About the Amazon
and Indigenous People of the Amazon(contributed by Arno Kopecky)Fast Facts- Scientists estimate that 20-30% of the world’s species are native to and exist in the Amazon.
- The Amazon is a rainforest located within nine South American countries.
- 60% of the Amazon is located in Brazil.
- Six football fields of Brazilian rainforest are destroyed per minute.
- Almost half of the Amazon rainforest could vanish over the next 20 years if current land-use trends continue.
- Currently the top cause of rainforest destruction is soya bean farms to produce cattle feed.
- Two million people were living in the Amazon before colonization, according to estimates. A hundred years later, after colonization, 90% had been wiped out, mostly by disease.
The most biodiverse place in the world
The Amazon, located in South America, within Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, is the most biodiverse place on the planet. Sixty percent of the rainforest is in Brazil.
Scientists estimate that 20-30% of the world’s species are native to and exist in the Amazon. The region houses about 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and some 2000 birds and mammals. One hectare of pristine rainforest land contains over 300 species of trees. (Once hectare equals 2.46 acres.) The Brazilian Amazon alone is the home to 220,000 people from 180 different indigenous nations. The land provides these people with everything from food and shelter to tools and medicine. Their lives are inextricably linked to the land, which also plays a crucial role in their spiritual beliefs and development.
Pristine Amazon forests also serves as a carbon sink helping to regulate global weather patterns. Each acre of forest in the Amazon stores about 180 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
In Brazil, between May 2000 and August 2005, more than 132,000 square kilometers of forest were destroyed. This translates to losing the equivalent of approximately six football fields of forest per minute.
Healing powers of plantsThe rainforest’s plants contain healing properties, which indigenous tribes have known about for centuries. A significant portion of the world’s pharmaceuticals are made from a tropical forest species. Derivatives from rainforest plants are used to treat cancer, malaria, heart disease, bronchitis, hypertension, dysentery and tuberculosis. The destruction of rainforests and ensuing loss of wildlife potentially threatens new medical discoveries. The destruction of tribal societies may also mean that traditional knowledge of useful plants is also lost.
By losing the Amazon we are losing biodiversity of species, healing plants, valuable knowledge of indigenous people, causing species extinction and accelerating global warming.
Why is the Brazilian Amazon being destroyed? There are a number of factors driving the destruction of the Amazon ranging from clearing for cattle ranching and subsistence farming to logging and infrastructure development. But the number one activity driving the current destruction of the rainforest is soya bean farms.
The soya is used in various ways. For example, factories around the world grind up the soya and turn it into cattle feed, as well as feed for chickens and pigs. Massive amounts of pristine Amazon forests, the most precious and biodiverse land in the planet, are being destroyed for livestock feed.
If current land-use trends continue, almost half of the Amazon rainforest could vanish over the next 20 years, a study published in the journal
Science notes.
Indigenous peoples of the AmazonThe indigenous people of the Amazon consist of a large number of tribes, each with its own unique culture, customs and beliefs. Their knowledge and wisdom about the Amazon and its wildlife is invaluable, as is their stewardship of the rainforest. Unfortunately, like indigenous people around the world, their numbers are far fewer today than they were hundreds of years ago due to colonization and other outside influences.
It was long assumed that the Amazon’s poor soil forced pre-Europeans to live in small population groups, widely dispersed as hunters and gatherers. However, while hunter-gatherer societies certainly existed and continue to thrive to this day, recent findings point to the existence of much larger, more sedentary cultures having thrived in the heart of the rainforest. One finding occurred deep in the Brazilian Amazon in 2003, when an ancient network of precisely engineered roads was discovered in an area known as the Rio Xingu. These roads, some of them 45 meters wide, once connected dozens of villages and cities over an area of 1000 square kilometers.
Such discoveries suggest that, by carefully managing their environments, Amazonian societies did indeed support large populations. But instead of the European farm system where single crop monocultures were common, Amazon farmers may have cultivated and managed entire ecosystems.
All this changed once the Europeans arrived, however, and subjected local populations to four straight centuries of genocide and land theft. In 1524, the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro entered the Amazon from the west in search of El Dorado, the mythical land of gold rumored to exist somewhere behind the Andes. The first of many conquistadors to devastate local populations, Pizarro would destroy the Incas in much the same way as Cortes annihilated the Aztecs of Mexico, paving the way for his descendants to spread across the Amazon.
It’s estimated that some two million people were living in the Amazon when Pizarro arrived. A hundred years later, 90% had been wiped out – some by the guns of the conquistadores, but most by the germs that raced ahead of European contact. Smallpox, typhus and influenza decimated native populations so that entire nations disappeared before outsiders even laid eyes on them. In short order much of the rainforest looked as though no human had ever set foot in it.
Careful management of Amazon’s ecosystem was thus replaced with a plundering mentality which has led to more than a quarter of it being burnt or logged, and many of its rivers poisoned by the effluents from mining. Of course, the impact of such environmental degradation is felt most keenly by those who live next to it. While most indigenous peoples have partially adapted to western influence – for instance, in the clothes they wear or the tools they use – they still depend on the rainforest to provide them with food and shelter. The majority live in poverty and must constantly defend their land from the encroachments of logging, agriculture, mining, and other pressures from the outside world.
It’s important to remember that the indigenous peoples of the Amazon carry with them an understanding of their environment thousands of years in the making. Their knowledge of medicinal plants, to take just one example, holds enormous potential for the well-being of humans who may never see the Amazon themselves, yet may one day benefit from the application of such traditional knowledge. The languages, cultures and traditions of the Amazon are thus worth preserving not only for their own sake, but also for that of a world in which visions of a pre-industrial perspective are increasingly scarce.
For their part, indigenous groups like the Yawanawa, and indigenous organizations are learning to represent themselves politically. Dozens of organizations, from the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) to the Brazilian National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), are coming together to provide these marginalized peoples with a collective voice. Without such representation at federal and international levels, the chances were slim that indigenous cultures would withstand the onslaught against them; with it, they are poised to regain their ancestors’ standing as guardians of one of earth’s most luscious ecosystems.
What is being done to save the Amazon?The good news is that, while serious threats continue, the Brazilian government is beginning to come to the defense of the Amazon and its original inhabitants. In 1988, a new constitution was signed into law that set aside 26.5% of the Amazon for indigenous use. Some say this amount is insufficient while others say that it's a good start, especially considering that indigenous people constitute just a quarter of one percent of the country’s population.
Also, Brazil is beginning to crack down on illegal deforestation in all its forms. Figures from the National Institute of Space Research in Brazil indicate that the rate of deforestation has decreased more the 50% since 2004.
What can I do to help?
- Support groups like the Yawanawa who are dedicated to preserving the Amazon and indigenous culture.
- Stay informed.
- Watch and tell others about the 4REAL Yawanawa episode.
- Watch the Yawanawa-produced documentary "YAWA ," full-screen on your computer through 4REAL.com and Vividas. Proceeds go to the Yawanawa.
- Read books and articles about the Amazon.
- Make conscious decisions as a consumer. For example, do you spend your dollars buying products and services from companies that directly or indirectly support destruction of the rainforest?
