How to Save the Amazon: a Journalist’s Deadly Quest for Answers. By Dom Phillips & Contributors. Ithaca £10.99.
The introduction and first four chapters were written by Phillips, but the book was unfinished when he and indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira were murdered in 2022 (one man confessed to the killings and others have been arrested, but it is not known who was behind them, though they were presumably carried out to silence witnesses). A further six chapters were completed by various journalists on the basis of Phillips’ notes. Phillips was clearly a courageous and painstaking investigator; as the people who assembled the book say in their foreword, ‘these pages have been stained by blood.’
The Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in stabilising the global climate, storing billions of tons of carbon, among other things. But it is currently under various kinds of threat, most notably deforestation caused by cattle ranching. Fires are used to remove trees and clear land; almost nine-tenths of deforested Amazon land has become cattle pasture. The reason behind this of course is profit, and there are plenty of other attacks on the forest for the same reason, from hydroelectric plants and gold-mining to large-scale fishing and oil exploration. Indeed, the Amazon itself may already be close to a ‘tipping point’, when it no longer produces enough moisture and may change into a semi-arid savannah. All of this is exposed here, with considerable detail and personal stories.
Biodiversity is another crucial aspect of the Amazon. Having large numbers of different plants can help to build fertile soils. Also, the area is likely to contain drugs that can help combat disease, but about which the outside world knows very little. The indigenous people who live in the rainforest have a great deal of knowledge about possible uses of plants, and made use of some of their own remedies to fight Covid. But as deforestation continues, biodiversity will decline and some potentially useful plants may disappear.
The policies of the Brazilian government have had a major impact on the Amazon. The right-wing populist government of Jair Bolsonaro encouraged land-grabbers and illegal miners to invade the forest and extract natural resources. Since the election of left-winger Lula da Silva as president in 2022, things may have improved a bit, and he promised zero deforestation by the end of the decade, but it remains to be seen if anything close to this will materialise.
Defending the Amazon rainforest would contribute to limiting climate change and would also protect the indigenous communities that live there. Rather than the people being a means to the end of defending the Amazon biome, the forest should be saved to prevent indigenous genocide. They are not just hunter–gatherers but also ‘rainforest gardeners and technicians’. Massive construction projects ‘convert self-sufficient forest peoples into the urban poor’ (rather like capitalism originally forcing people off the land to become wage slaves in factories).
The book reminds us how many inhabitants of the Earth view it rather differently from those who live under capitalism. As an indigenous representative says in the afterword, ‘That land could be owned by a single person is unthinkable to us because everyone’s survival depends on it. We can’t imagine how anyone could pollute, divert or dam water for their own profit.’
Paul Bennett
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