Nature is increasingly being seen as a commodity rather than as the basis of life and spiritual center that it is. At the UBC Museum of Anthropology, the Amazonia: The Rights of Nature exhibit features a collection presenting the area of the Amazon basin and its traditional inhabitants who have lived with the land for over 11, 200 years. One element of the collection focuses on the environment. The environment of the basin like other regions on the planet has and continues to face lethal attacks through logging, mining, farming and a dreadfully vast collection of other activities. The walls of the exhibit starkly display horrifying statistics on topics of deforestation, resource extraction and mining. One statistic shares how 84% of the Peruvian amazon’s surface is dedicated to oil production. The exhibit strikingly showcases the relationship between the physical land and the people, and the challenges they both face.
One artifact from the exhibit that got my attention was the newspaper article from March 6, 1989.The article reports on the efforts to stop the construction of a dam by some members of Indigenous groups from the Amazon. The dam that was proposed was expected to destroy parts of the forest and flood the land causing the displacement of hundreds of people. The so-called development seen through productions such as dams, result in death of land, people and culture. The challenges and atrocities faced by the Indigenous people of the Amazon basin are sorrowfully not unique. Around the world many cultures and indigenous groups face similar atrocities and struggles. Many are confronted with loss of traditional territory and resources as well as horrors faced by indigenous people like how within a twelve-year span there were 891 targeted assassinations of indigenous people.
Having taken an anthropology class from professor Wade Davis last semester, I had the opportunity to learn about a wide range of groups, including the Penan people of the forests in Borneo as well as the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic. The Penan can be seen as an example of the damage of the past and as a prophecy urging change for the future. Much like to the people of the Amazon, the forest for the Penan is all. Shared by professor Davis in a lecture, the Penan say “from the forest, we get our life.” This life and culture that has been lived has come to an end. Due to the horrors of mass logging with the country accounting for a third of the worlds tropical timber exports, the Penan in one generation have lost their land, and thus much of their culture. The rivers run polluted and the forests lay bare. Women who were raised in the forests are forced to work as prostitutes and servants at the logging camps. Their livelihood and way off life are extinguished.
The events of the Penan cause me to reflect locally and globally. The forests of my home, British Columbia and the land of Canada, must not get destroyed. Activities such as oil extraction are posing threats to this land. Traditional territory of Indigenous Canadians faces danger much like the danger to the land faced in the Amazon and that overpowered the Penan. The exhibit Amazonia: The Rights of Nature has educated me on events and culture of the Amazon as well as the issues it has and continues to face.
Porto, Nuno, curator. Amazonia: The Rights of Nature. 2017. Museum of Anthroplogy. Vancouver, BC.
Wade Davis UBC professor November 18 A Poor Man Shames Us All