English + Español
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people started home gardens. A small gesture, but one that could not come at a better time, for it is becoming more and more obvious that industrialized farming is at least part of our problems, if not the root. Also, confinement…
In 1909, Emilia Snethlage, a German ornithologist working for the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, arrived at the Curuá River in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. Just five years earlier, Snethlage (1868-1929) had received a Ph.D. from Freiburg University at a time when women…
Read More
English + Español
What Champagne is to sparkling wine or Ethiopia to coffee, Mexico is to chocolate—a food-beverage product branded for its uniqueness, origin and quality, resulting in voluminous sales at premium prices to a dedicated consumer base…
The first time I traveled to the Brazilian Amazon some years ago, I visited my friend Simone in Macapá. The capital of Amapá, one of the nine states that make up Brazil’s Legal Amazon region, Macapá is a sleepy town on the northern bank of the Amazon River, close to…
Read More
One early morning in September 2017, I bought a bean tamale for two quetzals, equivalent to a U.S. quarter. The middle-aged vendor wore a multi-colored cloth skirt, snug above the waist and falling to mid-calf, and a knit mesh crop-top over a purple tank. Her skirt…
Read More