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The American rainforests were once home to some of the world's most developed civilizations of antiquity including
those of the Incas (Andes), Mayas (Central America), and Aztecs (Central America). These peoples created vast metropolises
and made great developments in agriculture and the sciences. However all this changed with the arrival of Europeans
in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
An estimated 7-10 million Amerindians (the term for American indigenous peoples) lived in American rainforests,
half of them in Brazil, at the time of European arrival. When Pizarro arrived in Peru, more land was under cultivation
and more food was being produced in the Andean region than today. The grandest civilizations with expansive
cities, wealth of gold, and technological achievements, existed in the Andes, though many Amerindians also lived
in the Amazon.
The Amazon has a long history of human settlement. Contrary to popular belief, sizeable and sedentary societies
of great complexity existed in the Amazon rainforest [Amazon Civilization Before Columbus]. These societies produced pottery, cleared sections of rainforest
for agriculture, and managed forests to optimize the distribution of useful species. The notion of a virgin Amazon
is largely the result of the population crash following the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth century.
Studies suggest that 11.8 percent of the Amazon's terra firme forests are anthropogenic in nature resulting from the careful
management of biodiversity by indigenous people. However, unlike those using current cultivation techniques, these Amazonians
were attuned to the ecological realities of their environment from five millennia of experimentation, and they understood
how to sustainably manage the rainforest to suit their needs. They saw the importance of maintaining biodiversity
through a mosaic of natural forests, open fields, and sections of forest managed so as to be dominated by species
of special interest to humans.
Many of these populations existed along whitewater rivers where they had good means of transportation, excellent
fishing, and fertile floodplain soils for agriculture. However, when Europeans arrived, these were the first settlements
to be affected, since Europeans used the major rivers as highways to the interior. In the first century of European
presence, the Amerindian population was reduced by 90 percent. Most of the remaining peoples lived in the interior of
the forest: either pushed there by the Europeans or traditionally living there in smaller groups.
From Pizarro's conquest of the Incan empire until the end of the Brazilian rubber boom around
the beginning of World War I, the Spanish and Portuguese, in the name of Catholicism with the blessing
of popes, continued the long tradition of abuse against these people—one that would be continued by colonists, rubber tappers, and land developers.
AMERICAN FOREST PEOPLES TODAY
Amazon shaman in Brazil [by Sue Wren]
Today, despite the population decimation, natives peoples still live in American rainforests, although virtually
all have been affected by the outside world. Instead of wearing traditional garb of loin cloths, most Amerindians
wear western clothes, and many use metal pots, pans, and utensils for everyday life. Some groups make handicrafts
to sell to the boatloads of tourists that pass through, while others make routine trips to the city to bring foods
and wares to market. Almost no native group obtains the majority of its food by traditional nomadic hunting and
gathering. Nearly all cultivate crops, with hunting, gathering, and fishing serving as a secondary or supplementary
food source. Usually a family has two gardens: a small house garden with a variety of plants, and a larger plantation
which may be one hectare in area planted with bananas, manioc, or rice. These plantations are created through the
traditional practice of slash and burn, a method of forest clearing that is not all that damaging to the forest
if conducted in the traditional manner.
Today almost no forest Amerindians live in their fully traditional ways. Perhaps only a few small groups in the
Amazon basin can still claim to do so. One of these, the Tageri (part of the Waorani group), is highly threatened
by oil development in Ecuador. Its plight has become an international battle among environmentalists, human
rights activists, the government, and the oil industry.
Indian social mobilization of American indigenous peoples has attained the highest organization of any rainforest
region. Forming ethnic organizations is one way to protect themselves, their culture, and their natural
forest resources. Amerindians have faced a long, bitter battle against development of their land by outsiders, and
today these organizations monitor these incursions on their lands. The Indian Missionary Council, CIMI, reported
that land invasions of Brazilian Indian reservations by loggers and miners has risen since the mid-1990s. Loggers are increasingly trespassing on indigenous lands in search of mahogany, which can no longer be legally logged in Brazil. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, clashes between indigenous peoples and loggers, miners, and oil developers received some exposure in the Western press,
notably the on-going saga between the native Yanomani of Brazil and Venezuela and thousands of small-scale miners, known as "garimpeiros" in Brazil, who often illegally mine on the natives' demarcated lands.
The far-flung Yanomani Indian tribe inhabits a France-sized area of forest in northern Brazil and southern
Venezuela. The Yanomani lived in virtual isolation after they were first documented by anthropologists in the 1920s until the 1970s
when large numbers of gold miners invaded their territory. The miners introduced diseases, like measles, tuberculosis,
the flu, and malaria to the resistant-deficient Yanomani, resulting in a serious decline in their population. Whereas
an estimated 20,000 Yanomani lived in Brazil in the late 1970s, fewer than 9,000 existed in 1997. Violence between the Yanomani and the armed garimpeiros has also taken its toll resulting in many fatalities. Further, the garimpeiros disrupt
the traditional Yanomani way of life by using mercury which pollutes local rivers, wildlife, and the Yanomani themselves. The miners' planes scare away the wildlife the Yanomani depend upon for food. The garimpeiros have also brought
guns to the Yanomani meaning that inter-village disputes today are more likely to end in shootings.
Brazil has had a tough time protecting the rights of the Yanomani, although it has initiated several campaigns to oust the garimpeiros.
In November 1997, the government began "Operation: Yanomani" to flush hundreds of gold miners off
Yanomani lands. Instead of resorting the old tactics of simply deporting or arresting garimpeiros for a few days,
the government has a new approach which it hopes will keep miners off Yanomani lands. The plan establishes controls
on aviation fuel and tightens the monitoring of airspace to limit air traffic to airstrips near the mining areas.
Today Brazil is slowly taking steps to recognize indigenous land rights. About 62 percent of all indigenous land claims, covering
11 percent of Brazil (100 million hectares or 396,000 square miles), has been demarcated as permanent legal title for native
peoples. The process has been slow, but Brazil has plans to turn more land over to the indigenous population.
How rainforest shamans treat disease
(11/10/2009) Ethnobotanists, people who study the relationship between plants and people, have long documented the extensive use of medicinal plants by indigenous shamans in places around the world, including the Amazon. But few have reported on the actual process by which traditional healers diagnose and treat disease. A new paper, published in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, moves beyond the cataloging of plant use to examine the diseases and conditions treated in two indigenous villages deep in the rainforests of Suriname. The research, which based on data on more than 20,000 patient visits to traditional clinics over a four-year period, finds that shamans in the Trio tribe have a complex understanding of disease concepts, one that is comparable to Western medical science. Trio medicine men recognize at least 75 distinct disease conditions—ranging from common ailments like fever [këike] to specific and rare medical conditions like Bell's palsy [ehpijanejan] and distinguish between old (endemic) and new (introduced since contact with the outside world) illnesses. In an interview with mongabay.com, Lead author Christopher Herndon, currently a reproductive medicine physician at the University of California, San Francisco, says the findings are a testament to the under-appreciated healing prowess of indigenous shaman.
Google partners with Amazon tribe
(10/29/2009) The story of an indigenous Amazon tribe that has embraced technology in its fight to protect its homeland and culture is now highlighted as a layer in Google Earth.
Crisis averted for now, Peruvian natives will meet with Hunt Oil
(10/28/2009) Indigenous groups in a dispute with Hunt Oil, over the company performing seismic tests their land, have scheduled a meeting with the Texas based oil corporation, according to Reuters.
Will Ecuador's plan to raise money for not drilling oil in the Amazon succeed?
(10/27/2009) Ecuador's Yasuni National Park is full of wealth: it is one of the richest places on earth in terms of biodiversity; it is home to the indigenous Waorani people, as well as several uncontacted tribes; and the park's forest and soil provides a massive carbon sink. However, Yasuni National Park also sits on wealth of a different kind: one billion barrels of oil remain locked under the pristine rainforest.
Amazonian natives say they will defend tribal lands from Hunt Oil with "their lives"
(10/25/2009) Indigenous natives in the Amazon are headed to the town of Salvacion in Peru with a plan to forcibly remove the Texas-based Hunt Oil company from their land as early as today. Peruvian police forces, numbering in the hundreds, are said to be waiting in the town. The crisis has risen over an area known as Lot 76, or the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve. The 400,000 hectare reserve was created in 2002 to protect the flora and fauna of the area, as well as to safeguard watersheds of particular importance to indigenous groups in the region.
