Sustainability in Nuance

 Harvard Amazon Rainforest Immersion

I used to imagine the Amazon Rainforest as a big piece of flat land with trees growing on top of it, farmers and ranchers grabbing land while Indigenous people fought off the invaders. When I finally visited as part of Harvard’s Brazil Immersion Program, I found that image not to be accurate nor comprehensive.

In fact, there is a huge city in the middle of the Amazon, the city of Manaus, with a population of 2.4 million people. At each unexpected corner, there are fascinating historical buildings, beautiful churches, creative murals that feature Indigenous people, fish, birds and colorful houses. The city enjoyed the wealth of the rubber boom in late 19th century, at the dire cost of Indigenous people and the environment. Now, the city has an industrialized harbor at the intersection of the muddy and black water, factories working in special economic zones, half-lit bars along the streets where dance synchronizes with Samba music, and people sell second-hand books, Indigenous souvenirs and street food.

Amidst pig bones with remnants of meat, fermented fruit, staring cats, and plastic waste next to roadside drainage, and the smell of urine, moisture and pastel mixed with the piercing sunlight, Manaus radiates the energy of liveliness and contradiction. Our adventure began here.

We travelled downstream from Manaus and upstream along the Uatumã river. The vast quantity of water in the Amazon River seemed surreal to me. Sometimes the riverbank was visible, other times the river was almost borderless.

I remember swimming in the water of the Uatumã River. The temperature was lukewarm, relaxing like hot bathtub, hard to leave until it cools down. Even though it is called the white river, it is muddy, glittering with a dark green color and suspended with tiny particles. When I stepped a foot deeper into the water, my feet hit against twigs and leaves, deformed, scattered, then congregated at the bottom of the river.

I would never imagine such a massive river drying out.

When the water-quality research team at the Universidade Estadual do Amazonas (UEA) presented to our group from the Brazil Immersion Program, I learned that during a drought, boats could not navigate the river. With limited access, gathering samples became a huge challenge. To the riverine communities that rely on boats as the only means of transportation to town, droughts mean being stuck at their home, with no means of accessing outside resources.

While I was visiting the Uatumã riverine community, a lady told me, through interpretation, that during the drought last year, residents had no access to drinking water other than from the well. When they walked on the dried riverbed, the sponges caused allergic reactions on their legs and feet. Fortunately, there were no other forms of water-borne diseases, such as cholera or diarrhea.

From the lectures, we also learned that access to food and clean water in the riverine community is threaten by mercury pollution, generated when separating gold from sediments in illegal gold mining. Additionally, according to Professor Janaina Calado, some farmers fence their land and discharge toxins into the river, so intense that the fish die and the fishing community starves.

There are cases where remote communities unite and push the government to improve the situation. However, since these communities are more isolated than not, it is difficult to find a critical mass to create change.

Back in Manaus, food, items, products, almost everything is wrapped up in plastic. Bags and litter are scattered all over. If Manaus is the city that has the most impact on the development of the Amazon, what would that future look like?

People filling drinking water at Itapiranga. Taken on Aug. 11, 2024 at the port at Itapiranga. The photo contrasts the vast quantity of river water in the background and people’s reliance on processed water. Photo credit: Chun-Yu Su

Soon after our river trip, we headed to Camp 41, the site where Thomas Lovejoy, the renowned conservationist and “father of biodiversity,” conducted a series of studies on fragmentation and revealed the impact of the edge effect on biodiversity.

We were the last group to enter the camp. In the darkness, the towering trees cast numerous shadows over us, making the narrow road seem even more precarious. Splashes of water mixed with the nutrient-depleted white soil covering the truck. I clung to the driver’s seat as my body was tossed left, right, back and forth. Several times, I thought we’d get stuck in the puddles, but our driver skillfully navigated the terrain, twisting the wheel like an erratic fan attached to an alternating current, always getting us out of the grooves and moving forward.

The forest was pitch black as we hiked into it. At night, a palm-sized tarantula climbed on the wall not far from my hammock; cutter-leaf ants traversed through the bathing area; lizards clung onto the leaves fast asleep; and an earthworm of the length of four palms crawled beneath. During the day, I didn’t see any large mammals, but the calls of howler monkeys were ever-present.

Oddly, I didn’t see many butterflies or flowers under the canopy. The constant heat, humidity and mosquitos were also not as prevalent as I expected. I could sleep in a hammock without a mosquito net and walk around all day without being bitten. Mario Cohn-Haft, the ornithologist at the camp, explained that while mosquito diversity in the Amazon is high, their abundance is low, and this pattern holds for other species as well. It was only at the forest edges, where the land had been cleared, that I was stung by Forcipomyia-like insects. I recalled that illegal gold mining, which clears the forest and creates puddles in the process of washing gold, facilitates mosquito breeding and the spread of malaria in the Amazon.

It amazes me that the eastern part of the Amazon rainforest receives a similar amount of annual rainfall as the nearby savanna ecosystem, the Cerrado. However, the forest’s shorter dry season and incredible water recycling, enhanced by evaporation and transpiration, create the so-called “flying rivers” that transport moisture southwards to the central-west region of Brazil for agricultural production and affect water supply in mega cities like São Paulo.

The rapid degradation of the rainforest poses a serious concern about the breakdown of such a water cycle. Even at the present, the degradation of the Amazon does not just accelerate biodiversity loss and exacerbate global warming, but also actively harms people, especially those who live and depend on the forest and have generations of knowledge and culture attached to it.

Addressing such an issue, however, requires several layers of nuance, especially in the context of the Amazon. One of the viewpoints that I appreciate the most is to not just fulfill the “needs” of the community, but also rethink what those “needs” are, and develop solutions that are adapted to the local context.

Fulfilling the “needs” of the community, is fundamentally about dropping the false self-congratulatory notion of knowing better. Oftentimes what the community needs is not what the outsiders assume. One of the immersion participants, Gabriel Nunes, shared a case in which a German company brought food wrapped in plastic as a compensation for river development. Months later, plastic piled up since the community expects everything to be recycled naturally. Further, being able to “live the problem” with the community would help one understand the elements crucial to solution. Aiming to reduce cholera, Coca Cola once built a big water tank to store water for the community. Yet, it turned out that it was the source of food from the river that help spread the cholera, not the water. Again, the assumption of universality fails. Paraphrasing what Professor Marcia Castro told us prior to the immersion: “You think you might have solutions, but please set them aside, come, listen, and learn.” 

The aspect of “rethinking the need” is about reconsidering the “needs” themselves and bringing in different perspectives to envision better goals and strategies. Not all demands from the community should be unconditionally fulfilled, as they might have detrimental effects in the process. Riding along the Uatumã River, I saw clearings on the edge of the forest for cattle ranching or banana plantation. In a sense, this particular community demands land and produce. Fulfilling its economic need, however, would bring harm to the environment. More broadly, continuing an economic system which does not consider its environmental externalities as fulfilling the “basic human needs” would ultimately prove to be counter-productive, as the Amazon sustains people who live within and outside it.

On a deeper level, the notion of “need” itself may be hegemonic. Ivo Cípio Aureliano, an Indigenous lawyer, raised an important question, “Development for whom?” By assuming that certain universal needs must be fulfilled in every single context, one overlooks the diverse cosmologies that produce different expectations for living in various types of environments. Imposing standards and pitying those that “fell short” of such standards without ever interacting with the community to me seems deeply colonial. However, this is to be contrasted with bringing in diverse points of view that could contribute to solutions. For example, with the aid of scientists, the Indigenous Baniwa community in northern Brazil assessed whether their rate of harvesting arumã fibers is sustainable. These solutions should additionally be tailored to the massive and heterogenous landscape and waterscape of the Amazon.

Development: deforestation, cattle ranching, electric wire, drought. What had once been forest all the way to the edge of the riverbank has now been transformed into grazing lawn for cattle. Meanwhile, more forests are being burned to create pasture for cattle. In the background, an electric pole is transporting electricity, symbolizing the advancement of modern lifestyle in this part of the Amazon. The exposed riverbank is free of vegetation, indicating a recent and rapid decline in water level. An imminent drought is coming. In fact, currently the Amazon is being hit by the worst drought ever. Photo credit: Chun-Yu Su.

Community empowerment is at the center of developing solutions that are adapted to local context: this means improving the agency to choose by creating alternative sources of livelihood; and increasing the flow of material resources by adding value to economic activities. During our community visits, we saw economic activities such as agroforestry that would generate income for the community while protecting the environment’s ability to regenerate. However, for a cattle rancher to convert, additional funding and expertise is required in the initial stages. For sustainable economic activities, not only can development assist them to become more profitable by adding complexity to the processes, but it can also attach additional values to these activities. For example, the Uatumã oils plant we visited used to sell harvested wood directly, but after processing for distilled oil, the plant harvests much less wood, sell the oil at a higher price and use the resin residue to stain boats. While this visit demonstrates to me a possible way of development, I am as well mindful that it is not just about increasing the value of the whole supply chain, but really leveraging the flow of money to bring in resources needed by the community.

Implementation of the solution also requires taking the complexity of Amazonian environment into account. During the Immersion, I realized that deforestation due to large-scale soybean plantation in the southern Amazon is very different from that due to land grabbing and illegal gold mining in the northern Amazon. In addition, inter-community tensions are ever-present. On our way up the river, I saw transmission towers transmitting electricity generated by the water dam. Yet, right across the river, the riverine communities lack electricity, such that the oil plant which we visited rely on diesel generators. Resolving the conflict of interests between communities would further help conceptualizing solutions. Drawing people’s awareness to the environment surrounding them not only contextualizes the discussion but also gives people a more comprehensive view on what the community really needs.

The Immersion truly humbled me, opening a whole new world and exposing me to a much nuanced and balanced perspective on sustainability and development. Through this experience, I generated some preliminary understanding of the massive issues surrounding the Amazon. This initial taste propels me to dive even deeper into the core of the issues, to be on the ground and capture the nuances crucial to their solutions.