Deep In The Amazon, An Unseen Battle Over The Most Valuable Trees November 4, 20154:21 AM ET Lourdes Garcia-­‐Navarro In this part of the Amazon rain forest,
they call it "the war over wood."
It has front lines.
One of them is here, in Machadinho
d'Oeste in the western Brazilian state of
Rondonia.
The self-described "Guardians of the
Forest" defending the land don't look
like fighters, at least when we first meet
them. But they are pitting themselves
against criminal logging gangs that
have infiltrated their protected reserves.
In their everyday life, they are rubber
tappers. They take us on a trail that
leads to their rubber trees, which grow
wild on the reserves where they live.
These trees are native to the Amazon
region, one of the most dangerous
places in the world to be an
environmental defender.
Tappers milk the trees for their sap by
cutting them and collecting what comes
out in small metal buckets. It's what
natural rubber is made from, and it's
completely sustainable. As long as the
trees live, they can be used this way.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
The rubber tappers use a whistle that mimics a local bird as they move from rubber tree to tree. They say they use it to
disguise themselves in the forest so they won't startle the wildlife.
With us is tapper Antônio da Silva, age 88. He's been a tapper most of his life.
Antonio takes us up a steep, jungle-covered hill. I'm out of breath, but he pats his belly and quips that rubber tappers don't get
fat because of daily workouts like these.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
Back in the 19th century, Brazil's rubber trees were like gold — the only source of a precious commodity in a rapidly
industrializing world. Brazil prospered on the back of them.
As da Silva recounts, a nefarious Englishman stole the seeds of the tree, and production moved to Asia, collapsing the
industry in Brazil. Now, rubber tappers like him are granted the right to sustainably extract their livelihood from the forest. In
return, they defend these protected areas from encroachment.
Tappers milk the trees for their sap
by cutting into the bark and
collecting the latex material in small
metal buckets. In Brazil, rubber
tappers are granted the right to
sustainably extract their livelihood
from forests like this protected
reserve in Machadinho d'Oeste in the
Brazilian state of Rondonia.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
The next day, the rubber tappers look very different.
We are heading into a part of the Amazon rain forest that the rubber tappers call enemy territory. We are the first journalists
they've taken into this part of the forest.
Our guides include Elizeu Berçacola, one of the rubber-tapper leaders. He's 49 and has an intense, frenetic energy. He's got a
pistol tucked into his belt and his great-grandfather's rifle from 1906. The other men also carry a motley assortment of
weapons.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
Giselda Pilker is the opposite — she's
kind of the peace-loving mother of this
group. Her son is named John Lennon,
after the member of the Beatles.
The tappers — seven of them in all —
signal to one another when it's OK to
proceed. We are having to stop and start
all the time to make sure we won't come
into sudden contact with illegal loggers.
These are criminal gangs who steal
protected wood from the forest. As we
move deeper into the jungle, we see
signs that they've been here, everywhere.
he rubber tappers are having to hack
branches and fallen logs out of our way.
The rubber tappers point out some of the
more valuable tree species — the ones
that are older, therefore bigger, the
hardwoods like mahogany or ipe, also
known as Brazilian walnut.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
Illegal loggers send teams into the forest to identify these trees, and then they come in stealthily later and cut them down.
This, Berçacola explains, is how illegal deforestation begins. The forest is thinned of its biodiversity, picked apart tree by
tree. What's worse, the illegal logging gangs take the seed-bearing trees, what the rubber tappers call the "mothers of the
forest."
What's driving this is demand. This wood is lucrative and sells for thousands of dollars internationally. America is the largest
export market for Brazilian timber.
Rubber tapper Helenílson Felix stands near the stump of a tree that was felled by illegal
logging. The tappers explained that this is how deforestation begins: The forest is thinned of
its biodiversity, picked apart tree by tree.
The rubber tappers are trying to stop the illegal trade from happening, with patrols like the
one we are on today. That's put them in direct conflict with what are essentially organized
criminal groups.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
As we move forward, Berçacola tells us — although we may not realize it — we are approaching the front lines.
"We rubber tappers are being hunted because we are trying to protect what you see around you," he tells me.
Sixteen rubber tappers in this area alone have been murdered in the past decade. One corpse was found stuffed into the
burrow of a wild animal.
Berçacola is wearing a battered backpack that has three bullet holes in it. It's from a recent attempt on his life. His wife and
children have left the state because of threats against them.
Edivaldo "Diva" de Souza, one of the tappers, stands in a clearing in the forest among trees that have been felled illegally.
Giselda Pilker tells us how one rubber tapper was decapitated as a warning.
She says there isn't enough local law enforcement to protect the forest, so
that's why they try to do it.
Technically, this kind of vigilantism is illegal, but the understaffed police turn a blind eye. This area isn't the only one having armed conflicts. Indigenous groups have
also been taking up arms in parts of the Amazon to fight for their ancestral
lands.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
We start moving again and we come across a wide dirt road that cuts through the green. The men tense up. They load their
weapons in case of a confrontation.
Berçacola tells me what we've found is an illegal logging road — but unlike the other track we were on, this one is wide and
smooth, an example of how well-used it is and how the illegal loggers operate with impunity. Berçacola tells us there are at
least nine of these roads in this area alone.
This is illegal deforestation's ground zero.
We see piles of stacked logs that have been illegally cut, waiting to be taken out of the forest.
We creep up on foot toward a clearing. We are whispering to one another because we are not
sure what we will find.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
In just this one tiny part of one forest reserve in the Amazon, we discover three illegal logging camps. They don't look like
much, but they can house teams of men that strip the forest down.
Most of the people who do the dirty work of illegal logging are actually the
poorest of the poor. It's practically slave labor, backed up by shadowy gangs.
The workers sleep out in the elements, and they are paid very little.
As we walk around one camp, we realize it's only been recently vacated. There
are a few suitcases. We open them up, and inside we find very meager
belongings: a couple of pairs of shorts, some toothpaste, a notebook and a few
well-thumbed pornographic magazines.
Berçacola and his crew then set fire to the camps, to make sure they can't be
used again.
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
As the camps burn, we suddenly realize we are not alone.
Pilker shouts out that she has spotted a motorbike coming
toward us. We've been warned that the illegal loggers
have scouts watching their camps.
The rubber tappers are startled, but they charge after the
biker. They kneel down and take aim and fire. The crack
of gunfire breaks the heavy silence of the jungle.
Luckily, it ends up being just the one scout on a
motorcycle, and the tappers chase him off. Berçacola is
pumped up and triumphant.
He explains it's been a good day and the group wants to continue their patrol. They say they are thrilled that they have
managed to chase off people who are doing damage to the trees.
The euphoria, though, is fleeting.
Elizeu Berçacola surveys the scene after he and his fellow rubber tappers set
afire one of three illegal logging camps.
While we are standing next to an illegally chopped down tree that's the color of
blood, I ask Pilker, the rubber-tapper leader, what the future of the rain forest is.
Her whole family lives off forest reserves like these.
She breaks down sobbing, tears tracking down her face like rain.
"We struggle so much to defend the land, we fight so hard," she tells me. "We
die, so many have died to defend what you see here."
She says, simply, they are losing the fight.
"To cut down a tree is like cutting out a piece of us. No one does anything to
save us," she says. "We people of the forest are peaceful. We don't want this
war."
Kainaz Amaria/NPR
Valdemar Geo contributed reporting to this story. SOURCE: http://www.npr.org/2015/11/04/452555878/deep-­‐in-­‐the-­‐amazon-­‐an-­‐unseen-­‐battle-­‐over-­‐the-­‐most-­‐
valuable-­‐trees