the boat trip last week 'Banzeiro Okoto, The Amazon at the Centre of the World'(Eliane Brum). She talks about people's lives being thrown into the air and banged down in unbelievably inappropriate alternative spaces , without compensation , from the Bel Monte dam. I was taken out to see it today , along the transamazonian highway .

 And shown the places where the fish all died and just stopped coming , where people who had businesses selling fish just lost their livelihood and lives overnight.

And we saw the 'ground zero' of the transamazonian highway - there's a symbolic tree trunk stump.remaining there , the first one that was cut down in the virgin forest to create this road in 1970... And now you drive along it and on both sides it looks like Britain - cow pastures as far as you can see .
And in the plaque the words they use - literally 'conquest' and 'colonialisation' of the forest , used as positive , 'progress' words .

Then we went to see the little houses , guaranteed for 5 (sic) years , that the people who had lost their whole way of life got moved to

And now I feel like I've spent the day at a cemetery or witnessed a death

But this is the story I wanted to hear in Amazonia , not the tours you can go on from every town 'four days in the jungle , see the parrots, photograph the nice indigenous man ...'

That night I met Jon for a drink then went to a Rap Battle! - ten or so young kids with the most amazing energy and talent!  

I didn't understand much of the lyrics but the energy and vibe was wonderful and the kids were really friendly to this older Englishwoman.... 

The next day I was taken to have breakfast with Raimunda who features in Eliane's book (and who co  writes the  Howler cartoon in Sumauma ) whose house was destroyed by the dam .. 
 I wasn't feeling too well and didn't take too much part in the conversation.... and spent the rest of the day in a hammock feeling a bit rubbish, before getting the night bus back to Santarem.    

Being part of a conversation in another language isn't a 'given'. If there are a lot of people chatting together, you have to make a real effort, ask people to wait for you, ask people to translate sometimes.... it's very easy just to assume you can't do it, and that's what happened that day.  I realised afterwards that I could have done a lot better if I hadn't had an upset stomach, and I was very cross with myself for missing the opportunity to engage with this fascinating woman. I bought a book of hers, which is a mix of stories, recipes and herbal remedies - and came with a little fold of herbal team, and wrapped in the most beautifully designed BAG (which is currently in Manaus so I can't send a photo). Great idea for selling books, to wrap them in artisania.  

There was a bit of a drama on the bus back to Santarem, it came off the road, at one point the driver and a few passengers were heroically putting stones under the tyres for grip, but eventually another bus came and towed us out of the ditch .... My musings on the way home about being in Raimunda's house were about what you see versus what is reality.  We were welcomed with a beautiful breakfast, people came in and out of the house all the time and Raimunda was obviously a central person in the community - and it felt very comfortable. But having read Eliane's book and knowing the 'back story' - about how Raimunda and her family had no intention or wish to ever live in the city, to ever live in a house, to ever have to engage with buying food, paying for utilities.... (as very clearly set out in Eliane's Guardian article linked above and again here. 
 
 
Anyway that's it for now.  Next stop Manaus, amazing culture, a 3 day 'look there's a parrot' "Amazon Adventure Tour" of the exact type I hadn't really wanted to do..... stop after that is Tefe, fascinating scientific centre.... Leticia, beautiful little Colombian place... and overland 

down to Cusco in Peru! 

Love Fiona.... 

ps for day to day updates and photos  rather than this two or more week backlog, and a chance to chat you're very welcome to join the other currently 6 people who are part of  my trip whatsapp group https://chat.whatsapp.com/IAilrufbWa91GyEIDBrE6x 

UPDATE.... it's now 12th June, I sent this out to a couple of friends for comments last week because it's not my usual 'light reading' - and I've only just had the comments back confirming that yes, light reading isn't everything, go for it!  Since then I've done something that I didn't think I was going to be able to do, and it was amazing.... watch out for future blogs when I tell all!  I have high hopes that I'll be able to do lots of writing next week when all being well I'll be on a boat between Manaus and Belem for four or five days with NOTHING ELSE TO DO but write and rest....