The AmazonIAN people
need us now.
Daniel Tregidgo, 8th June 2020
My research mainly involves undertaking interviews with residents of the floodplain forest - as seen here
Much of the Amazon’s rural population live in and around its floodplains. The seasonal floods transform their lives. Imagine having to walk up a cliff or sandy beach to get home, and 6 months later being able to tie your canoe up at your front door.
The Amazon is vast – about twice the size of India, and holds about a fifth of the planet’s freshwater. Every year an area of floodplain forest larger than the UK goes underwater, as water overflows from the rivers. The river level rises 10-12 metres between seasons. The extra weight of all this water is so heavy that it causes the Earth to sink about 7cm, in the largest annual rise and fall of Earth’s crust ever detected.
Covering over 1.1 million hectares, the Mamirauá Reserve is far bigger than Yellowstone National Park, and the entire area becomes flooded in the high water season. For some residents, the nearest bit of dry land may be over 100 km boat ride at this time of year. The water levels are at their peak around now (usually May-June) in the Mamirauá Reserve.
This complete transformation of the Reserve’s landscape clearly has dramatic impacts on the 2,333 families living there. Next week I will tell you how these dramatic seasonal changes impact on the ability of floodplain families to feed themselves, which is a big part of my recent research.
An introduction to the Amazonian floodplain forest and Mamirauá
Hi I’m Daniel Tregidgo, and I work at the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute in Tefé, in the Brazilian Amazon.
I will be posting regular updates on our campaign to help river-dwelling communities in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve, during the pandemic. This week I’ll set the scene by explaining the huge scales that we are talking about, and the kind of habitat protected by the Reserve.
Daniel Tregidgo, 16th June 2020
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Amazonia is incredibly abundant in wild edible food, like fruits, fishes and forest animals. Yet most families have trouble getting enough food (“food insecurity”) and most kids have anaemia.
Riverside Amazonians fish most of their protein from the rivers, and plant most of their energy, in the form of manioc.
Last week I wrote about how huge areas of the Amazon get flooded every year in the high-water season. This week I want to explain how this can impact on local peoples' food.
I took this photo during a fishing trip in an Amazonian floodplain lake during the low-water season, when fishing is good
The high-water season is the lean season in the flooded forest
My friend Jonata talks about this in a Brazilian podcast that we did together last month:
Jonata, resident of the community Boca do Mamirauá, Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (Translated from Portuguese)
For many people living in the floodplain, there is simply no dry land to plant crops this time of year.
My research is about fishing, and in it I wanted to know if the difficulty in high-water fishing reported by local people like Jonata translated into a difficulty in putting food on the table.
I visited hundreds of floodplain households during the high and low water seasons to measure (1) how hard it was to catch fish (fishing catch rates), and (2) whether families were getting enough food (food security index). Nobody had ever done this, even though written reports that fishing is tough in the high-water season exist from well over 100 years ago:
Henry Walter Bates in his book The Naturalist on the River Amazons published in 1863
Our data from nearly 900 fishing trips agrees with Jonata and Henry that fishing is much harder in the high water season (73% lower catch rates). Local people were bringing half as much fish home as in the low-water season, despite spending three-times as long fishing.
At the same time, about a third of families were skipping lunch or dinner, and about a sixth wouldn’t have a meal all day – this was all much worse than in the low-water season.
Right now (June) the water is near its peak in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve, as is the coronavirus pandemic. Next week I will talk a bit about how this is a dangerous combination for local people, and why this all means that they need our help right now.
“…fish is extremely difficult to procure in the season of high water, on account of the lower lands lying between the inlets and infinite chain of pools and lakes being flooded from the main river, thus increasing tenfold the area over which the finny population has to range”
“Right now, as the water is high and the forest is flooded where we live in the floodplain, the fish are all spread out. In the area where we had crops planted, today we don’t, because the water has risen and the majority of the crops are already underwater.”
Jonata's community - Boca do Mamirauá. In the high-water season all the land is flooded, leaving nowhere to plant crops
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I took this photo on one of my first trips to the Amazon. I was staying with this father and son, who were fishing for pirarucu (Arapaima gigas) - the world's largest freshwater fish
The lean season and the pandemic are peaking at the same time
Daniel Tregidgo, 26th June 2020
Just as people all around the world have been told to stay home during the pandemic, rural Amazonians have been told to stay in their communities.
And there’s a good reason for them to do so. Amazonian cities have been some of the hardest hit by the coronavirus. For example, the Amazon’s biggest city (Manaus) was the first Brazilian city to declare collapse of its healthcare system due to the coronavirus.
Normally someone from Mamirauá Reserve that falls ill would go to the hospital in Tefé for treatment. As Tefé has no intensive care unit, when seriously ill they would have to make the 500 km journey to Manaus, by chartered plane as there are no roads. That hasn’t been happening recently, as Manaus has been struggling to cope even with their own COVID-19 patients.
So many rural Amazonians are afraid of catching coronavirus in their local town, and have stopped travelling there. The problem is that they can’t order a takeaway or a supermarket delivery to their door! They also rely on local markets to sell their rural produce like fish, fruit and nuts, and on their local banks to get any salaries or benefits they might receive.
All this means that buying food and hygiene products (e.g. soap and alcohol gel) has become very tricky in recent months.
The incredibly abundant Amazonian rivers and forests will provide some natural insurance against hunger during the current pandemic. In the past, Amazonians have fished and hunted more during tough times.
But for many families this isn’t enough, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, most families buy many basics that they can’t plant or harvest in and around their communities, like cooking oil, sugar and soap. Secondly, as I explained in more detail in a recent article, this is the worst time for a pandemic.
In my first blog I described how the landscape of the Mamirauá Reserve is transformed during seasonal floods. In my second blog I explained how this makes obtaining food harder for local people.
These floods occur annually at about this time of year, peaking around May-June at the Mamirauá Reserve. Unluckily, this year’s ‘lean season’ is coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, peaking at almost exactly the same time.
So while much of the world is having a tough time now, I hope this blog makes it clear how the pandemic is making it extra tough for residents of the Mamirauá Reserve. That’s why we are sending food packages and hygiene kits to residents of the Reserve, using your kind donations.
This information comes from the Amazonas State Government, and tells rural people to:
"#StayInTheCommunity
Coronavirus (COVID-19) does not circulate on its own, people make it circulate.
Remain in your community
The best place to be is where you are"
Urban markets like this one are important places for rural Amazonians to sell products that they plant and harvest in and around their communities. But some people have been unable to travel to town during the pandemic, and are losing an important income source
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A canoe full of red-bellied piranha. The rivers and forest can provide natural insurance during tough times (like pandemics!), but it's not so easy at this time of year
Here are some of the donations that we have already made to the Mamirauá Reserve