« Environmental activism is what we already do, it is our way of life. We are the environment! »

Posted on September 25, 2022 by Barbara Crane Navarro - Rainforest Art Project

Because the past four years of Bolsonaro’s violent anti-Indigenous policies and accelerating plundering of Nature have been so devastating, Sonia Guajajara, head the NGO APIB, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, is running for Congress. Brazilian elections are on October 2, 2022.

« This election is crucial and, today, it is the women who are taking up the fight and leading the struggle of Indigenous people in Brazil. »

Of the 60 Indigenous candidates who are running in the Brazilian Congressional elections, 31 are women.


Deforestation for illegal gold mining on Indigenous lands

Under the Bolsonaro government, deforestation is at a 15-year high. Satellite images show that Indigenous lands are the least damaged areas in the Brazilian Amazon region. 

Indigenous peoples have proven to be the most effective at protecting the forests and biodiversity.


Satellite images show that Indigenous lands are the least damaged areas in the Brazilian Amazon region. 

Celia Xakriaba, who is running for Congress from the state of Minas Gerais said: « Environmental activism is what we already do, it is our way of life. We are the environment. » 

Only two Indigenous people have previously been elected to congress; Mario Juruna in 1982 and Joenia Wapichana in 2018.

Vanda Witoto who is running for Congress from Manaus, the capital of the Amazon region, stated: « I firmly believe in the strength of women to get elected and raise our voices in Congress. If we are elected, we have the gigantic task to stop bills that would open up our territories to gold mining and agribusiness. We intend to fight them head on.»


Deforestation for the agro-industry

Indigenous land rights are guaranteed by the Constitution, but one of the contentious issues that they intend to fight against is the « Time Frame » the Bolsonaro government is promoting through the Brazilian Supreme Court. 

« This ‘Time Frame’ is how the government will hand over our lands to be destroyed by illegal gold mining, logging, land grabbers and agribusiness,» stated Tereza Arapium who is running for election to the Rio de Janeiro state legislature.

More information about the « Time Frame » is here:

The «Time Frame » Trick – Genocide for Indigenous peoples and Ecocide for the Amazon Rainforest?

« Our people continue to be killed. It’s time to reforest our hearts, our minds and our actions! » 

  • Sonia Guajajara

All of us are part of nature!

Please help Indigenous peoples by boycotting products from deforestation; gold, palm oil, gemstones, exotic wood, soy, beef, leather, etc. !!!

About Barbara Crane Navarro - Rainforest Art Project

I'm a French artist living near Paris. From 1968 to 1973 I studied at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, then at the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, California, for my BFA. My work for many decades has been informed and inspired by time spent with indigenous communities. Various study trips devoted to the exploration of techniques and natural pigments took me originally to the Dogon of Mali, West Africa, and subsequently to Yanomami communities in Venezuela and Brazil. Over many years, during the winters, I studied the techniques of traditional Bogolan painting. Hand woven fabric is dyed with boiled bark from the Wolo tree or crushed leaves from other trees, then painted with mud from the Niger river which oxidizes in contact with the dye. Through the Dogon and the Yanomami, my interest in the multiplicity of techniques and supports for aesthetic expression influenced my artistic practice. The voyages to the Amazon Rainforest have informed several series of paintings created while living among the Yanomami. The support used is roughly woven canvas prepared with acrylic medium then textured with a mixture of sand from the river bank and lava. This supple canvas is then rolled and transported on expeditions into the forest. They are then painted using a mixture of acrylic colors and Achiote and Genipap, the vegetal pigments used by the Yanomami for their ritual body paintings and on practical and shamanic implements. My concern for the ongoing devastation of the Amazon Rainforest has inspired my films and installation projects. Since 2005, I've created a perfomance and film project - Fire Sculpture - to bring urgent attention to Rainforest issues. To protest against the continuing destruction, I've publicly set fire to my totemic sculptures. These burning sculptures symbolize the degradation of nature and the annihilation of indigenous cultures that depend on the forest for their survival.
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11 Responses to « Environmental activism is what we already do, it is our way of life. We are the environment! »

  2. Pingback: « Environmental activism is what we already do, it is our way of life. We are the environment! » | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

  3. fgsjr2015 says:
    October 11, 2022 at 1:14 am

    While bone-dry-vegetation regions uncontrollably burn, mass addiction to fossil fuel products undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest they feel and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical. It must be convenient for big fossil fuel.

    The industry and friendly governments can tell when a very large portion of the populace is too tired and worried about feeding/housing themselves or their family, and virus-variant damage still being left in COVID-19’s wake — all while on insufficient income — to criticize them for whatever environmental damage their policies cause/allow, particularly when not immediately observable. [And I’ve heard very little of Greta’s name in the mainstream corporate news-media since COVID hit the world.]

    Meanwhile, (neo)liberals and conservatives are overly preoccupied with vociferously criticizing one another for their politics and beliefs thus diverting attention away from the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused. Albeit, it seems to be conservatives who don’t mind liberally polluting the planet.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Barbara Crane Navarro - Rainforest Art Project says:
      October 13, 2022 at 5:09 pm

      Yes, most of humanity appears to be suicidal…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      • fgsjr2015 says:
        October 16, 2022 at 10:40 pm

        To me at least, collective human existence is still essentially analogous to a cafeteria lineup consisting of diversely societally represented people, all adamantly arguing over which identifiable person should be at the front and, conversely, at the back of the line.

        Many of them further fight over to whom amongst them should go the last piece of quality pie and how much they should have to pay for it — all the while the interstellar spaceship on which they’re all permanently confined, owned and operated by (besides the wealthiest passengers) the fossil fuel industry, is on fire and toxifying at locations not normally investigated.

        As a species, we can be so heavily preoccupied with our own individual little worlds, however overwhelming to us, that we will miss the biggest of crucial pictures.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Barbara Crane Navarro - Rainforest Art Project says:
        October 17, 2022 at 10:54 am

        Yes, most people are oblivious, lost and confused…

        Liked by 1 person

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