The Amazon is impressive due to its grandeur, as seen from space. Few human beings have had the opportunity to glimpse, from the stratosphere, this vast territory covered with green, meandering rivers cutting through the forest – part of it legally protected – and with its muddy waters and full of life.
Satellites help to understand the power of the Amazon for those who are on Earth. But this same technology displaying the beauty and diversity reveals worrisome changes in the region that occurred in the past 50 years that will influence the future of our planet.
From above, you can also see the smoke from fires, large clearings opened by illegal mining in indigenous territories, and huge mosaics formed by progressive deforestation or the opening of roads destroying the vegetation within. Science estimates the current loss has reached about 20% of the original forest through predatory activities or disorganized urban growth – a percentage that continues growing…
This impact does not only affect biodiversity or natural systems of carbon absorption and rainfall. The Amazon also suffers from the pollution of rivers and streamlets from insufficient basic sanitation or toxic compounds from illegal mining such as mercury. The reduction in the drinking water supply from one of the largest river basins in the world has increased respiratory diseases caused by smoke inhalation from slash-and-burn farming; migration of traditional peoples due to land conflicts.
This room of the “Amazonian Times” exhibition invites us to reflect on the need to slow down degradation and accelerate the demarcation of indigenous lands and new environmental reserves. It’s time to regenerate the Amazon. Time to unite political forces and civil society for forest conservation, investment in education, and improvement on quality of life of the Amazonians.
