Last year, 2002, the Amazon region lost some of its most important voices, which will never be replaced in their uniqueness. Their messages, however, will continue to be echoed through the new generations of Indianists, Environmentalists, and Amazon lovers. The lost voices will be forever missed, but we hope and trust that new voices will come up with the same tone and strength.

José Lutzenberger died in May, 2002. He was one of our best known environmental activists and a committed defender of our ecosystem. He published a book in 1976 - “The End of the Future: A Brazilian Ecological Manifesto” - and in 1987 founded a group called GAIA, focusing on global issues. In 1988, he won the Right Livelihood Award (the so-called “Alternative Nobel”) in recognition of his work. In 1990, Lutzenberger became our Secretary of the Environment and started working to reverse government policies that only favored corporate interests and encouraged depredation of the Amazon. His most extraordinary accomplishment, along the two years he stayed in office, was designing a 36,000 square mile shrine for the Yanomami Indians in the Amazon. Less than 3 months before the “Earth Summit” held here in Brazil - from June 3 through June 14, 1992 - he was forced to leave office from having confronted many powerful interests. He completely stayed away from politics after that and resumed his work in GAIA until his death last year.

Cacique (Chief) Mario Juruna died in July, 2002. He was a chief of the Xavante Indians and the only Indian to serve in the Brazilian Congress up to this date. He learned to speak Portuguese only at 16 and was an extraordinary defender of Indian rights. He carried a tape recorder with him to his meetings with politicians to register their promises. These recordings came out in a book he published in 1983, “Juruna’s Tape Recorder”. Cacique (Chief) Juruna was not a successful politician but he must be regarded not as a “folkloric” character but as a role model for other Indians.

Dom Tiago died in August, 2002. He was a Roman Catholic American missionary whose real name was James M. Ryan. For more than 25 years he administered the largest diocese in the world, a jungle domain with more than 125,000 square miles. When a military dictatorship took power in 1964, he became known as a defender of human rights and the environment. He used the diocese radio station to denounce abuses even under the threats of local army officers. He retired in 1985, went back to Chicago, United States, but the appeal of the Amazon was too strong for him, so he came back and moved into a small house overlooking the Tapajós River where he could read, write, and receive the many visitors who continued to come his way. Dom Tiago was buried just a block away from the Amazon river, in the Cathedral of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, in Santarém.

On December 12th, 2002, we lost one of our most vocal voices: Orlando Villas-Boas. Called “the Indians’ friend” for his role in establishing the 46,000 square mile Xingu Indigenous National Park, our first successfully protected area. He was an explorer. Together with his also well-known and loved brothers Cláudio and Leonardo Villas-Boas, he started in 1943 the Roncador-Xingu expedition, which was continued for 17 years. The expedition reached the heart of the Amazon and made contact with more than 100 indigenous tribes. His main rules for the Xingu reservation were: keep other Brazilians and tourists out; do not impose white man’s logic; and keep the knowledge of healers out of the hands of “biotech pirates”, those who sell it to pharmaceutical companies. Together with his brother Cláudio, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 and 1975. In 1990, Orlando Villas-Boas was fired by fax as a consultant to FUNAI, the government Indian protection agency. Then he wrote down his reminiscences, adding to several books about Indian traditions that he and his bothers had written along the years. In 2001, he was appointed for a seat at the prestigious Brazilian Academy of Letters but it was the well known writer Paulo Coelho who took the place instead.

Now, some good news...

As you may know, the Amazon basin accounts for more than half of what remains of the world’s tropical forests. It is an area larger than Europe and extends over nine countries in South America. The idea of a “sustainable development” is difficult for a country so rich of natural resources, but it is slowly soaking in. The deforestation rate is being slowed and in 2002 the world’s largest tropical national park, in the state of Amapá, near the border with French Guyana, was created . Despite the decline in deforestation rates being in part credited to the slowing down of the Brazilian economy last year, government steps played an important role in this improved performance. It seems that it is being finally recognized that the predatory occupation of the jungle does not work and that “sustainable development” is the name of the game.

One of the most important steps last year was the demarcation of indigenous lands. More than 385,000 square miles, an area larger than England and France together, was transferred to Indian control. As a result, tribes with a “warrior” tradition have started defending the reserves set aside for them, becoming the defenders of the forest. Environmentalists say that “where Indian land starts is where the fires stop” and this statement can be easily confirmed by satellite images.

There is, unfortunately, a very serious pending issue, which I have only decided to list here under “good news” because environmentalists worldwide are taking action upon it: the Raposa Serra do Sol project. Pro Regenwald has set up a campaign site (www.wald.org/raposa/index4.php3), inviting individuals and organizations to sign on to the campaign. It generates automatic messages to the Brazilian officials, and registers public support for the campaign. All the organizations that signed the letter to former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso are listed on the site. Unfortunately, despite their strong campaign at the end of last year, and the hard work done on the ground by the Indigenous Council of Roraima, our former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso did not ratify Raposa Serra do Sol before leaving office.

According to Pro Regenwald, had he signed the ratification of RSS, celebrations in the area would have echoed across the world. "(...) We were indeed hopeful, and kept listening for those celebrations through the end of the year. There were hopeful signs: the Brazilian government itself recognized CIR (the Indigenous Council of Roraime) for it’s work on the issue through two awards. Also, we've learned that government officials targeted through our campaign were receiving some 50 e-mails per hour".

Luis Inacio Lula da Silva became president on January 1st, 2003, and a new model letter was composed by Pro-Regenwald and addressed to the new President. (You can either visit Pro-Regenwald website or browse the model letter from here.)

Despite President Lula not having yet taken any action upon this issue during his first days in power, we are confident that he will do it soon. Until then the campaign goes on, since we all know about the tendency of governments (worldwide) to act under “spontaneous pressure”.

Yet, there are lots of reasons for hope, since in this new administration environmental issues will be taken care of by a former Senator and now Minister Marina Silva.

This extraordinary woman was born in the Amazon and spent her childhood making rubber, hunting and fishing, She was illiterate until she was 16 years old and an illness brought her to the city. She soon earned a university degree and went on to found the independent trade union movement with rubber taper and leader and “martyr” Chico Mendes, murdered in 1988. She was awarded in 1996 the Goldman Environmental Prize for her sustained and important efforts to preserve the natural environment and protect endangered ecosystems. Goldman Prize winners often are literal and figurative “voices of the wilderness”, men and women from isolated villages who are willing to take great personal risks to safeguard the environment. The prize legitimates their voices and provides them with international recognition that enhances their credibility.

Another reason for hope is that Brazil inaugurated in July 2002 a high-tech radar system to watch over our two million square miles of Amazon jungle. It was an American-financed $1.4 billion project with some funds from Sweden and that will now detect drug smugglers and incursions by Colombia’s guerrillas. It was first conceived for environmental protection and will certainly be a most valuable tool in combating deforestation and illegal mining. The system includes 900 listening posts spread on the ground all over the Amazon and, from a distance of up to 125 miles and 33,000 feet, it will be able to detect an image as small as a human being.

Of course there is no advantage in having a radar system that can see airplanes transporting drugs and arms but not being able to force them to land. For achieving that, there was a projected $760 million purchase of jet fighter planes by the Brazilian government, which was suspended by the new administration. The halt was announced by Defense Minister José Viegas who said that this project — which would be one of the biggest military expenditures in Latin America in the last quarter century — would have to be postponed for at least a year. Amazon Surveillance System, though, will still be able to accomplish its primary purpose of tracking deforestation, protecting Indian lands, and preserving our natural riches by making the state present in our most remote areas.

Our new Government’s decision reflects the urgency of Brazil on focusing its efforts on the question of hunger and was welcomed wholeheartedly by the 52 million voters and the great majority of our 175 million citizens. Our new President’s priorities are to honor contracts "and" combat hunger, this last one still being a major problem in Brazil.

I wish to cordially invite you all to closely follow-up his work, trusting we will be the witnesses of the day this wonderful country has finally started to change, for good.

---

Christina Ramos is a designer, holistic therapist and human rights activist. She contributes regularly with articles to this Mag, and can be reached at gaia2001@uol.com.br

Send your opinion about this article to: editor@brazilianist.com

---