Our environmental Education project in the Amazon ended with success!

Peoples of the forest are its guardians and, for millennia, have lived in harmony with the surrounding environment. However, even in the most remote places of the Biome, new generations are facing difficult challenges: the transition to modernity, the use of technology and the approach to urban reality and consumerism.

With this pilot project, a partnership between Amazônia, Amazon Charitable Trust and CoopXixuaú, financed by Cerchi d’onda Onlus, we wanted to give new generations of people living in the forest some necessary tools to understand the value of a healthy and balanced environment and the need to keep it that way.

The project received the symbolic name “Rio de Luz” (River of Light), which links the river environment where the students live to the concept of light as a symbol of life and knowledge.

The activities, launched in January 2022 and concluded in June of the same year, involved five schools of the Jauaperi Extractive Reserve, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. The project wanted to offer the young generations of the beneficiary communities a model of environmental education in order to spread awareness about issues such as the value of the forest, its conservation, traditional knowledge, waste management, river water pollution and appropriate measures to avoid environmental degradation.

The lessons were held by an environmental education teacher, with the support of our staff and local teachers. The initiative received the patronage of the municipal school authorities and the support of the leadership of the traditional communities involved. Various methods were adopted to develop the goal: for the little ones we decided to carry out creativity and drawing activities; for the older ones, we opted for a greater depth of contents. The 70 pupils who benefited from the project watched videos and cartoons, listened to podcasts, had theory lessons and participated in practical training experiences such as separate waste collection. The activities were carried out both in classroom and outdoors, and allowed children and teens to independently reflect on the main themes of the course. Those activities made used various tools for each age group: games, drawing, music, creative and experiential workshops.

At the end of the course, a small ceremony was held to deliver participation certificates, in the presence of families, reinforcing the importance of environmental preservation in traditional communities and rewarding the commitment of the children and teenagers.

Today the Amazon Forest plays a crucial role in containing climate chaos and, therefore, in the future of humanity. The well-being of the forest also depends on the next generations of native inhabitants, who will be the most important guardians of this immense heritage of tropical biodiversity!

We thank all the participants, teachers and partners involved and we look forward to new collaborations in favor of the forest and for the future of the Amazon and humanity.

An unprecedented scientific expedition. The first large-scale and multidisciplinary one built in the Jauaperi Extractive Reseve.

The team, based in Xixuaú and led by prof. Carlos Peres of the National Institute of Research in the Amazon (INPA), brought together 24 people, including researchers and students from numerous Brazilian institutions including the famous Emilio Goeldi Museum in Belém and the federal universities of Amazonas, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.

Amazon, Biodiversity and Carbon Expeditions is the full name of the project that mobilized an unprecedented task force in uncharted forest areas for 15 days of intensive research.

The purpose of the expedition was to carry out a quantitative survey of the biodiversity of the undisturbed terra firme forest, including vertebrates, plants and non-vertebrates, such as small and large mammals, birds, lizards, frogs, fish (using eDNA from water samples), ferns, trees, beetles, bees, ants, termites and other dipters. The survey also included the measurement of forest carbon stock and epigeal biomass, soundscapes using automatic recorders and the use of photographic traps.

In the coming years, ABC Expeditions will carry out a multi-taxa expedition in each of the 12 main river basins, covering all 9 states of the Brazilian Amazon and gathering important information for the future of the Biome.

We are proud to have contributed to the first major scientific expedition in the reserve and very eager to see (and show you!) The first results and the first images recorded!

Stay tuned!

————————————————– ————————————————– ———————————————

The expedition was made possible thanks to the support of the Norwegian University of Natural Sciences, the Amazon Charitable Trust and Amazônia Onlus, with the logistical support of CoopXixuaú and the consent of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity – ICMBio.

All team members were doubly vaccinated and tested for Covid 24. All activities were carried out in the open air and all anti-Covid protocols respected.

The Doutores Das Águas ambulance boat goes upstream against the current, bringing treatment and medical assistance to the most isolated villages of the Amazon River basin. Weeks of navigation, dozens of stops to visit around 2000 natives in each expedition. For many of them it is the only opportunity to meet a doctor or a dentist and the only opportunity to obtain basic medicines for their own well-being and that of their children.

Normally, the boat is full of volunteers: doctors, nurses, dentists, dental technicians, educators and animators form a team of 50 people on board. This year, due to the restrictions imposed by the anti-Covid protocols, the medical team was reduced to personnel with double doses of the vaccine and the activities were rethought in line with the anti-contagion security measures to avoid gatherings and contain the spread of the virus.

The staff, reduced to 20 specialists, offered specialist visits, dental and minor surgery, medication, ordinary vaccines as well as tests for hepatitis and sexually transmitted diseases, the latter of which (in particular syphilis) were found with a higher incidence than what emerged from the screening carried out in 2019.

Amazônia supports health actions with the aim of promoting the improvement of health indicators and the quality of life among the peoples of the forest.

For this reason, we also support the vaccination campaign against Covid19. In collaboration with the Health Departments, we work to raise awareness among the population, keep the natives informed about the arrival of vaccines and support the transport costs of the most isolated families to vaccination places.

A special thanks to ACQUASAN for allowing the trip of the “river doctors”!

Watch the video of the trip!

Amazônia Onlus’ appeal: “Floods cause vulnerability, loss of property and disease. Families have to leave their homes. We need everything. “

“In the Amazon we are experiencing exceptional flooding. This year the port of Manaus recorded a record level of 30.02 meters on the Rio Negro, the highest since 1902, when the measurements began. With water invading the houses on the banks of rivers, the local population is in a situation of extreme vulnerability. They are losing their assets and are increasingly exposed to the risk of contracting diseases, as well as food safety problems. Covid was not enough “. Emanuela Evangelista, directly from the Amazon, tells what is happening in the rainforest: an emergency that is still not talked about abroad.

 “Floods are ordinary seasonal events to which local populations are accustomed and normally prepared to face, but the Amazon is increasingly affected by extreme phenomena, probably exasperated by climate chaos”, says the president Amazônia Onlus, highlighting that this year all the normal precautions were not enough.

The Amazon basin has its natural cycle: from June to November, with the so-called “vazante”, the water drops and from December to May the water rises, flooding the area. In the last decade, according to the findings of the Rede Hidrometeorológica Nacional, the ebb and flow process has become more pronounced, with increasingly extreme water levels in rivers.

Following the exceptional floods in progress, crops are ending up under water along with small farms, fishing is becoming increasingly difficult due to the vastness of the flooded areas. Getting food has become increasingly difficult and many families have had to leave their homes in the midst of the pandemic, despite living on stilts. Everything is needed: food, drugs, hygiene products, fuel for travel, economic resources to repair the damage and rebuild.

We have alerted local authorities, collected images and testimonies and sent petitions for a state of emergency to be declared. We will bring help in this difficult time and in post-flooding, when it will be necessary to assess the damage and remedy it.

Let’s not leave them alone.

Make your donation and help the forest and its inhabitants in need.

Donate by clicking here.