‘It is difficult to come across a book as enlightening, far-reaching and appropriate as the Amazon in Times of War in accessing the complexity of the Amazon in a meaningful way,’ argues Brazilian journalist and writer Jotabê Medeiros.
Main image: Indigenous people from the Matis and Mayuruna ethnic groups during a protest over the disappearance of journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous rights defender Bruno Pereira, in the town of Atalaia do Norte, Javari Valley, Amazonas state, Brazil. Photo: Edmar Barros.
Looking at what is happening in the Amazon helps us to understand environmental issues that are being faced all over the world. Geopolitical tension and competition for influence in the region has and will continue to have globally-felt repercussions. It is therefore impossible to ignore. Such politics, what Marcos Colón calls environmental fascism in his new book The Amazon in Times of War, have wide ranging consequences, from public health to cultural heritage and beyond.
Colón’s book is an attempt to dispel the cloud that hangs over the region. And indeed, it is difficult to come across a book as enlightening, far-reaching and appropriate as the Amazon in Times of War in accessing the complexity of the Amazon in a meaningful way. The twenty chapters, divided in form between essays and journalism, cover the turbulent period of 2018 to 2021. Colón delves into the Amazon’s major socio-political and environmental issues. The period in question saw the populist far right —which has surged in popularity around the world— increasingly stigmatizing and delegitimizing attempts to face up to the climate crisis.
‘At around three in the afternoon on the 19th August 2019, Sāo Paulo was submerged in total darkness: day turned into night,’ writes Colón. The smoke that caused the darkness over Latin America’s largest city came from fires in Pantanal and The Amazon. The phenomenon turned the attention of international media towards Brazil. This in turn revealed that the Brazilian government was encouraging illegal mining and settlement in the burning territories. This was coupled with rhetoric from the Brazilian government blaming the fires on the previous left-wing administration. The above lays out the political climate in and about which the book’s essays are written.
With academic dexterity and rigour, Colón covers the geographical and human composition of Amazonian cities and their problems. He discusses urban areas such as Careiro da Várzea in Manaus where infrastructure damage due to flooding is paired with preventable death due to insufficient public health resources. Colón emphasises how Indigenous communities are often placed in the most vulnerable positions but that, despite this, they show strong resistance in continuing to be protectors and defenders of the rainforest. No surprise, therefore, that they became objects of attack by the Brazilian government. Colón highlights how Bolsonaro’s government turned a blind eye to worsening economic situations and public health disasters, held back from punishing illegal settlers, and did not give adequate protection to well-meaning government officials and inspectors. All the while, he handed over much of the administration away from local custodians to the military, unaccustomed and under-equipped to act as custodians to the local terrain.
The insight Colón gives into Bolsonarian policy helps explain the precarious situation that the Amazon finds itself in today. To give a sense of such precarity: Bolsonaro transferred the responsibility of certifying and administering Indigenous lands from the National Foundation for Indigenous Communities to the Ministry of Agriculture, a clear conflict of interest with the latter’s interest in industrial scale, monocultural farming. Despite Lula’s election victory in 2022 having ushered in the end of Bolsonaro’s administration, many of the impacts of the move to the Far Right in the late 2010s are still yet to have their full effects. To give one example, it will take years to fully understand the impact of Bolosonaro’s authorisation of 439 new types of pesticides into food production.
Colón’s essays cover the period that arguably produced a level of global consensus that the environment is the central concern of this century. Therefore, his essays also cover one of the most decisive points in our fight against climate change. All the while, organised crime continues to grow in the Amazon. Colón introduces the reader to such groups and the web of conflicts and alliances at play: the Familia del Norte (FDN), a growing influence thanks to its alliance with Comando Vermelho (CV) from Rio de Janeiro; and the FDN’s conflict with Primer Comando de la Capital (PCC), the central group of organised crime in Sāo Paulo.
The second part of the book, finely illustrated with photographs, reads as a diary of sorts. The footnotes that explain the circumstances of the photographs are reports in and of themselves, mini journeys in which the reader is granted an insight into the contours of local Amazonian culture. Colón highlights that Brazil has one of the largest international borders in the world: it amounts to 16,855 km. in total, touching every other South American nation save Chile and Ecuador. This scale is a considerable challenge for politicians and an invitation for illegal activity, such as the international drug and arms trade, or the looting of natural resources. Such difficulties are often met with growing police violence that plagues local cities. All the while, this scale is paired with social inequality which exponentially complicates things.
Colón’s book emphasizes that the disputes in the Amazon develop in a context of complexity in which there are numerous moving parts: an impoverished local population removed from their self-sustaining means of production; an Indigenous population inundated by prejudice and false promises; and violent local politics. In this context, hunger and viruses spread all the more quickly.
Alongside this is the issue of the lack of information about and understanding of the Amazon, which leads to the spread of lies and ignorance in its place. Armed with an intense agenda of meetings with Indigenous sources, tree specialists, and journalists that work in the region, Colón documents the impacts that the advancement of political interests has had on the region. The result is a work that can serve as a reference, a medium of reflection, and a means of raising awareness.
The Amazon in Times of War diagnoses the motivations for war. However, above all, it highlights the possibilities of resolving conflict and promoting peace. We need to consider the Amazon from a different perspective: one that is emotionally involved while retaining impartiality and objectivity; one grounded in science, while being sensitive to discussion and interpretation. In terms of academic approaches, we need to combine the social sciences with Indigenous knowledge. The region’s activism needs to be grounded in ecology and community: it needs to balance the region’s seasonality with locals’ demands. Hopefully Colón’s work can help kickstart this transition.
