Day Four, 31st August 2019
Gaby Saab and Evelin Lindner hosted by biologist Cristiane Vieira da Cunha in Vila Praia Alta, duas horas de Marabá de carro e barco / two hours by car and boat from Marabá, Amazonian State Pará, Brasil
• 08 The Babaçu Palm and Its Beetle Larva Gongo in Vila Praia Alta on Ilha do Praia Alta in the river Tocantins near Marabá in the Amazonian State of Pará, Brasil
The coconut bug (Pachymerus nucleorum) is a beetle larva of the Bruquidae family. It has wide Brazilian distribution, which develops inside the fruit of several palm trees, such as babassu, coconut, carnauba, among others. He is also known by the names of gong, Coró and morotó. Pachymerus nucleorum settles inside fruits, which is also known as the 'larva of the coconut'. Here, we found it in the babaçu (Attalea speciosa) palm, or cusi, a palm native to the Amazon Rainforest region. The babassu palm is the predominant species in the Maranhão Babaçu forests of Maranhão and Piauí states. Even though Gaby and I live as much as possible vegan or vegetarian, we had to admit that the fried larvae were a delicacy! They are clean, full of protein...
• 09 Tapioca in Vila Praia Alta
Tapioca is a starch extracted from the storage roots of the cassava plant (Manihot esculenta). This species is native to the north region and central-west region of Brazil, but its use spread throughout South America. The plant was carried by Portuguese and Spanish explorers to most of the West Indies and Africa and Asia. It is a perennial shrub adapted to the hot conditions of tropical lowlands. Cassava copes better with poor soils than many other food plants.
• 10 Urucum in Vila Praia Alta
The original Tupi name for this fruit is uruku, urucu or urucum ('red color'), which is also used for the body paint prepared from its seeds. Achiote (Bixa orellana) is a shrub – also called the lipstick tree – native to a region between northern South America and Mexico. The seeds can be used to make red body paint and lipstick, as well as a spice. Gabriela Saab made this video with her cell phone. Gabriela Saab did this recording.
• 10+42 Urucum in Vila Praia Alta + Ver-o-peso
This is Gabriela Saab's recording in Praia Alta plus the recording Evelin Lindner did later at the Ver-o-peso market in Belém on 9th September.
• 11 The World Dignity University Initiative in Vila Praia Alta
In this video, Evelin Lindner explains the relevance of communities like Vila Praia Alta in the Amazon for the idea of the World Dignity University Initiative. Gabriela Saab and Evelin Lindner were deeply impressed by the sustainability of the ways of living they encountered when they had the privilege of spending time there on 31st August 2019. They saw almost no plastic, almost no waste, everything was used. Here, animals are alive, rather than being 'produced'. A rooster crows in the morning, indicating that animals are allowed to have a family, allowed to have a social life in their own right, rather than being reduced to being servants of human needs – being used as pets at best (to help placate the loneliness and disconnection in societies of excessive individualism), or consumed as food. The kitchen is outside of the house under an umbrella! And the shell of the babaçu nuts serve as charcoal!
This is one of Evelin Lindner's contributions to the Marabá-part of the 33rd Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, a 'Caravan' conference titled 'Cultivating Good Living Amazon: Nurturing Solidarity with Mother Earth', 28th August – 7th September 2019. The conference was followed by a global WhatsApp group with 50 participants.
• 12 Manoel de Deus Gomes da Silva in Vila Praia Alta
Comunidades Tradicionais Sustentáveis em risco
Sustainable Traditional Communities at risk
Manoel de Deus Gomes
Vila Praia Alta, duas horas de Marabá de carro e barco / two hours by car and boat from Marabá, Pará state, Brasil
31 de agosto de 2019 / 31st August 2019
Manoel de Deus Gomes da Silva, membro da comunidade ribeirinha Vila Praia Alta, fala sobre a importância da preservação da herança cultural das comunidades tradicionais da região do Rio Tocantins em que se pretende construir uma Hidrovia que impactará o rio, a fauna, a flora e a produção sustentável pesqueira e extrativista na região.
Manoel de Deus Gomes da Silva, a member of the Vila Praia Alta community on Ilha Praia Alta, an island in the river Tocantins in the Amazonian State of Pará in Brasil, talks about the importance of preserving the cultural heritage of the traditional communities of the Tocantins River region in which it is intended to build a waterway that will impact the river, fauna, flora and sustainable fishery and permaculture production in the region.
• 13 Leaving Praia Alta island by boat and at the end of the day back to Marabá by car
Comunidades Tradicionais Sustentáveis em risco
Sustainable Traditional Communities at risk
Biologist and fishing monitor Cristiane Vieira da Cunha mentoring Gaby Saab and Evelin Lindner
Ilha do Praia Alta, duas horas de Marabá de carro e barco / The island Ilha do Praia Alta, two hours by car and boat from Marabá, Pará state, Brasil
31 de agosto de 2019 / 31st August 2019
The Amazon is threatened not just by logging, not just by arson to clear land for cattle and soya production, it is also threatened by mining, the building of dams, and the blasting of rocks to turn natural rivers into industrial highways – 'hydrovias'. We started in Marabá at 5 o'clock in the morning, first by car and then by boat. On this video, we are on the way back. We went by boat to two fishing communities on the shores of the river Tocantins, one on an island, past the famous Pedral do Lourenção rocks (which we could not see, due to the artificially high water levels). We learned that the water of the river is already so polluted that the people living on its shores can no longer drink it: they have to fetch it from another village which still has clean water. A hydro-electric dam has already been built in the north of Marabá, the Tucuruí dam, against the resistance of many people, and now the next step of this mega-project is being scheduled, namely, to turn the river into a navigable waterway for big ships – a hydrovia – to transport cattle, GM soya, and aluminium. Boulders that are a billion years old, in other words, billion years of eco-infrastructure, shall be removed to industrialise the river. The local population will no longer be able to use their small boats to go the city and to sell their own sustainable products. The water level is already now artificially controlled, so that the fishermen, whose calendar normally depends on the moon and who respect the periods in which fish is reproducing, now have their areas of reproduction and the level of the river dictated by this new 'hydrovia'.
The Pedral do Lourenção rocks are part of the Central Brazilian Plateau, an upland area formed one billion years ago of hard crystalline old rocks. See 'Pedral do Lourenção: Para IBAMA, ainda é preciso complementar estudos ambientais', por Redação, Correio de Carajas, 17 de setembro de 2019.
• 14 Rafael Cabral in Tauiry
Comunidades Tradicionais Sustentáveis em risco
Sustainable Traditional Communities at risk
Rafael Cabral
Tauiry, duas horas de Marabá / two hours from Marabá, Pará state, Brasil
31 de agosto de 2019 / 31st August 2019
Rafael Cabral, membro da comunidade ribeirinha Vila Belém (Pará), fala sobre a importância da preservação da herança cultural das comunidades tradicionais da região do Rio Tocantins em que se pretende construir uma Hidrovia que impactará o rio, a fauna, a flora e a produção sustentável pesqueira e extrativista na região. Rafael faz um apelo aos doadores do Fundo Amazônia, em especial à Noruega, para que os projetos sustentáveis na região possam ter continuidade.
Rafael Cabral, a member of the Vila Belém riverside community (State of Pará), talks about the importance of preserving the cultural heritage of the traditional communities of the Tocantins River region in which it is intended to build a waterway that will impact the river, fauna, flora and sustainable fishery and permaculture production in the region.
Rafael calls on Amazon Fund donors, especially Norway, to continue sustainable projects in the region.
• 15 Cristiane (Cris) Vieira da Cunha in Tauiry
A professora e pesquisadora da UNIFESSPA, Cristiane Vieira da Cunha, explica como o Projeto de Monitoramento Participativo auxilia comunidades ribeirinhas a compreender mais sobre suas atividades. A partir dos dados recolhidos pelos próprios pescadores, é possível compreender como grandes projetos como a Hidrovia do Rio Tocantins irão afetar não apenas seu modo de vida sustentável, mas também o próprio equilíbrio ecológico dos biomas amazônicos (Projeto ProPesca - com apoio da UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO SUL E SUDESTE DO PARÁ - UNIFESSPA, da EMBRAPA e com o financiamento do FUNDO AMAZÔNIA).
Para maiores informações sobre o projeto, entrar em contato com: crisvieira_cunha@hotmail.com
UNIFESSPA professor and researcher Cristiane Vieira da Cunha explains how the Participatory Monitoring Project helps riverside communities understand more about their own activities. From the data collected by fishermen, it is possible to understand how major projects, such as the Tocantins River Waterway, not only affect their sustainable way of life, but also the ecological balance of the Amazon biomes (ProPesca Project - with the support of the FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST PARÁ - UNIFESSPA, EMBRAPA AND THE FINANCING OF THE AMAZON FUND).
For more information about the project send an email to: crisvieira_cunha@hotmail.com
• 16 Ronaldo
Macena do Tauiry in Tauiry
Ronaldo Macena, membro da comunidade ribeirinha Tauiry (Pará), fala sobre a importância da preservação da herança cultural das comunidades tradicionais da região do Rio Tocantins em que se pretende construir uma Hidrovia que impactará o rio, a fauna, a flora e a produção sustentável pesqueira e extrativista na região. Ronaldo faz um apelo aos doadores do Fundo Amazônia, em especial à Noruega, para que os projetos sustentáveis na região possam ter continuidade.
Ronaldo Macena, a member of the Tauiry riverside community (State of Pará), talks about the importance of preserving the cultural heritage of the traditional communities of the Tocantins River region in which it is intended to build a waterway that will impact the river, fauna, flora and sustainable fishery and permaculture production in the region.
Ronaldo calls on Amazon Fund donors, especially Norway, to continue sustainable projects in the region. |