It’s a long way from Kyiv to Itaituba, but Brazil’s busy wildcat gold prospectors don’t need a map. The war on Ukraine has sent international gold prices soaring and word in the Amazon basin is spreading faster than claim-staker’s quicksilver. This city in the eastern Amazonian state of Pará is a longtime hub for miners, […]
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We see how our forests are turning into large mud pools. We see how the sources of our rivers are silting up and how their courses are diverting. We see how the tree shadows begin to disappear, how the harvested fruits are diminishing, and how the crystalline water of the Tapajós River, of the igarapés – the streams – and the springs becomes murkier by the day. Finally, we see how the smoke from many fires darkens our sunset.
All of this is happening in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, where I am from. I was born and raised here, along the upper course of the Tapajós River, in the Jacareacanga municipality in Brazil’s northern state of Pará. COVID-19 has hit our communities hard, and without any government emergency plan for the Indigenous villages, too many of our great leaders have died. They were the living libraries of our culture, and now they are gone. We must act.
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We see how our forests are turning into large mud pools. We see how the sources of our rivers are silting up and how their courses are diverting. We see how the tree shadows begin to disappear, how the harvested fruits are diminishing, and how the crystalline water of the Tapajós River, of the
igarapés – the streams – and the springs becomes murkier by the day. Finally, we see how the smoke from many fires darkens our sunset.
All of this is happening in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, where I am from. I was born and raised here, along the upper course of the Tapajós River, in the Jacareacanga municipality in Brazil’s northern state of Pará. COVID-19 has hit our communities hard, and without any government emergency plan for the Indigenous villages, too many of our great leaders have died. They were the living libraries of our culture, and now they are gone. We must act.