We all live our lives surrounded by places that are special to us, where we can relax, our favorite place to eat and where family and friends live and we could all look at a map and give these places a rough location. It almost sounds like something post-apocalyptic, but what is you woke up one day and all these places that you lived your life around had disappeared, your daily compass of life would be broken.
Lots of people have heard that every minute an area of the Amazon rain forest the size of several football fields is cut down but we just accept that the 'lungs of the world' are being cut down for economic gain. A few of us may also spare a thought for all the animal and plant species that are endangered by the destruction of the forest but what about the people who live there?
The first picture on the right is the reason I'm writing about this subject, It shows three figures cowering in the corner of the deck of a ship, alien to their surroundings and obviously terrified, on the right a European sailor looks tense, almost as if hes about to hit them, put them in their place.
These innocent people were kidnapped in the late 19th century by a German businessman and sent far from their homes to die in Europe, in a Zoo.
Lots of people have heard that every minute an area of the Amazon rain forest the size of several football fields is cut down but we just accept that the 'lungs of the world' are being cut down for economic gain. A few of us may also spare a thought for all the animal and plant species that are endangered by the destruction of the forest but what about the people who live there?
The first picture on the right is the reason I'm writing about this subject, It shows three figures cowering in the corner of the deck of a ship, alien to their surroundings and obviously terrified, on the right a European sailor looks tense, almost as if hes about to hit them, put them in their place.
These innocent people were kidnapped in the late 19th century by a German businessman and sent far from their homes to die in Europe, in a Zoo.
Survival International is a charity campaigning for tribal peoples rights which, after exploring their website, seems to involve horrible stories of exploitation and prejudice that i would like to take a minute to share with you.
Lets imagine a scene deep in Brazil, night falls and fires and music start on a ranch as ranchers and their families celebrate a public holiday or someones birthday, the drinks are poured out and tongues loosen, eyes droop and cattle call out in the night. Beyond the cattle fields, barely hidden on the edge of a clump of trees squashed up next to a highway, a few makeshift shelters are the homes of a small family community of the Guarani tribe. They have heard the ranchers before and that is why they cannot sleep, they lie awake, sitting in doorways, alert until morning, fearful.
All too often the ranchers have left the party staggering across the fields carrying their guns heading for the family that once owned the land they now farm. Shots are fired through the thin plastic and wooden walls of the Guarani shelters and the screaming and bloodshed starts, or is it late night entertainment?
It is actions like this and the loss and land of native people (who it is all too easy to forget were there first) that have given the Guarani tribe a suicide rate well above the national Brazilian average. A study from October 2013 found that members of the Guarani tribe were 34 times more likely to kill themselves than the average Brazilian citizen. The social structure of these people have been disrupted as they have been forced to live on reserves where land can no longer be considered as sacred to each member simply because there isn't enough land to go around between each family.
The stressful nature of the situation is highlighted in these paragraphs I found on the guardian website about a report published by Survival on the 'silent genocide' that is occurring in native Indian communities;
"One camp in Dourados now has a murder rate that is more than 50% higher than that of Iraq. The stressful, violent environment is worsened by beatings and assassinations of indigenous leaders who try to reclaim their land from wealthy farmers...
...With no land to maintain their ancient cultures, the Guarani-Kaiowá feel ashamed and humiliated. Many feel sad, insecure, unstable, scared, hungry and miserable. They have lost their crops and their hope for a better life. They are exploited and enslaved by sugar cane production for alcohol," he said. "These conditions of despair and misery cause the epidemic of violence and suicide among the young."
All this tragedy and despair stems from the exploitation of the Amazon rain forest by companies that either don't understand what they're doing or are simply just so blinded by greed that they care what they're doing. Most of the leading tribal members are over 70 years old and have, in their lifetime amassed a knowledge of the land equivalent to the contents of a library that could possibly (dare we dream) include cures for diseases such as cancer and AIDS which are becoming increasingly lost to us year by year, day by day and second by second as we watch the amazon vanish.
Admittedly its hard to see how your responsible for this suffering if you live outside of the South American continent but i bet that many Europeans and North Americans have at least once in their life used a table made from amazonian hardwoods on a regular basis. True its just a table but once you look at how many miles your table has traveled and whats happened to the area where your table was once a tree perhaps you will start to see the impact of globalised trade. For those of you that are positive you've never used such a piece of furniture than i have afew facts for you;
- At least 80% of the developed world's diet originated in the tropical rainforest. Its bountiful gifts to the world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, tumeric, coffee and vanilla and nuts including Brazil nuts and cashews.
- Currently, 121 prescription drugs currently sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources. And while 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, less than 1% of these tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists.
- Vincristine, extracted from the rain forest plant, periwinkle, is one of the world's most powerful anticancer drugs. It has dramatically increased the survival rate for acute childhood leukemia since its discovery. Of the 3000 identified plants from around the globe that are active against cancer cells around 2100 (70%) are found in the rain forest.
The Amazon rain forest is obviously a rich resource but why will no one spare a thought for the people who get caught up in this?
We constantly see adverts, especially around Christmas, calling for donations for humanitarian aid to every developing nation there is on the planet but i can't think of a time where there has been a call for donations for an ethnic minority within a country. Undoubtedly this should be the responsibility of the local government but even in more developed parts of the world such as the USA and Russia minorities like tribes aren't protected properly by the authorities and it takes pressure groups or charities to bring the needs of the few to the attention of the many. But the many might not feel compassion themselves. Its xenophobia, they're not like us they've never sat on a sofa before or drank water from a tap and the mentality is they're not human - a similarity perhaps to the attitude displayed by the Nazis where Jews, gypsies and other minorities were 'untermensch', sub-human, inferior.
Because these people aren't part of the globalised network of roads, internet and knowledge we tend to think less of them but these people have survived for thousands of years in conditions which even with the most modern equipment would still prove a struggle to cope with. Instead of trying to push them away we should embrace them and trade knowledge whilst we still can, perhaps theyve got a cure for cancer without even knowing it, they wont want to tell us if we stand and watch whilst their homes are destroyed and their families killed, we wont be innocent but they will be the victims.
