The Amazon Rainforest covers five-and-a-half million square kilometres of the Amazon- 60% - of the rainforest is in Brazil.
Brazil is home to one-third of the world’s rainforests. But according to the non-profit Rainforest Action Network, more than 20% of the original Amazon Rainforest has already disappeared.
Over 6,000 square kilometres, which is more than half the size of Lebanon, was lost in 2010 alone.
Loggers are moving into ever more remote parts of rainforest. The loggers often work in terrible conditions and illegal logging is not the only crime being committed by the illegal logging mafias. Between 2005 and 2010, Brazil’s government freed nearly 18,000 modern-day slaves, often impoverished migrant workers, being forced to clear the rainforest in order to pay off debts with their employers.
Since 1996, at least 212 Amazonian activists have been murdered because of the battle to preserve nature or over land disputes with wealthy loggers – that is an average of 12 a year.
Since 1996, at least 212 Amazonian activists have been murdered because of the battle to preserve nature or over land disputes with wealthy loggers – that is an average of 12 a year.
“I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment,” rainforest activist Ze Claudio Ribeiro da Silva told an environmental conference in 2010. Six months later he was dead – gunned down, alongside his wife Maria, on May 24, 2011 in a remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon.
In 1500, there were an estimated six to nine million Amazon natives. By 1900, there were thought to be one million left in Brazil.
Today, the number is believed to be just 250,000, comprising 215 ethnic groups who speak 170 different languages.
An estimated 3,000 edible fruits can be found in the rainforest. Amazon natives consume more than 1,500 of these, but only 200 are cultivated for use today.
“For the Indians wealth means having a forest and soil.”
Benki Piyako
Seventy per cent of plants found to have anti-cancer properties are found only in the rainforest.
“There’s this fashionable expression, the rainforest is the earth’s lungs. What does the earth’s lungs mean? Look at your lungs. Where would your body be if we took away your lungs? That’s what it’s about. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
Moises Piyako
“When we connect them to each other it makes them stronger.”
Joao Fortes
“I was fed up with films which only show the destruction of the earth’s lung and leave the audience helpless and hopeless. I wanted to show people that they can take up the fight for the Amazon and for the world’s climate, regardless of how bad the situation already is. The way I chose my protagonists was by sympathy. It is very important to me to have ‘heroes’ the audience will like, because that will open their hearts.”
Find out more about how filmmaker Thomas Wartmann found his heroes of the Amazon.
The internet used in the rainforest is solar-powered.
Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo says: “Ninety-nine per cent of the activists facing death in the Amazon for standing up to loggers are Brazilian; they are usually poor and have no international exposure through which to call attention to their struggles.”
Read more of Gabriel Elizondo’s report on the activists facing grave dangers in order to oppose the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest.
“Everything is disappearing - our water, our forest, our fish. How are we supposed to survive?”
Benki Piyako
If deforestation continues at its current rate, according to Britaldo Soares-Filho of Brazil’s Federal University of Minas Gerais, at least 100 native species could be endangered by the loss of their habitat.
“For the first time we are connecting the villages in Amazonia to each other. And that doesn’t merely give us internet access. If we join together we can also revive our shared culture.”
Benki Piyako
“Money doesn’t get us into heaven. When we die we don’t take it with us. We must fight for our food, our water, our forest. Everything God gave us. Then you have an honest life. When you die, you live on in every tree, every river, in each moment that you lived.”
Moises Piyako
The Internet Indians
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Tweet“Money doesn’t get us into heaven. When we die we don’t take it with us. We must fight for our food, our water, our forest. Everything God gave us. Then you have an honest life. When you die, you live on in every tree, every river, in each moment that you lived.”
Moises Piyako
“For the first time we are connecting the villages in Amazonia to each other. And that doesn’t merely give us internet access. If we join together we can also revive our shared culture.”
Benki Piyako
If deforestation continues at its current rate, according to Britaldo Soares-Filho of Brazil’s Federal University of Minas Gerais, at least 100 native species could be endangered by the loss of their habitat.
“Everything is disappearing - our water, our forest, our fish. How are we supposed to survive?”
Benki Piyako
Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo says: “Ninety-nine per cent of the activists facing death in the Amazon for standing up to loggers are Brazilian; they are usually poor and have no international exposure through which to call attention to their struggles.”
Read more of Gabriel Elizondo’s report on the activists facing grave dangers in order to oppose the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest.
“I was fed up with films which only show the destruction of the earth’s lung and leave the audience helpless and hopeless. I wanted to show people that they can take up the fight for the Amazon and for the world’s climate, regardless of how bad the situation already is. The way I chose my protagonists was by sympathy. It is very important to me to have ‘heroes’ the audience will like, because that will open their hearts.”
Find out more about how filmmaker Thomas Wartmann found his heroes of the Amazon.
“There’s this fashionable expression, the rainforest is the earth’s lungs. What does the earth’s lungs mean? Look at your lungs. Where would your body be if we took away your lungs? That’s what it’s about. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
Moises Piyako
Seventy per cent of plants found to have anti-cancer properties are found only in the rainforest.
An estimated 3,000 edible fruits can be found in the rainforest. Amazon natives consume more than 1,500 of these, but only 200 are cultivated for use today.
Today, the number is believed to be just 250,000, comprising 215 ethnic groups who speak 170 different languages.
In 1500, there were an estimated six to nine million Amazon natives. By 1900, there were thought to be one million left in Brazil.
“I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment,” rainforest activist Ze Claudio Ribeiro da Silva told an environmental conference in 2010. Six months later he was dead – gunned down, alongside his wife Maria, on May 24, 2011 in a remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon.
Since 1996, at least 212 Amazonian activists have been murdered because of the battle to preserve nature or over land disputes with wealthy loggers – that is an average of 12 a year.
Since 1996, at least 212 Amazonian activists have been murdered because of the battle to preserve nature or over land disputes with wealthy loggers – that is an average of 12 a year.
Loggers are moving into ever more remote parts of rainforest. The loggers often work in terrible conditions and illegal logging is not the only crime being committed by the illegal logging mafias. Between 2005 and 2010, Brazil’s government freed nearly 18,000 modern-day slaves, often impoverished migrant workers, being forced to clear the rainforest in order to pay off debts with their employers.
Over 6,000 square kilometres, which is more than half the size of Lebanon, was lost in 2010 alone.
Brazil is home to one-third of the world’s rainforests. But according to the non-profit Rainforest Action Network, more than 20% of the original Amazon Rainforest has already disappeared.
The Amazon Rainforest covers five-and-a-half million square kilometres of the Amazon- 60% - of the rainforest is in Brazil.