Amazon Updates
17 October 2001
This morning we arrived at the mouth of the Rio Xingu. It is
another clear water river that feeds into the Amazon river from
the south. The ship travelled a short distance up the river, but
we had to go the rest of the way to Porto de Móz with one
of the Greenpeace zodiacs.
Rubber
tapping on the Jurua extractive reserve. |
We went to this logging town to meet with some community
members who are trying to create an extractive reserve in
the area.
An extractive reserve is an area that is protected from
industrial development, but the communities living within
the reserve can harvest resources from the forest for personal
use and some small scale trade.
|
There are more than 100 communities, or 15,000 people, living
in the area of the proposed reserve. But there are also more than
20 large logging companies in the same area exploiting the resources
of the forest. Already the communities who depend on the forest
for food and medicines are feeling the impacts of the logging,
they say they are running out of food.
It was a short trip up the Xingu to the small town, but
along the way we witnessed the results of forest destruction.
There are four sawmills around the town, at the three we passed
we saw logs waiting to be processed, mountains of wasted timber
slipping into the river and finished lumber waiting to be
shipped out. |
 |
Just across the river is the area for the proposed reserve. The
trees are lush and green and hang into the Xingu river. The contrast
with the dirty, wasteful mills is shocking.
It is a small town with a main square and large church off the
harbour. There seems to be just one paved road along the harbour
and most of the homes are made from worn timber and look like
they are held together with string. So much money moves through
the town with the timber trade, but it is obvious most of the
people living here see little of it.
The community movement for the extractive reserve, the Committee
for Sustainable Development of Porto de Móz, came up with
the idea for the extractive reserve in 1999, but the federal environmental
agency only started to work with the communities this year to
initiate the long process to create the reserve. It could be many
more years before the process is complete, and in the mean time
companies continue to log within the proposed reserve.
 |
All of this logging is illegal. The communities who are loosing their livelihood are forced to sell their wood to the companies and some companies working on a large scale falsify land titles and clear the land which is later used for cattle grazing. |
The area the community has proposed for the reserve is 2.2 million
hectares, or the size of Portugal, and would be the largest extractive
reserve in the world if it is approved.
|
But it is an uphill battle for the communities, this is
a logging town and often people that speak out are silenced
in this part of the Amazon. Many of the local authorities
are loggers, the major also owns two of the sawmills in
town and they do not want to give up this area they log
in as an extractive reserve.
|
Truck moving
logs through the town of Porto de Móz. |
We left this town of the Amazonian wild west at dusk, not the
sort of town a bunch of gringo environmentalists should be in
after dark.
It took us some time to navigate the shallow waters of the Xingu
and find our way back to the ship. We saw several river dolphins
as we made our way slowly down river. Through the narrow pass
leading to the ship we could get quite close to the forest. The
trees and vegetation come right to the water's edge since the
river does not seem to have dropped much here during this dry
season.
 |
Some look at this forest and see timber and money, but
I'm not sure how anyone could look past the colours, the
smells and the sounds and not see an amazing ecosystem that
is surpassed no where else on terra firma.
Tracy
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