Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Now it was Rick's turn. The timber frames weren't selling. Zero Impact Brazil was sur-
viving only by selling off its assets.
We stood up to go, agreeing to talk again soon, to arrange a visit to Rick's rainforest.
We'd go down there and “goof around,” he said. He was insistent on that point—on the
goofing around. Adam and I exchanged a glance. What did that mean, exactly?
Rick also wanted to talk some more about the forest, about waste, about his company.
“I wanna portray us as at least the guys who have got good intentions,” he said.
Stoking a mild despondency about Brazil's failure to keep up its end of the environmental-
horror-story bargain, I turned for succor to the Catholic Church. Adam had uncovered an
activist priest who promised to say inflammatory and pessimistic things about the Amazo-
nian situation. He had made headlines overseas—the BBC called him “the Amazon's most
ardent protector”—and had a reputation as a fierce champion of the rainforest.
Gil knew where to find him, of course. He knew everybody, perhaps because he spent
his every spare moment on the tiny terrace of his house, greeting passersby, waving, holler-
ing, gossiping. Walking around Santarém with him was like tagging along for a victory lap
with a popular former mayor. Acquaintances and friends shouted from windows and side-
walks on every block.
We went looking for Father Edilberto Sena not at his church but at the offices of his ra-
dio station, which says something about his approach to liberation theology. The station op-
erated from a small, two-story building on a busy street up the hill from the river, and Sena
used it to promote his activist causes, beginning with an editorial broadcast every morning.
From half a block away, Gil spotted him pulling into a parking spot, and we introduced
ourselves on the sidewalk. He was a short man, youthfully sixtysomething, with a pugna-
cious smile and good English.
As we walked toward the entrance of the radio station, two young women crossed our
path. Sena stopped in his tracks and turned to us.
“One problem of the Amazon…” he said. “Too many beautiful girls around.”
Smiling, he laid a hand on his chest.
“A poor priest
suffers.
”
From a media relations point of view, this seemed like a questionable way for a priest to
start in with a pair of visiting journalists. But it was part and parcel of Father Sena's rebel
persona, which he clearly held very dear. In his office, I asked him what he thought about
