Unknown Amazon Exhibit Debuts in London

Hillary Mayell
for National Geographic News

January 18, 2002

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The indigenous peoples of the Amazon have a friend in the British Museum. The museum has mounted a major exhibition on the art and traditions of the peoples of the Amazonian rain forest and their deep spiritual connection with the land.

Titled Unknown Amazon, the exhibit features more than 200 artifacts that weave a picture of a way of life that goes as far back as 12,000 years.

Today, the culture and even the existence of indigenous peoples in Amazonia are in danger of being lost to disease, violence, and the loss of ancestral lands. Development in the Amazon is soaring, with major swaths of the rain forest eroded or disappearing as a result of mining, logging, hydroelectric dams, and conversion of land to agricultural use.

"Indigenous lands are being invaded with impunity," said Fiona Watson of Survival International, a worldwide organization that supports tribal people. Disease and violent attacks arising from conflicts "are commonplace" she added.

In conjunction with the exhibit, Survival International is hosting a study day Saturday, January 19, on the culture and threats to the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. The participants were to include Amazonian natives along with archaeologists, ethnobotanists, indigenous rights activists, and others.

Shrinking Forests

Most of the tropical rain forests and savannas that make up Amazonia are in Brazil. Although modern divisions of state are meaningless to native Amazonians, appropriation of their lands is one of the biggest problems they face.

"Brazil is almost unique in that it doesn't recognize the rights of indigenous people to own their own land," said Watson. "It's very important to understand how important the land is to the people of the Amazon. They're bound up with the land in a very spiritual way. Holding communal title to the land is essential to safeguard their future."

According to a new report by U.S. and Brazilian scientists, the rate of forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon has accelerated over the last decade. The findings of the research team, which was headed by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, were based on detailed satellite images of the Amazon taken by Brazil's National Space Agency since 1978.

The scientists concluded that forest destruction from 1995 to 2000 averaged almost two million hectares a year.

"It's comparable to the bad old days in the 1970's and 1980's, when forest loss in the Amazon was catastrophic," Laurance said in a statement issued by the Smithsonian Institution. He is lead author of a report on the findings published in the journal Environmental Conservation.

The results of the study are contrary to the Brazilian government's assertions that threats to Amazonian forests have decreased in recent years because of improved environmental laws and public attitudes.

Intense Development, Outside Threats

At the same time, large-scale development plans for the region are now being discussed. According to the researchers, the Brazilian government plans to invest more than U.S. $40 billion in new highways, railroads, hydroelectric reservoirs, power lines, and gas lines in the Amazon over the next few years. About 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of highways will be paved.

The government has said that such projects will have only limited effects on the Amazon—a claim the research team disputes.

"There's no way you can criss-cross the basin with all these giant transportation and energy projects and not have a tremendous impact on the Amazon," said Laurance. "When you build a new road in the frontier, you almost always initiate large-scale forest invasions by loggers, hunters, and slash-and-burn farmers."

Survival International cites examples of the tragic consequences that often occur when indigenous people are deprived of their native lands.

There are fears, for example, that the long-isolated Awá people in Brazil may soon be wiped out as a result of heavy invasion by loggers, ranchers, and settlers in the past decade.

In the 1980's many members of another isolated tribe, the Yora Indians in the Peruvian Amazon, died of common diseases to which they had no immunity—such as colds and flu—after contact with the outside world when their lands were explored for oil.

Amerindians have also faced growing violence related to conflicts over land.

"In the last few years there have been two convictions for genocide, one resulting from an incident when gold miners massacred 16 Yanomami Indians," Watson noted. "This is a major achievement, but these were very high-profile cases. These things are happening all the time, and for the most part go unreported."

Appeal for Help

Earlier this week, Survival International urged the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to address the dangers facing isolated tribal peoples. The appeal called for governments to recognize and protect indigenous peoples' right to land ownership and to self-determination.

To put a human face on issues such as these, two indigenous Amazonians, José Bonifacio, a Baniwa Indian, and Zenilda Vilacio da Silva, a Sater Maw Indian, are among those participating in the Amazonia study day activities. Both are artisans who also work to protect the forest and natural resources and the traditional activities that are central to the lives of the region's native people.

William Milliken, an ethnobotanist at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, will discuss the importance of indigenous plants in treating some of the diseases that have been introduced by contact with the outside world.

The Yanomami Indians, the largest surviving indigenous group in Brazilian Amazonia, lived in almost complete isolation until the late 1980s, when thousands of gold prospectors invaded their land. With the prospectors came malaria, which killed many members of the tribe.

Modern pharmaceuticals are expensive and largely unavailable, so the local people are heavily dependent on natural remedies. Other indigenous groups in the region with a longer history of contact with the outside world, such as the Maiongong, Macuxi, and Wai-Wai, have discovered plants that alleviate the symptoms of malaria.

Cristiana Barreto, an archaeologist and co-curator of the Unknown Amazon exhibit at the British Museum, will discuss the cultural significance of the artifacts on display, which include baskets, war clubs, amulets, ceramics, beaded loincloths, woven hammocks, and feathered pieces.

The exhibit, which was organized in association with BrasilConnects, closes April 1.