In January 2016 Sue Branford travelled to Brazil to report for Mongabay and LAB on the lives of communities in Terra do Meio, Pará, one of the most remote areas of the Amazon. From Altamira, she travelled up the Iriri river, to the the Estaçāo Ecológica da Terra do Meio to talk to the beiraderio families who live there. You can read the post on Mongabay’s website here.
The Iriri River in the Amazon basin, site of the town of Maribel, and of the sustainable family-run Brazil nut mini-factory and the unsustainable ghost ranch of Julio Vito Pentagna Guimarāes. Photo: Mauricio Torres. Maribel is a small, pleasant river port, situated in the Indigenous Territory of Cachoeira Seca on the opposite side of the Iriri River from the Terra do Meio Ecological Station (ESEC-TM). The town consists of a central square, surrounded by bars painted in bright colors: blue, pink, purple, turquoise, green. Each establishment has a palm roof and large veranda, where people gather to eat, talk, drink and sling their hammocks. As night falls in that sudden tropical way, locals chat easily with our research team about the growing scarcity of fish, caused, they say, by the increasing demand of Altamira — an Amazon basin boom town swollen to over 100,000 with the coming of workers to build the gigantic Belo Monte Dam. More fishermen are moving in all the time, they explain, and encroaching on other people’s fishing areas, something that never happened in the old days. The early evening talkers move on to another popular topic: the restrictions imposed by the conservation authority, ICMBio (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservaçāo da Biodiversidade). The authorities don’t go after the real culprits, they say, the illegal loggers, big farmers and commercial fishermen who flout the regulations and clean the river out with their nets. “It’s only us, who can’t fight back”, the locals complain. “We can’t take a single fish out of the area to take to relatives in Altamira.” Although when pushed, the men do admit that the situation has improved over the last two years — though the constant monitoring still irks them. Biologist Ricardo Scoles explained why one rarely sees large animals along Amazon rivers, but plenty of small ones, such as mosquitos. Photo: Natalia Guerrero The conversation turns next to the nearby Indigenous Territory of Cachoeira Seca and the locals’ land claims there. Some had settled in the past on lands that are now being included within the recently designated 750,000-hectare (2,896-square mile) reserve — not knowing they would one day be asked to move. But the locals show little resentment toward the Indians, which is very unusual in this type of conflict, and they readily recognise the Indians’ right to the land. The locals even add that they’re prepared to move out. But, not unreasonably, they want the government to respect the law and resettle them on equally good plots of land and to pay them compensation for the house and crops they lose. The government has just completed the long process of sorting out the genuine early settlers from the grileiros (the land thieves), who moved in after the reserve proposal was made to scam a quick buck. The long process of setting up the reserve is well underway but officials appear reluctant to take the final step — the (almost) irreversible creation of the new indigenous territory. So no one has been moved out of the indigenous reserve yet, and that is generating a great deal of uncertainty. “It’s so unsettling not knowing what is happening”, complains one settler. We sling our hammocks on one of the verandas and spend a restful night. The next morning our team heads upriver in our voadeira (canoe with outboard motor). The Iriri is low, for the rains have only just begun — they came very late this year — and our pilot has to pick his way carefully around the rocky patches. The sun breaks through the clouds and we see storks, red and blue parrots (arara) and the occasional kingfisher winging its way along the bank. Now and again, we spot a jacaré (caiman) sunning on exposed rocks. Surprisingly, we see few big animals. I ask Ricardo Scoles, one of the biologists, why this is so. He explains that, while this is partly because big animals are hard to see, as most live in the dense forest canopy, there is another factor, which has to do with the tropics: with no clearly defined seasons, there is no sudden explosion of primary growth (grass, pods, fruits), as happens each spring in the temperate zone, so there is no big increase in procreation, and thus no massed animals feasting along the river bank. The Amazon forest pursues a more regular year round dynamic. But, he adds, while we are seeing few vertebrates, the Amazon has a huge number of invertebrates (small animals such as ants and mosquitos), which are evident at all times to all visitors.
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A fact-finding trip heads up the Iriri River and lands at the small river port of Maribel to talk with locals who are surprisingly willing to give up their homes for the establishment of a new indigenous reserve — provided the government follows through with resettlement and compensation promises.
- At the confluence of the Nova River, a small family-run Brazil nut processing center operates legally and sustainably within the Iriri River Extractive Reserve — a conservation territory in which limited designated economic activity is allowed. Their 20-family business utilizes the forest without destroying it.
- The research team stops to visit the ruins of Brazilian businessman Julio Vito Pentagna Guimarāes’s once vast cattle ranch, now returned to rainforest. He was notorious for his brutality and for committing one of the biggest Amazon land frauds ever. The government seized the ranch and turned it into an ecological station; he faces civil and criminal charges.
The Iriri River in the Amazon basin, site of the town of Maribel, and of the sustainable family-run Brazil nut mini-factory and the unsustainable ghost ranch of Julio Vito Pentagna Guimarāes. Photo: Mauricio Torres. Maribel is a small, pleasant river port, situated in the Indigenous Territory of Cachoeira Seca on the opposite side of the Iriri River from the Terra do Meio Ecological Station (ESEC-TM). The town consists of a central square, surrounded by bars painted in bright colors: blue, pink, purple, turquoise, green. Each establishment has a palm roof and large veranda, where people gather to eat, talk, drink and sling their hammocks. As night falls in that sudden tropical way, locals chat easily with our research team about the growing scarcity of fish, caused, they say, by the increasing demand of Altamira — an Amazon basin boom town swollen to over 100,000 with the coming of workers to build the gigantic Belo Monte Dam. More fishermen are moving in all the time, they explain, and encroaching on other people’s fishing areas, something that never happened in the old days. The early evening talkers move on to another popular topic: the restrictions imposed by the conservation authority, ICMBio (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservaçāo da Biodiversidade). The authorities don’t go after the real culprits, they say, the illegal loggers, big farmers and commercial fishermen who flout the regulations and clean the river out with their nets. “It’s only us, who can’t fight back”, the locals complain. “We can’t take a single fish out of the area to take to relatives in Altamira.” Although when pushed, the men do admit that the situation has improved over the last two years — though the constant monitoring still irks them. Biologist Ricardo Scoles explained why one rarely sees large animals along Amazon rivers, but plenty of small ones, such as mosquitos. Photo: Natalia Guerrero The conversation turns next to the nearby Indigenous Territory of Cachoeira Seca and the locals’ land claims there. Some had settled in the past on lands that are now being included within the recently designated 750,000-hectare (2,896-square mile) reserve — not knowing they would one day be asked to move. But the locals show little resentment toward the Indians, which is very unusual in this type of conflict, and they readily recognise the Indians’ right to the land. The locals even add that they’re prepared to move out. But, not unreasonably, they want the government to respect the law and resettle them on equally good plots of land and to pay them compensation for the house and crops they lose. The government has just completed the long process of sorting out the genuine early settlers from the grileiros (the land thieves), who moved in after the reserve proposal was made to scam a quick buck. The long process of setting up the reserve is well underway but officials appear reluctant to take the final step — the (almost) irreversible creation of the new indigenous territory. So no one has been moved out of the indigenous reserve yet, and that is generating a great deal of uncertainty. “It’s so unsettling not knowing what is happening”, complains one settler. We sling our hammocks on one of the verandas and spend a restful night. The next morning our team heads upriver in our voadeira (canoe with outboard motor). The Iriri is low, for the rains have only just begun — they came very late this year — and our pilot has to pick his way carefully around the rocky patches. The sun breaks through the clouds and we see storks, red and blue parrots (arara) and the occasional kingfisher winging its way along the bank. Now and again, we spot a jacaré (caiman) sunning on exposed rocks. Surprisingly, we see few big animals. I ask Ricardo Scoles, one of the biologists, why this is so. He explains that, while this is partly because big animals are hard to see, as most live in the dense forest canopy, there is another factor, which has to do with the tropics: with no clearly defined seasons, there is no sudden explosion of primary growth (grass, pods, fruits), as happens each spring in the temperate zone, so there is no big increase in procreation, and thus no massed animals feasting along the river bank. The Amazon forest pursues a more regular year round dynamic. But, he adds, while we are seeing few vertebrates, the Amazon has a huge number of invertebrates (small animals such as ants and mosquitos), which are evident at all times to all visitors.