Exploitation in the Amazon

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2020

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

This week, Jair Bolsonaro, the President of Brazil, ignored the advice of his own health minister, and went for a walk in the capitol, declaring “We’ll all die one day.” Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist elected to the Presidency in 2018, is known for flouting conventional wisdom. He is especially cavalier about the environment. Several weeks ago, he introduced a bill to allow commercial mining on protected indigenous lands in the Amazon. Jon Lee Anderson, a New Yorker staff writer, recently returned from Brazil, where he was reporting on the effects of these exploitative practices on one indigenous group in particular, the Kayapo. He says that Bolsonaro’s mining bill, like so many of his more radical policies, will have effects that are almost impossible to predict. “The indigenous people are the last defense for some of the world’s last wilderness areas. Its habitats, its ecosystems, the animals that live within it, the medicinal plants that we have yet to even know exist—the indigenous people turn out to be the final custodians,” Anderson says. “And, in some tragic cases, they are also the handmaidens to their own destruction. And it’s always been that way, and that’s what people like Bolsonaro understand.” Audio used from the video of the late Chief Mro’o’s was produced by Glenn Shepard, an anthropologist at the Goeldi Museum, in Brazil. Additional music by Filipe Duarte.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.6	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:14.0	This past week, the president of Brazil, Jayae Bolsonaro, ignored the advice of his own health
0:20.5	minister's call for social distancing in light of COVID-19.
0:24.9	Bolsonaro went for a walk in the Capitol declaring,
0:27.5	We'll all die one day.
0:30.3	He's faced backlash for this reckless attitude,
0:32.8	and there have been calls for resignation for members of Brazil's left.
0:37.3	Most Brazilian state governors are flat out
0:39.6	ignoring Bolsonaro's advice. Now, Bolsonaro's approach isn't all that surprising. He's long been known
0:46.8	to spurn the advice of experts and scientists. He's perhaps most well known for his disregard for
0:52.5	environmental concerns, favoring economic growth
0:55.5	first and foremost. For Bolsonaro, protecting the Amazon rainforest is just a hindrance to Brazil's
1:02.5	economy. Several weeks ago, he introduced a bill to allow commercial mining on protected indigenous lands.
1:09.9	John Lee Anderson has reported from every country in Latin America, and not long ago he
1:14.6	returned to Brazil to look at how the influx of gold miners is affecting one indigenous
1:19.6	community there.
1:21.2	Here's John Lee Anderson.
1:24.7	I've been to Brazil a number of times over the years and to the Amazon as well.
1:33.7	The jungle really begins in southeastern Parastate.
1:39.7	It's below the mouth of the Amazon, which when it meets the Atlantic Ocean is about 200 miles wide.
1:47.0	The mountains in the distances are still jungle.
	...

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