Fires in the Amazon forest are not new--in the last five years much attention has been given to the multiple fires set by slash and burn agriculturists in the main Amazon, and the resulting smoke pollution. But until now, the forests of Roraima seemed safe: the recently created state has a low population density and colonization is concentrated in few, localized areas. The extreme el Nino-induced drought, however, has finally allowed the fires traditionally set in the savanna and forest-savanna boundary to spread into the forest. The forests of Roraima, in addition to the ususal biodiveristy we assoicate with these areas, are also the home of the Yanomami, the largest unacculturated indigenous group in South America. During the last decade the Yanomami have been in the news due the massive 1987-90 gold rush into their area, the 1991 demarcation of their reserve by then President Collor, the massacre of women and children by gold miners at Haximu in 1993, and the recent expulsion, or attempted expulsion, of a new rush of gold miners in the last months of 1997. When we visted Roraima last February, to attend the annual Yanomami Assembly, the impacts of the drought were starting to be felt: one community deep in the forest, near the mountains that form the border with Venezuela, abandoned their home site because the river and streams were all dry. A few days later CCPY, the largest NGO working with the Yanomami, sent in workers to dig wells and attempt to keep their health post running. They had to carry in their own water, flown several hours by the small planes that are the only way of reaching the area. Now they cannot fly in even to resupply their workers: when fires started burning into the forest about two weeks ago, the smoke layer became so extensive that the small, visual flight planes cannot fly into the area. In fact, local authorities have just forbidden all flights over the area. The smoke reaches up to 6,000 feet into the atmosphere, so only planes with radar can overfly, and none can land on the small airstrips cut into the forest. Even though the fires have not reached the interior forest communities, the smoke is preventing all access to the area: None of the health posts can be resupplied, no emergency medical situations can be addressed (usually, critically ill or injured Yanomami are flown out). In terms of immediate effects, it is the communities near the forest border that are most impacted by the fires (animals dying and leaving the area, extreme drought, etc.), but the interior communities are being affected by the lack of access. Since several communities are experiencing severe malarial outbreaks, due to the recent gold miner activities, it is critical that medicine reach the area and that ill people be flown out.
The health organizations working in the area are concerned about the lack of news coverage of the situation. During the last crisis in the Yanomami area, it was largely international focus on the crisis that forced the federal government to expel the gold miners, or pursue the perpetrators of the massacre. Tomorrow, two anthropologists who have worked for decades with the Yanomami, Drs. Bruce Albert and Alcida Ramos, are flying to Brasilia to attempt to meet with the President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Two Yanomami leaders, known in Portuguese as Joao Davi and Peri, will be accompanying them. We spoke with Joao Davi last night over the phone from World Doctors head quarters in Boa Vista. He had flown out of his village of Paapiu a few days ago, where World Doctors has a health post. The plane was to have landed at another village but the smoke was just too thick and they had to abandon the attempt. He also said that as the plane approached the edge of the forest, the forest itself was burning deep inside, far from the edge. He asked me what we could do to save the forest. I had no answer. The Yanomami are terrified that the smoke means that they and their forest are all coming to an end. Ever since contact, they have been afraid that white people will destroy the forest, which to them is the entire world. In the case of mining, Davi Yanomami explains that it you pull out the rocks from the ground, the sky will fall on the forest and kill Yanomami and whites alike. With the fires, it must seem to them that this prediction is comming true.
Carlos Zaquini, an indigenist who has worked with the Yanomami for more than thirty years, infomed us that the forest around the crossing into the Yanomami region of Caatrimani, closest to a contested agricultural border on the reserve, have all burned down. The monkeys are so desperate for water after the fires that they have concentrated around the few remining pools of water, trying to survive on the ground. There they are slaughtered by "white" hunters who are taking advantage of the fires to hunt deep in the Yanomami area.
Medecins du Monde (World Doctors) and other NGO's and governmental agencies operating out of Boa Vista, have been meeting aroung the clock to try to find solutions--how to prevent the further spread of fires, how to stop new fires from being set, how to get supplies and water out to the communities that need it. The president of IBAMA (the branch of the Ministry of Environement in charge of protected areas and environmental regulations) is visiting Roraima to evaluate the situation (theoretically IBAMA is responsible for contolling burning in the area and penalizing those who set illegal fires). One must remember that the situation is critical throughout the state, especially in the savanna area: fires are burning near the principal city of Boa Vista, outlying towns have no water, emergency wells are being dug, ranchers have lost a huge percentage of their cattle, etc., etc. Funds and attention will be spread thin, and we need to focus some of it on the Yanomami and the forest. This is a world level ecological disaster, and it will only become worse: the rainy season is still almost two months away.
