What comes to mind when you think of the Amazon? One may think of luscious jungles filled with colorful birds and animals. Some might imagine the magnitude of its river sea, with pink river dolphins and all kinds of fish. Others who are more politically inclined might think of deforestation and its dangers to humanity’s future.
What if I ask you to imagine the people who live within it? Most answers, including those I have gotten at Yale, revolve around indigenous villages, where people subsist on pre-agricultural practices and live in communion with nature. Very few will mention urban centers, and fewer still will talk about big cities and active economic activities.
In this logic, the Amazon is always an object and never a subject in the syntactical sense. It is but an amalgam of natural, geographical, and biological features. It is a place to be spoken of, but never to speak for itself. It is a place where disparate states anxiously assert their sovereignty over, and yet its own sovereignty is never acknowledged. The whole world wishes to have a voice on what happens within it, yet its own voice is never heard.
I was born and raised within the Brazilian Amazon, in Manaus, a metropolis with over 2.6 million inhabitants. It is a bursting city with tall buildings and a vibrant cultural life, and its size is comparable to that of Chicago or Los Angeles. My city is not the only of its kind; we have numerous cities, laid out among an infinitude of river valleys, whose connections transpose the limits and borders set on a map. We are connected through our rivers, which serve as networks of our cultures and trades, making up for the neglect we receive from our respective states. This virgin jungle of people’s imagination is home to over 30 million people with different languages, religions, and customs, many of which are unique to the region.
On Sept. 20, I woke up with my mother calling in panic. She had woken up to the smothering smell of smoke filling her apartment. When she looked out the window, a greyish haze covered the entire city. Manaus has been submerged in ashes and smoke from the burning forest for the past week. Coupled with record-high temperatures and what seems to be the worst drought in recorded history, this summer has been shaping up to be one of the worst ever documented in the Amazon.
These conditions have completely disrupted life in the region. The extreme drought of the rivers is making transportation within the Amazon an almost impossible challenge, exposing the neglect and lack of investments in infrastructure within the region for the past hundred years. Communities reliant on agriculture, fishing, and other natural cycles are being put at significant risk, as well as those who depend heavily on interfluvial transport to acquire essential goods like food and medicine. This is especially true for riverside populations, who often engage in traditional living styles.
If you search for news about the Amazon online, you are sure to find articles documenting a recent death wave of the river dolphin and fish populations due to the recent drought and heat, most of them dating from today, the 2nd of October. We (Amazonians) have been noticing and reporting on this for over a week, receiving almost no immediate attention from national or international media outlets. While it is of major importance to report on this massive ecological event, incredibly few of these articles will even mention the effects of these droughts on the region’s human population, such as the one linked above.
Amazonia has for too long suffered from this ideology, which posits it as a “Counterfeit Paradise.” An ideological view that derives heavily from a colonial mindset, which seeks to appropriate from its natural resources without considering the human element. The Amazon is an anthropological space, thrives not merely in biological diversity but also in its sociological, cultural, and civilizational makeup, all of which are essential to its overall identity.
It is time for our people to speak up, for our voices to be heard, and for our lives to be considered. We no longer want to be held as a reflection of the nature surrounding us, but to be recognized as an integral part of our region. This is not an empty land to be colonized and exploited, nor is this an ecological reserve to be kept for international audiences. It is the homeland of millions of individuals whose lives are just as dependent on the environment as it is dependent on them.
I wish to end this piece by quoting a poem that captures our people’s hope and resilience — written by one of the greatest Amazonian artists of the 20th century, Thiago de Mello:
“It is dark, and yet I sing,
for the morning will come…”
Cauê Ribeiro Pascarelli Lopes is a Junior in Branford College double-majoring in History and EP&E. Contact him at caue.ribeiropascarellilopes@yale.edu.