An ill wind comes arising
Across the cities of the plain
There's no swimming in the heavy water
No singing in the acid rain
Red alert
The Amazon rainforest is an endangered species at the end of its ages. The world´s epicenter of biodiversity and oxygen generation is at great risk, due to the breakneck speed of new cattle ranches, roads, logging and oil drilling.
Having recently returned from a 5-day journey deep into the heart of Ecuador´s Amazon Basin, I came to this realization, after comparing that part of the Amazon with the area in which I live. The area in which I live has lots of roads and cattle ranches, and the rainforest is disappearing rapidly.
For fear that multi-national logging companies might be reading my journals, I shall not reveal the exact destination to where I traveled. Suffice it to say, that a friend and I traveled for 26 hours on a narrow dirt road, into the heart of Shuar Indigenous territory.
There we saw mile after mile of unspoiled virgin rainforest, waterfalls, rivers, and traditional Shuar huts, with thatched rooves. As we made our way out of the transitional mountainous zone, into the actual Amazon Basin, my breath was taken away by the view of the rainforest laid out before me.
All I could see for thousands of miles was a sea of unspoiled virgin rainforest, just like in the movies!. But my intuition warned me of the fragile nature of this vast expanse. Something in me said, “This won´t be around for much longer!” Something that logging companies and oil corporations would be licking their lips at if they could see it, just dying to decimate one of the world´s last remaining hotspots, all in their heated worship of the almighty dollar bill.
We spent 3 days in a tiny village at the very end of an Amazon “highway” in Eastern Ecuador. The highway was built only 10 years ago, but “progress” in the area is making inroads quickly. Colonist are arriving fast, where they are clearing thousands of hectares of rainforest, and replacing it with cow pastures and crop plantations. And, of course, the Christian Evangelists have successful “saved” the Shaur Indigenous tribes by installing a myriad of churches in the area, ensuring that Shuar culture remains forever extinct.
Nevertheless, there is only one road in the area. The vast majority of the inhabitants in this part of the Amazon, use the many tributaries to canoe their way back and forth, and many of the Shuars in the river-access-only villages still lead traditional indigenous lives. No one has electricity, and everyone obtains their water from underground wells and the rivers. There is still plenty of virgin rainforest left here.
My Ecuadorian friend (a college student studying Agronomy) and I stayed in the village´s only hotel, a $3.00/night joint, which featured monkey, wild rodents, and armadillo on the menu.
By day, we traveled through virgin rainforest, where we saw a huge laguna with crocodiles, toucans and many other wild birds, and monkeys in the trees! We saw the monkeys hopping around in the branches, and as we walked along, they would peer down at us with curiousity. We also saw startlingly huge trees, with trunks and roots that would stretch out for several hundred feet.
On our way back home, as we crossed a large Amazonian tributary by boat, we came across a Shuar village, where the inhabitants walked around with their mascots, which included two species of monkies, parrots, toucans, and other animals of interest. Of course, they were also illegally selling wild animals and their meat.
During our stay, many locals told us that they want more highways in the area, so that they can install more cattle ranches and banana plantations. And the Ecuadorian government is currently working on a long-term plan with Brazil and Peru to install a massive network of highways that will link the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific, in order to facilitate the cattle trade, oil drilling, mining, and the construction of cities. And that will be the beginning of the end of the ages for the planet´s only Amazon Rainforest.
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