Tedxamazônia - Manoel As came out with an account of slavery - Nov.2010

Good afternoon, everyone. It's weak. You probably didn’t have lunch. First of all, thanks for the invite from comrade Denis. He said he'd be on vacation. He's probably in the audience. Thanks, otherwise I wouldn't have this chance to tell a bit of my story. See I am like millions of extractivists who are under the forest layers. I wouldn't have this opportunity, Denis, to talk here to such an important audience in a moment so important when everyone is working together to make a better world, fairer to all, because we deserve it. As they said, I'm Manoel Cunha, a son of the town of Carauari, Amazonas State, about 700, 750 km in a beeline from here, on the river, it takes much longer. I was born on March 2, 1968, I'm not that old, but I’ve had a good share of a sad story, we can say an old and sad one that has upset the lives of many people. Many interesting things have happened in my life that I'd like to share with you. We're 14 siblings at home, raised by an old man called Joaquim Cunha. We didn't have many opportunities in life and one we didn't have was to study. At that time, getting straight to the point, the bosses didn't want the rubber tappers' kids to study. They said that you didn't need to study to tap rubber. We never thought they didn't want us to study at all because we’d turn the tables. We thought they were right indeed, that to tap rubber you didn't need to study. Then, when I was 11, I wanted to go to the forest with my father to help him tap, but a neighbor boss got a school. It was not a proper school, but permission for the boss' wife to teach the people who lived in the field. We lived about 90 min away by boat, as our Saúde e Alegria comrade showed very well, that's what it took to get there. Despite this, my dad made a very important decision for his and our lives: to send two of my sisters to school so they could learn how to read and then teach us at home, as we couldn't go to school because we needed to go to the rubber trail. The teacher was sorry for them and let them go to school only 3 days a week, they gave homework for the two other days. As I wanted very much to learn how to read and write, I learned from them, when they got together to do their homework. That's how I learned how to read and write, only that, in this way. That is where my whole life started. I got started in the rubber production and in that degrading way of life. I still remember one year when dad had some health problem and could go to the rubber forest only in October, and our summer goes from July to December. That year, dad arrived in October, with only two months left that year. The boss had a rule: on December 31 you had to take all cups out from the forest and couldn't harvest rubber anymore. Dad had to follow that rule and we had an even harder time. If I tell you, there were many humiliations. For example, if you fished in this lake, the Mandioca Lake, in the São Romão rubber forest, where I lived. The boss let us fish there only after August 1st, for example. If you needed to fish for food on that lake before that date, it was a reason for you to lose your place. To lose your place in that region was almost to lose your life because all rubber tapper places were taken and there were none left. We'd put up with anything not to lose the place. Fishing where it was not authorized also was a reason to lose your place. In the work system we had we didn't know the sale price of the production or the purchase price of goods. We only heard a deep voice from behind the counter at the end of the year: "You're in debt, you need to produce more rubber next year." We started to realize that the more we produced, the more we owed, so we produced more and made him richer, as all the profit was his. Then, I and many others as I said, I'm talking for many, started to rebel against that and think that it was not fair. But we couldn't do differently. I was already grown up then, married and a father of 3. This is how I lived till I was 24, I knew only 14 river beaches, the same as 40 min by 40-HP motorboat. My whole life was determined by that place. I never had any opportunity, no one ever said something else was possible, another way of being, changing the region, changing someone's way of producing. But one day, around May, we heard a notice on the radio from an institution called MEB, Movement for Basic Education, linked to the Catholic Church, that would do some mobilization work with the rubber tappers. And we waited, and one night, at about 8 PM, they went to my dad's and spoke about this other life that was possible. I remember it to this day people saying: "You, rubber tappers, can get organized, you at the high, low, and mid river, and form a community. Then you'll be strong to demand a school, a health center, and your kids will be able to study." What is most interesting is that the communities down the river, the ones closest to the town, are already making an association. The objective is for us to sell our own products through our organizations and get rid of this criminal system the bosses have." That was the happiest day of my life, I guess, because I realized that there was another way, a different way of living and of living with dignity. That's how the whole fight started. Then I'll skip a good deal to say that in 1997 we got to create the first extractivist reserve of the state of Amazonas, there, in my communities, in the Mid Juruá. Today, these same people who were so humiliated, as I've tried to show you, this association has grown and became mobilized. From individual rubber tappers of the São Romão rubber forest we've become a community and I became its leader and a teacher too. Interestingly, I never was a student, but I was a community teacher for 4 years. There was a difference: I always saw more than the three Rs in education, I saw it as a mechanism, a path, a beacon for the transformation of a society. I tried to show this to those youngsters and adults that I started to teach. I think that today, without discriminating any region, it's one of the regions with the greatest number of community leaders, the community of São Raimundo, especially the Mid Juruá Extractivist Reserve. Maybe I wrote part of this history with my teaching in a different way, preparing them to face everyday problems. In these communities, coming back to our days, looking at the way we lived, today we sell all the production through the association or the cooperative, directly to the consumers. One of the points in the presentation of our comrade of Natura was the Mid Juruá. The Mid Juruá communities supply about 15 to 20 tons of vegetable oil directly to Cognis, in Jacareí, São Paulo. From the tap of the plant in the extractivist reserve to Jacareí, São Paulo for Cognis to process and then deliver to Natura. The rubber produced by those communities either went to Sena Madureira in Acre, where there was a processing plant, or to Manicoré, in Amazonas State. The meal left over from the family production is sold at the counter of the association itself, in the town. The products, the other products, the broom, the row, the handicrafts, all products are sold directly to the consumer, or to those who do the final processing, as in the case of Natura, which turns the oils into cosmetics. The most interesting thing is that in that period of our lives, for example, for a long part of my life I had two shirts and I had to hope for sunshine to dry it so I could put it on when I got home because, one we wore at work and the other that mom washed on the washing board. Today, the people lead a dignified life on this reserve. And this reserve has helped to create, I'd say, more than a dozen other conservation units. When the people give talks to mobilize the communities to create the conservation units, they always cite the Mid Juruá as an example of a region that got rid of this slavery condition and is totally independent, a very strong and well organized movement. Recently, we implemented the Solidary Riverside Trade these are canteens, as we call them, they are like a small supermarket, spread to all communities I'm talking about a 400-km area in a straight line, from the heart of the town to the last community we serve. I'm talking about over 54 h of boat ride, the means of transportation we have, with all the bends in the river. A people who succeeded, with their own efforts, despite the police persecution, a part that I skipped, the bosses' persecution, who found a way of living. And most interesting, in a sustainable way. All that is done in that reserve is done thinking of the present and future generations. If you allow me, I'd like to tell you the story of the andiroba. When we started, I was the association president at the time, we started to study the potential of andiroba together with Amazon State University, we used to see andiroba flooring in some houses, and we'd say: "Cut some other tree, leave the andiroba standing, we're studying it." Andiroba was used only in folk medicine or to make soda soap, which was cheaper than industrialized soap. When this project came through, even Natura, because the great objective was to produce energy from vegetable oil, it was done and still is today. Anyone can go there and see. Natura appeared exactly at that time, in 2002, and was interested in buying this raw material. We said: "No, hold on. Natura wants to buy at R$8 a kilo of oil, diesel costs about R$0.92 a liter. Listen, you can buy diesel and the whole lot." Then we started to burn it in the motors, but also to sell a great deal. Now there is a contract, quite fair and organized, between the community and Natura, the cooperative and Cognis, the Rubber Tappers' Council is always present in the negotiation, it's a very earnest thing. Now they are even discussing the fund of the Mid Juruá with the objective of presenting projects. Going back to the question, then the families started to sell this raw material at R$8, 10, 14, 18, and today at R$24, a kilo of andiroba oil or muru-muru butter. Now, that same family that didn't see the importance of the andiroba tree and sometimes cut it as house timber and not to sell, now they want to know which kid walked on the andiroba tree trail and cut the sacupemba of his andiroba tree, because they fear it will spoil the fructification. I tell this story to show our responsibility in finding the true value of the forest, in finding a way of valuating the forest conservation work that our people do. When we find this like the Mid Juruá found in the andiroba, in the muru-muru, they need no laws or inspectors. The best inspector is the community itself, the users themselves of the environment when they understand this process. This shows me... I started talking about my own life now, I was the association's president and became president of the National Council of Extractivist Populations. Until July last year, it was called National Rubber Tappers Council. I don't think it was first because I am very ugly and I can't read or write, maybe it's because I seriously defend the question of the importance of people living in harmony with the forest. Climate change is here, hitting our communities very badly, and despite that, many people, it's not this audience here, don't understand it. I brought some water here, to close, after telling this story. I want to invite you all. The Rubber Tappers' Council is a non-profit grassroots organization, supported by donations, but that does very beautiful work in the Amazon. One project has almost 20 million hectares of forest, with extractivist populations, and the CNS pushed this policy with the government. To close, I'll tell you I just wanted us all here to help spread this message. People think that the great devastation of the Amazon is because of greed for money. People don't understand that when the drinking water is gone when this fresh air we breath is gone, this in my pocket will be worth nothing, it won't save my life, nor my child's, nor the planet. It is money that makes us greedy. Thank you all.