Brazilian Amazon Atlas

INTRODUCTION

Since the Portuguese occupation, the Amazon region has served as a container for projections brought from outside – beginning with the very name “Amazon,” derived from Greek mythology, given to the largest river in the region by the Spanish captain Francisco de Orellana in the 16th century. Other nicknames for the region did not consider the inhabitants who lived and cultivated the forest for thousands of years either. These included “gateway to paradise” and “Eldorado,” nicknames given by colonizers, and “green hell,” the latter given by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985) that commanded its neocolonization centuries later.

Throughout this time, the practices and ontologies of the local inhabitants continued to be suppressed, whether through catechization or genocide, while their territories were violently seized and privatized, based on destructive notions, or even supposedly sustainable ones, although still immersed in the ideal of development.

The Amazon has transformed itself, integrating the various changes with an admirable degree of resilience. However, new threats are emerging, still in the wake of developmentalist promises of progress. Mining and infrastructure projects, combined with the advancement of the agribusiness production model and its extensive monocultures, are increasingly depleting natural resources, imposing a turning point on the Amazon.

This is happening at the exact moment when solutions are finally being sought for the imminent climate collapse – both means of mitigation, through carbon absorption, and ways of adapting to the global civilizational crisis. Consequently, many are turning their attention to the region and to those who, despite being under constant threat, through essential multi-species interaction, have managed to preserve it and keep it standing: Indigenous and traditional peoples.

As a German political foundation, we have closely followed all these changes and tensions since we first started operating in Brazil in 2000. We seek to support and promote dialogue on the various issues surrounding resistance in the Amazon region, such as human rights, the rights of Indigenous peoples, biodiversity, agroecology, climate justice, and flying rivers. We always value the role of those who have been confronting predatory economic sectors for generations, often succumbing at the hands of their representatives. For us, the defense of the territorial rights of these peoples and their ways of living must be at the center of the debates on any solution to the challenges faced by the Amazon.

With this Brazilian Amazon Atlas, we seek to deconstruct stereotypes about the region. This content aims to contribute to an urgent change in perspective, so that people in Brazil and all over the world can get to know the Amazon again – this time from the perspective of the region’s diverse inhabitants.

To this end, we gathered together an editorial board made up of scholars, activists, and communicators from the Amazon – or those who have been working in the region for decades – to identify local authors and topics to be addressed. As a result, the 32 articles in this Atlas were produced by a majority of authors from different parts of the Amazon. Such choices also took into account racial, ethnic and gender diversity.

Furthermore, this Atlas represents a change in perspective for the Foundation: It is the first atlas of the Heinrich Böll Foundation entirely conceived and produced in the Global South. It is a publication enriched with local knowledge and science that challenges Western scientism.

We hope that this Brazilian Amazon Atlas can serve as a gateway to knowledge of the region and as an instrument for learning about the complex relationships that make up this immense territory. From this, we hope that it can foster debates and dialogues, as well as inspire solutions to the different challenges, in order to encourage a sustainable and self-determined future for the Amazon and its peoples.

In a year marked by the first COP to be held in the Amazon region, COP 30, this material will also serve to emphasize that the protagonism of the peoples responsible for the millennial protection of the region is key to multilateral climate negotiations – and, ultimately, to planetary survival.

Finally, to help readers navigate the content, we have included a glossary and a summary of the articles in the section “15 Fast Facts,” present on the previous pages.

We would like to thank Aiala Colares, Angela Mendes, Elaíze Freitas, João Paulo Tukano, José Héder Benatti, Karina Penha, Kátia Brasil, and Marcela Vecchione for their excellent contributions as members of the editorial board to the production process of this Atlas, including the complex and sensitive epistemological debates that were essential to its collective construction. Part of this debate makes up the editorial written collectively and presented below.

We invite our readers to join us in this change of perspective and to engage mentally and emotionally with the Amazon presented here. We would also like to extend an invitation: Learn about the work of the organizations, networks, collectives, and movements that partner with the Foundation and are mentioned here and on our website, for they are tirelessly working to defend the peoples and territories of the Amazon.