When A Tree Falls in the Amazon...

I stood under a massive tree much like those under the threat of extinction in the Amazon. It was among many other trees planted by a group of Portuguese military officers who operated a gunpowder factory in Rio de Janeiro around 1800.

Among these men were botanists who saw the threat of extinction of many flora and fauna in the region. The threat came from plantations destroying vast tracts of land for the cultivation of coffee, sugarcane and many other farmed crops. Near the factory the botanists began collecting some 6500 different species of trees and plants under the threat of extinction and created a space where subsequent generations could one day come and observe nature. The space opened to the public in 1822.

I was dwarfed by the magnanimous efforts of these foresighted men as much by the tree I stood under.

Bounded by steep granite hills and deep lagoons and bays, the city of Rio de Janeiro has since been preserved as much by tourists coming to the region as by the foresight of those early botanists who felt a need to protect the environment many years before it became necessary.

Today, Rio’s Jardim Botânico is hemmed in by a rapidly growing city ravenous for space. This garden is an anomaly in an urban area that is equally colonial and newly modern, with a predictable lack of harmony. Beautiful colonial walkways and buildings fall to the plunder of mixed modern architectures as quickly as trees fall in the forests to commerce.

Here, there is a sense of cool spaciousness under giant trees sheltering walkways from the tropical sun. Water flows along stone channels built to water the garden. The space is a sanctuary for birds and monkeys and an occasional tourist searching for a refuge from the everyday world.

For a moment I understand I am a part of a mystery as an inheritor of the natural world and not its master. Listening to the birds I am pleasantly devoid of hubris, if only temporarily.

But still, I cannot imagine true bio-diversity in a place like the Amazon, where every cause of discomfort has its equal in a cure, and where there is balance in the same way a flowering plant provides the antidote to a mosquito borne in a nearby pond.

Modern man has no language or experience in bio-diversity. We would not survive for long in a place like the Amazon. Perhaps this is why man needs to destroy it.

The coming devastation planned for the Amazonian rivers and trees will remove what has been there since the beginning of the planet. Many natural remedies will be swept away by the all-powerful hydro people who bring concrete to solve a problem without considering other more efficient means of energy generation. Bio-diversity will be drowned in the floods created by dams.

Bio-diversity is the promise of a healthy planet; it is based on the notion that everything is here because it is intended; nothing is out of place, except for humans who have no tradition of respect for the natural world.

Perhaps there are those in power who will notice that the entire Amazon needs to be preserved in the same way their ancestors kept nature sacred for our generation.

Photos by Delma Godoy

A Foreign Body in a Brasilian Odyssey

In my short time in Rio de Janeiro I have enough information to sum up my feelings in the words of French poet Charles Baudelaire.

"That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal from which it follows that irregularity-- that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment-- is an essential part and characteristic of beauty."

Comparisons dominate my thoughts. Today, for example, the temperature is 38° C compared to the minus 5C I could be experiencing in the Rockies. People here tell me it is probably ten degrees hotter than what the tourist propagandists put on road signs and official weather reports. So the people talk about “feels like” temperature, which gives me pause, because I am often standing in a stagnant pool of my own sweat. Throughout the day I am either running in and out of a cold shower or swimming in the ocean. My beach clothes are strewn on the veranda to dry out near the red Bougainvillea. I remind myself that most of North America is under the grip of an arctic winter as major cities are shut down due to ice and snow. Snow drifts abound on the dunes of the North Carolina coast. However, in Vancouver, British Columbia, host of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and my home for the past 20 years, the region is enjoying an early spring and trees are budding. Trucks are going to bring snow to the events.

Brazil has been awarded the World Cup in 2014 and Rio, a city of six million, will host the final games. In 2016 Rio will host the Olympics. These are tourist facts only and they will soon fade once one sees the beaches, which host some 2.5 million on a stretch of beach 25 miles long. Most of the beach comprises pristine pearl-white ankle-deep sand washed by waves of warm aquamarine water. It’s hard not to be astonished when you first dive into a wave. Then there is sunset at the close of the day when the locals and tourists wait for crespuscolo, the time following sunset. The sky becomes a palette of colors to be thrown on a canvas by an artist gone mad.

I am but a casual observer, arriving in Rio de Janeiro with more baggage than I needed. I am learning the customs, struggling with a new language and enjoying the life of a temporary Carioca.

With the last of the day’s light I look up to the Corcovado on the mountain above. At night the Christ figure is lit from all angles, his arms spread in a welcoming gesture and expansive against a clear sky. I remind myself I am willing to sweat to enjoy the life of a tourist who is looking for blessings.