O paraíso ameaçado sabedoria yanomami versus insensatez predatória

The Upper Orinoco region incensed many a European imagination, including Columbus’ who bewildered by the sight of its majestic mouth took the Orinoco as one of the rivers of the Earthly Paradise. It is, in fact, yanomami country which straddles the Brazil-Venezuela border. It displays both the grandiosity of the Amazon and the wise use the Indians make of it. By focusing on the networks of trails opened up in the immense forest by unbroken generations, I want to emphatically deny that the Amazon is a “demographic void,” thus firmly belying the insidious fallacy that the emptiness of Amazonia places a threat to national security, a danger that should be averted with intensive colonization and economic projects. This recurrent fallacy persistently disqualifies the obvious and important presence of indigenous peoples.