Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the Brazilian government's figures, which showed that deforestation had reached record
lows.
“Bullshit!” he cried, his face shining. He acknowledged that deforestation had dimin-
ished in 2010, but insisted that this wasn't the whole story. “When you put it together with
the deforestation of 2008, 2007…” He chopped his hand against the desk. “For the last
eight years, we have a sum of
16 percent
of the Amazonian forest destroyed.”
I was feeling better already.
Unfortunately, his figures were badly exaggerated. It had taken more like thirty years,
not just eight, to destroy 16 percent of the Amazon. But that was beside the point. Defor-
estation was only part of the story, he said. “We ask, 'Why are you, Mr. Government, con-
tinuing with huge projects of hydroelectrics in Amazonia?' Government has a plan to build
thirty-eight
hydroelectrics in Amazonia.” There were even dams planned for the Tapajós.
“I feel the contradiction from the government,” he said. “Saying they are fighting to stop
deforestation, and at the same time they are planning to build hydroelectrics that will des-
troy rivers, forests, and the people.”
Sena had brought the same defiant spirit to the fight against soy farming in the area. The
organization he founded, called the Amazon Defense Front, had partnered with Greenpeace
to protest the Cargill terminal. But the collaboration didn't last.
“Greenpeace was a very important ally from 2004 to 2006,” he said. “Then we
stopped…Our styles were different. We went to the street, to make protest. Greenpeace
went jumping on the roof of Cargill.” He laughed. “And filming, and showing to Europe
and to the world that
Greenpeace was here!”
There were philosophical differences, too. “I am not an environmentalist!” he said, wav-
ing his finger in the air. “I am an
Amazonianist.
Because the Amazon is more than the en-
vironment. It is also the people.”
He smiled the smile of a firebrand. “Greenpeace has money. But it doesn't help much
when you don't have a holistic viewpoint. They defend the forest. They defend the animals.
They forget that the environment includes the people that live here. That's the difference.
We defend our people.”
It was the Ambé approach, applied to environmental politics. Without taking people into
account—in your activism, in your national parks—something essential was missing. And
Sena didn't just mean indigenous people. He also included the small farmers who had been
displaced by soy, and more than twenty million other people spread across the Amazon
basin, whether in the countryside or in big cities like Manaus. They were all critical stake-
holders.
But there was at least one group that didn't count.
