Amazon Protection Begins With Its Own People: Xixuau Takes Matters into its Own Hands

by Andrew Austin

Development pressure and deforestation continue to encroach in the Amazon; but deep in the interior of Brazil, the inhabitants of Xixuau are building a strong and self-reliant community, where they can preserve their way of life, economically prosper, and do it all while protecting their part of the vanishing forest.

View along the Rio Jauaperi near Xixuau

The Xixuau River is a tributary of the Jauaperi, which flows down from Guyana in the north. The community along the Xixuau banks is isolated: reaching it takes about 40 hours by boat from Manaus during the dry season. The inhabitants are the caboclos, the descendents of the mixing of indigenous people with European settlers and blacks brought from Africa as slaves. Their community is dependent on the river for transportation and food.

Although Xixuau exists in a part of the forest that remains pristine even now, the danger of environmental devastation is never far off. In the early 1970s, the Brazilian government first began to encourage settlers in the Amazon, and in the past 20 years, more than 50 million acres have been destroyed by development, logging and farming. If nothing changes, the Amazon rainforest will be reduced by 40% in two decades, according to Chuck Chamberlain at the Virginia - based Amazon Fund ¹

The area doesn't have electricity. It has few schools and very limited health services. The nearest neighbors are over an hour away by canoe. This results in high illiteracy rates, as well as malnutrition due to lack of a balanced diet. Many youths have headed to urban areas in search of a better life.

In February 1992, the inhabitants of Xixuau, with the help of Scottish environmentalist Christopher Clark, established the Xixuau Reserve, a protected forest reserve that is recognized by the government and covers 450,000 acres. They also established the Associação Amazônia, a community association charged with administering the new reserve and the community of Xixuau. The association purchased rights to the land and allows the caboclos to live, hunt, fish and conduct small scale farming there, so long as they protect the environment. The people of Xixuau are now the guardians, as well as the inhabitants, of the reserve. With the help of a number of organizations and individuals from around the world - as well as their own perseverance and ingenuity - they are learning methods and getting the resources to create a sustainable economy and improve their standard of living through economic initiatives that respect their way of life and their forest.

House on route to Xixuau

"Our goal here has always been to prove that it is possible to provide a decent standard of living for the local inhabitants of an intact region of the Amazon while totally preserving the natural environment," said Clark.

The residents succeeded in getting the government to impose a fishing ban for the Jauaperi, thus protecting their livelihood and primary source of food. The association developed a malaria control program and built a school for the children of Xixuau. Under an agreement with the Ernest Kleinwort Trust in London and the Solar Electric Light Fund in Washington D.C., the association installed a satellite link to the Internet, which ended the isolation of this community. There is now a computer school for adults. The community attracts researchers, film crews and eco-tourists from around the world and charges for accommodations, earning more money to support the community and the reserve.

In 2005 the Amazon Fund, a Virginia - based NGO that seeks to purchase and protect land in the Amazon realized it lacked the expertise needed to navigate the various political and bureaucratic hurdles that blocked the execution of their mission in Brazil. CEN Director Robert Bortner introduced the two organizations and facilitated the initial discussions.

"They knew how to do business in country," said Amazon Fund's Chuck Chamberlain. "They are established." As the Fund purchases land, it will be added to the reserve and the association will manage the new territory.

CEN plans to organize workshops between the residents of Xixuau and the other communities with which we work to focus on income generation (tourism, handicrafts, using knowledge of local plants to create medicines, and more) and workshops on the environment, education and possible agriculture.

One of the millions of non-human residents
of the Xixuau Reserve

Since 2002, Associação Amazônia has been working with the Brazilian government's environmental ministry to double the reserve's size. The Federal Government supports these efforts - and has in fact proceeded with plans to expand the amount of protected land in the Amazon - powerful political and economic forces continue to stymie the association's and others' efforts. Clark said in an interview with CEN staff last month, "In mid-July 2007 the government of Roraima opposed this (editor's note: the creation of the reserve). They aim to hand the region over to a logging company." He added, "Currently we are in the final stages of this battle and things are heating up. Politicians are spreading lies in the press and to the police about us and the local Indians. We have recently had two visits by boatloads of armed police and there was almost a confrontation a couple of weeks ago when they tried to intimidate the Indians. In the near future, the destiny of this region will be decided: a classic battle between those who live in an area and want to see their home protected and powerful forces that want to exploit it for financial gain and who have no interest in the natural environment."

Xixuau Photo Gallery