by David Suzuki
By 1988, 3,500 people were attending the Stein Valley Festival. The following year, 16,000 people drove to the event, held at the rodeo grounds near Mount Currie. They were entertained by Canadian stars Bruce Cockburn, Gordon Lightfoot, Colin James, Valdy, Blue Rodeo, and Spirit of the West, among many others. The festival had become so huge that it now made money, and I was sure the size of the crowd ensured the valley would never be logged. In one of many dramatic moments, Woody Morrison, a Haida, rose and told us he had served in the U.S. military in Vietnam, but even the most heavily bombed land he had seen there had not been as devastated as the clear-cut area visible behind him. In another, Hollywood director and Canadian Norman Jewison got up on the stage to announce that he and American singer Cher were contributing $5,000 to the cause.
That was the last Stein festival I attended, because, as with Windy Bay, I was sure public support had reached a level that meant no politician would ever dare allow the valley to be logged. That goal had been the rationale for the festival in the first place. In 1995, B.C. Premier Mike Harcourt held a ceremony with Chief Ruby Dunstan and Chief Leonard Andrew to set aside the entire watershed as Stein Valley Nlaka'pamux Heritage Park, administered by the Lytton First Nations and B.C. Parks. Now, each time I return to hike up the valley, it is gratifying to think the ecosystem will continue to flourish long after we are gone.
IN BOTH HAIDA GWAII and the Stein Valley, the battle was led by First Nations. Theirs was a struggle over land, not for the superficial needs of money, jobs, or control, but for the most powerful need of all—to remain who they are. In the past, and even in the present, environmentalists often recruited First Nations communities to support their agenda of protecting forests, rivers, and wildlife without regard to the people's even broader cultural and spiritual needs. In sharing their land as park reserves, the Haida and Lytton people gained tacit recognition that these areas are part of their territory but are to be protected for all people for all time. It is a generous gift.
chapter SEVEN
ADVENTURES IN THE AMAZON
WHEN I WAS A BOY, I would sneak a peek at Dad's adventure magazines, which carried tales of true-life adventures in exotic places. The ones that would make my heart beat wildly described the Amazon, a place I yearned to visit.
I loved reading about the Indians who wore feather headdresses, their bodies painted in patterns blending with the dappled light beneath the tree canopy as they hunted for game with blowpipes and arrows tipped with deadly poisons. In the 1940s there were still many parts of the globe that had not been explored by people from the industrialized world; the Amazon rain forest remained a vast and mysterious ecosystem, rife, according to the magazines, with terrifying diseases and parasites. Piranhas and giant anacondas filled the rivers; jaguars and armies of deadly ants lurked in the forest. These terrors were balanced by the spectacles of colorful parrots and dazzling butterflies and, most of all, beetles. I had fallen madly in love with insects, but beetles especially held me in thrall.
In 1988, at the age of fifty-two, I had my chance to realize my boyhood dreams. In August, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki crew traveled to Brazil to begin filming for a special program on the rain forest's ecosystem. A month later, filled with anticipation, I flew to the outpost of Pôrto Velho, capital of the state of Rondônia, to hook up with the crew. But my first glimpse of the legendary forests was bittersweet: we were there to bear witness to its destruction.
For years, Brazil's urban poor had been promised opportunities in the Amazon under the slogan “Land without people, for people without land.” They had flooded into remote villages in the rain forest, cutting trees to make into charcoal as fuel for factories and to clear land to cultivate crops, which grew for only a year or two in the meager soil. Then the peasants were forced to leave their plots and move on, taking their poverty and malaria with them, as they continued the cycle of burn and cut to plant crops for another year or two.
When I caught up with the crew in Rondônia, they had not been able to take aerial shots because smoke from the burning forest was so thick it was too hazardous for airplanes to take off. I was excited to be there, depressing as the scene was, but the team was demoralized by what they had filmed—poverty, malnutrition, malaria, and children so painfully thin the crew ended up giving them money for medicine and food.
The red soil that had so recently been cloaked with an ancient forest was now exposed in fields that barely supported a pitiful crop of vegetables inadequate for the needs of the large families. Immense trees were cut down without a thought for their ecological role or the organisms they supported (Harvard's E.O. Wilson records that he found more genera of ants on a single tree in the Amazon than are found in the entire United Kingdom).
One of the most destructive activities in the Amazon is the cutting of huge trees to be burned anoxically in sealed ovens to produce charcoal. We filmed dozens of domes in which the wood smoldered to be rendered into lightweight, high-energy fuel, which was then piled in sacks. Magnificent trees were reduced to skeletal pieces of charcoal in pile after pile. I found this devastating. I knew I was witnessing an ecological holocaust, a crime against future generations who would never know the full wonder of this magnificent ecosystem.
We filmed endless scenes of burning—trees, fields, whole forests going up in smoke. At one point we were searching a burn and drove down a narrow road, which suddenly ended in a pond. Rudi Kovanic and the crew lugged their gear around the pond to film the fire on the other side. Since I had plenty of time before I had to appear on-camera, I pulled out my fishing rod and cast toward some logs in the water. On shoots like this, where we were filming scenics rather than interviews with scientists, I might do only one or two stand-ups in a day, so I had a lot of time to stand around and watch. That's why, when we encountered water, I often would pull out my rod and reel and see what might be caught. This time, surrounded by the desolation of burning, I did not expect to catch anything, but at least I had something to do.
I felt a strike on my first cast and watched a beautiful tucunare, a peacock bass that is green and has a characteristic spot on its tail, hit the lure and leap into the air. Tucunare are aggressive predators and attack a lure violently, then fight like mad. They are also one of the most exquisite-tasting freshwater fish I've eaten. When the crew got back to the car, I could promise them a wonderful meal of fresh fish. But I was sure there would be no tucunare left a year or two later, even if there was still water, because the forest cover and the water cycle were being so disrupted by the destruction going on. It was with mixed feelings that I fed the crew—I love fishing and eating fresh fish, but here I was part of a “terminal fishery.”
A crew member who liked to fish was Terry Zazulak, the camera assistant. One night, when we were ensconced in a shack for the night near the Amazon River, we decided to hike to the river and try fishing. It gets dark suddenly and early—6:00 PM—near the equator, and we soon found ourselves squinting in the fading light. The river was flowing very fast, and our gear was too light to sink far enough below the surface to attract a fish. I couldn't see where my lure landed and the river was too noisy to hear it plunk into the water. I began retrieving my lure, then realized the line wasn't coming up out of the water toward me but seemed to be floating in the air. I reeled in faster, wondering whether I had snagged a branch, and felt a klunk. Reaching to the tip of the rod, I felt something furry. It was a bat! It must have swooped in on my lure and been hooked. As a young man, in 1957, I had caught a bat in the same way while fishing in the evening on a canoe trip in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario.
I thought back to the enchanting books Animal Treasure and Caribbean Treasure by Ivan Terence Sanderson, then curator of the St. Louis Zoo, about collecting specimens in exotic places, and the daydreams I had had of emulating those field trips when I grew up. According to Sanderson, the people on those expeditions would fire bb pellets into the air, and bats would nail the pellets in flight, knocking themselves out. Sa
nderson could simply pick them up to add to their collection. Here I had done the same thing with a fishing lure.
Over my decades in television, I've learned that filming in another country can be a huge hassle. No one wants to welcome into their community, or country, a crew that intends to portray them in a bad way. People want to know the purpose of the film, what we intend to show, who we will interview, and so on. Often we have to tiptoe our way through government bureaucracy, red tape, demands for baksheesh, and exchange of money in the black market. We usually have to operate in the local language to make arrangements for planes, hotels, cars, porters, and so forth. When the crew comprises host, producer, researcher/writer, cameraperson, camera assistant, soundperson, and lighting person, along with forty heavy bags of luggage (some metal trunks), a tough and savvy local agent is required to organize it all.
In Brazil, that individual was Juneia Mallus, who was as opinionated and tough as anyone I've ever met. She clashed frequently with members of the crew, but she did a fabulous job. When we said we needed to film an indigenous person who could articulate the importance of the forest and show us through his or her community, Juneia knew who it should be: an extraordinary man she had worked with before—Paiakan, a Kaiapo Indian.
Paiakan
We were to meet Paiakan in the Kaiapo village of Gorotire, which was once reachable only by trails but now had a road from the outside. But “road” is a misnomer. The Amazon is a rain forest, and as we were driving our large truck in, rain converted the road into a slimy red slash through the forest. What was supposed to be an all-day drive turned into an agonizing day and night of grinding our way, slipping and spinning and slumping. John Crawford, our longtime soundman, turned into a heroic figure, driving during the entire ordeal.
I remember clambering out of the back in utter darkness and, scared stiff, creeping on hands and knees along the trunk of a tree, one of two tire tracks across a deep gorge. Somehow John guided that truck on those two thin trunks without slipping into certain death below. Horrific as the road was, it was nevertheless the opening for the influx of “civilized” products—white bread, candy, beer, liquor, tobacco—that pollute the community we were approaching.
Disgusted with what that road had done to this village, Paiakan pulled out and moved far into the forest to establish a new village where his people could continue to live traditionally. After a long search, Paiakan had found the perfect place on a low bluff overlooking a river filled with fish. He called the community Aucre (Ah-oo-cray), apparently named after the sound a certain fish makes when caught. About two hundred people had decided to follow Paiakan and live in Aucre. But he was to meet us in Gorotire.
It was early evening and we were relaxing in a hut in the village when Paiakan came by. He was husky, of medium height, with Prince Valiant–style, jet-black hair. He was controlled when he met us—not suspicious, but curious. Who were we and what did we want? All of our conversation had to be funneled through Juneia in Portuguese, the official language of Brazil, which Paiakan had acquired as a teenager and now spoke fluently. Juneia introduced him to all of us, but when he looked at me and heard my name, David, his face brightened in a broad smile. Perhaps he was showing respect because I was the host of the program? I learned later there was a more compelling reason.
While a teenager living at a Catholic mission, Paiakan was befriended by a Brazilian Japanese medical doctor named David, or “Davi” in Portuguese. This doctor went out of his way to help the Kaiapo and became a trusted friend. Paiakan said that encountering a second “Japanese” with the same name as his early mentor and friend seemed auspicious and more than coincidental. The Brazilian David had exhibited a great affection for the Kaiapo Indians; because of him, Paiakan trusted me. I have always felt grateful to Dr. David for making my entry into Paiakan's life so straightforward.
Juneia told us Paiakan's story, and it was remarkable. Paiakan's father, Chikiri, is a chief. For his first fourteen years, Paiakan had lived a totally traditional life, as his ancestors had done for thousands of years, hunting and gathering according to knowledge acquired and passed on for many generations.
But even the immensity of the Amazon rain forest was not enough to protect the Kaiapo from the encroachments of the brancos (Europeans). The Kaiapo could smell the fires and were beginning to see extensive gold-mining pollution in some of the big rivers. Paiakan realized he had to learn more about the encroachers. At seventeen, he went to the Catholic mission, where he learned Portuguese and some Brazilian culture. After he learned to write, he promptly wrote a book about the forest as his home. Paiakan could have moved to a city and become an urban Indian, but he had no desire to be assimilated. He wanted to learn enough to protect the traditional ways, and he moved back to his village.
Not long afterward, in 1985, the Kaiapo learned that a giant gold-mining operation had opened in their territory. I have heard many versions of what followed. Most agree on this story: Paiakan led a party of warriors to find out what was happening. For days the dozens of men traveled on foot, and finally they came to an immense clearing where thousands of miners were housed. Daunted at first, the warriors waited till late at night. They decided that one group would take control of the airstrip, where several light planes were parked; another group would take over the guard tower, which held men armed with machine guns.
The signal was given. Attack! Most of the guards were fast asleep, confident they had nothing to fear deep in the Amazon. The battle was brief. Shocked, confused, confronted with Indians in war paint, the guards surrendered. The Kaiapo turned on the floodlights and ran along the barracks, pounding on the walls to call on the workers to gather. Once the men assembled, the Kaiapo fired the guards' machine guns over their heads and told them to leave Kaiapo territory. I cannot imagine the turmoil those miners felt that night as they fled into the dark forest.
Kaiapo warrior policing the gold mine
The next day, some miners returned to try to retake the camp but were severely beaten by the Kaiapo, who held the camp for months. The Brazilian government was helpless, since the Kaiapo-controlled airstrip was the only access to the camp. Paiakan was invited to Brasília to negotiate with the government. Finally, he brokered a deal. The government desperately wanted to get the planes back but refused to shut down the gold mine.
It was a placer mine; the sandy soil was blasted with pressure hoses and filtered through screens, and then mercury was added to capture the gold. It is an ecologically invasive process that pollutes rivers with toxic mercury. Since the river was already polluted and spoiled, the Kaiapo decided they would permit the mining to continue on the conditions that they would receive a royalty of 5 percent on all gold recovered, that warriors would police the camp, that they would examine all goods flying in and out, and that there would be no women, firearms, or alcohol on the site.
We later filmed the mining site, and it was quite remarkable to see the warriors police the site, clad only in shorts, with bows and arrows as their weapons. There I met an elder whose hair was still jet-black. I was fifty-two and my hair had started to turn gray, but it was clear he was a lot older than me. He asked me how old I was, and I responded with a question, “How old do you think I am?” Back came his humbling answer: “Seventy?”
Paiakan had achieved an incredible victory. He became the acknowledged leader of the community; when he decided to move to Aucre, many people went with him. Paiakan had noticed that when he negotiated with government officials or miners, they would say one thing to him in private but another to the press or the public. This discrepancy angered him, so he bought a video camera to film all encounters with officials. Initially I thought it weird that this traditional Indian was fussing with a video camera, but soon I realized it was his insurance against the forked tongue of the brancos.
DARRELL POSEY WAS AN American professor at Oxford University and a leading cultural anthropologist who had lived with and studied the Kaiapo for years and was accepted by them. In January 1987,
he invited Paiakan and his cousin, Kube-i, to attend a scientific conference in Florida. It was at that conference and on their first trip to a foreign country that Paiakan and Kube-i learned of Plano 2010, Brazil's grand scheme to build a series of dozens of massive dams in the Amazon rain forest, including several on the Xingu River. At a cost of US$10.6 billion, they would flood 18.7 million acres of forest, 85 percent of it Indian land. Paiakan's accidental discovery of Brazilian plans for his territory was reminiscent of what First Nations have experienced in Canada.
After the Florida meeting, Posey took the two Kaiapo to Washington, where they met American politicians to describe the new threat to their lands, looking for advice and support. The World Bank was considering a loan of $500 million to Brazil to build the dams, so Posey took Paiakan and Kube-i to World Bank headquarters to discuss the implications of the first dam, at Altamira, on the Kaiapo people. The media loved the two exotic Indians and gave them a lot of coverage.
Not surprisingly, the Brazilian government was enraged, and when Paiakan and Kube-i returned to Brazil, they were arrested for “criticizing Brazilian Indian policy” and for “denigrating the country's image abroad.” The excuse used to arrest them was a Brazilian law that forbids foreigners from getting involved in issues of Brazilian interest. Here were two aboriginal people, whose ancestors had inhabited the forests long before there was a Brazil, being arrested as aliens.
Paiakan and Kube-i were arraigned for trial in the fall of 1988 in Belém. Meanwhile, Paiakan developed a plan to fight the dams. He decided that the Indian tribes who lived in the area to be flooded had to be informed and galvanized into protest. But how could this be done? They lived in some of the most isolated areas of Brazil, and many tribes were hostile to their neighbors.
