00:06 Prologue/Intro Lygia Constantino da Silva:
In these times that we live, in this era of destruction, of neoliberalism, of greed and wealth without limits, I don’t know who suffers most. If it’s human beings ,the earth or the ecology. Everyone is crying out in enormous pain and it is time for us to do something.
01:08 Narration:
Brazil's Amazon region contains nearly one third of
the world's tropical rainforest. It is also home to
over 20 million people. Although Amazonia is most
famous for its many Indian tribes, 94% of its
population is of mixed Indigenous, African and
European descent. The majority of Amazonians support
themselves by farming, and hunting and gathering as
they have done since the region was first settled in
the 1500's. Over 17 thousand kilometers of Brazil's
Amazon forest are cleared each year. The growth and
spread of ranches alone are responsible for over 80%
of that loss. In thousands of communities across the
region, women have decided it is time to take action.
They are working together to protect their farms,
their forests and their way of life, and in the
process are discovering their power to change the
world for the better.
Captions:
2:33 Daughters of the Canopy
2:37 a film by Trilby MacDonald
03:11 The Capim river flows through the state of Pará in the
North of Brazil. For thousands of years its banks
Were lined by dense rainforest. Since the arrival of
the timber industry, most of that forest has given way
to fields, and scattered clusters of young trees.
Consequences have been severe for the village of
Quinandeua, which is largely dependent on forests
resources for its survival.
04:24 Dona Ana is one of Quinandeua's original settlers and
is its oldest resident.
Dona Ana:
04:30 This selling of wood that started in our
community- I’m not sure exactly but it seems… it began
about 15 years ago. We women never tried to prevent it
because we never imagined that one day it would run
out. People from other states started to arrive
here- from Ceará, Maranhão and all over the
place. They said they were selling wood and living
well. And so people around here started to sell wood
too. My sons, my nephews… But life around here hasn’t
improved at all. It’s just as it always was.
06:06 Narration:
Maroca and Vanjoca live in Quinandeua and work the
land to support themselves and their eleven children.
The sell farinha, a course flour made from manioc root
in order to buy food and other household supplies.
06:20 Vanjoca:
We thought things would be different. We wanted to
drink coffee, to have soap, meat and beans. We needed
help maintaining our family. The money we made
selling manioc wasn’t enough to get by. When we
decided to sell wood we thought our lives would
improve. But we lost out in the end. We didn’t think
of the forest’s value and now it’s all gone.
06:54 Narration:
It takes them a week to make a sac of farinha which
they sell for approximately ten dollars. To make
enough money to survive, Vanjoca, together with the
older men of the village, sold most of the forest
surrounding Quinandeua for a few hundred dollars.
Vanjoca did not consider the value of the products his
family takes for free from the forest when he agreed
to sell it. Between 1993 and 1999 the combined
effects of logging and fires reduced consumption of
fibers, fruit and game in Quinandeua by 70%. When
forests were plentiful, Vanjoca's family ate meat
twice a week. Now they are lucky if they can find
game once a month. (Fruit and medicine are scarcer
still and must be purchased with money from farinha
sales.)
07:47 Gloria Gaia:
The connection I see between woman and forest is that
woman is here to create life. The forest is the same.
It is here to produce. It is here to offer its beauty
for the benefit of women. The forest offers happiness
to women. If there is forest, women have the
possibility of a happy life. That is why women’s
suffering is much greater when the forest is destroyed
because she knows that she has lost a piece of her
life. If there is no forest, she has nowhere to get
fruit for her children, she has nowhere to find
medicine she doesn’t have a way to improve her
life. When the forest goes, everything else goes with it.
08:43 Song “Brega Ecologica”:
Where have the fish gone who used to live in the sea?
Where is the açai, the little black fruit from Pará?
There is no more wood, there is nothing left to take,
when everything is gone, famine comes here to stay.
09:07 Graca:
It’s all gone. It was cut down to make ranches, to
make pasture for the cows, and it means that it’s over
for us. There is no more game, and often it is even
hard to fish. When we go out in the sun we just burn
and get sick. We get rained on and burned without a
tree to protect us. The fish are gone because trees
are no longer dropping fruit into the river. It is
very difficult. We even go hungry…It’s a shame.
09:42 Song “Brega Ecologica” continued:
I worry when I look at the past and analyze the
future. I see how nature, the source of beauty and
pure air is being attacked by huge fires and dams. How
sad that nature has lost the splendor of her landscape!
10:17 Narration:
Famers in Quinandeua asked the local farmers union for
help in finding ways to make money other than by
producing farinha and selling trees to timber
companies. At the time. Dr. Patricia Shanley, and
American ethnobotanist researching fruits, medicinal
plants and other forest products in Amazonia, was
working for the Woods Hole Research Center. She heard
about Quinandeua through the farmers union and would
spend the next six years in the community to lead one
of the most in depth studies of nontimber forest
products ever conducted.
10:52 Dr. Patrica Shanley:
Both the ecological study and the study of fruit
consumption went over a period of six years, and
without the enormous cooperation from the community we
never would have gotten the data that we did. They
were looking for ways to get quick cash. Timber
offers cash in your pocket in one day. The logger
shows up, he takes out the wood and he gives you cash.
No one shows up to buy fruit. So the research
results didn't show that is was going to be easy to
sell your uxi, your piquia or your andiroba oil and
get cash in your pocket. What the research results
did show is that these nontimber forest products have
a very high value for subsistence.
11:36 Narration:
Through their participation in Patricia's study,
Mangueira and his family decided that his forests were
too valuable to cut down.
11:43 Mangeira:
Her research was to show the community the value of
the forest. And in this area here, wood and fruit are
both important. She wanted to show the value of the
forest, and so she did her study. She asked me if I’d
agree to preserve this little area here for five or
six years, and I said I would. Now if we need fruit or
wood we're more relaxed because we have it, and it’s
more difficult for them because they don’t. It was
good because it gave me experience. If it wasn’t for
this experience, I’d have sold my wood too.
12:45 Patricia:
Here we have Asia. Is there a lot of forest there? Very
little.
12:55 Narration:
Patricia developed workshops using the data she
collected to educate communities in Amazonia about the
importance of forest products for local economies.
13:05 Patricia:
One of the reasons we began focusing our extension and
education efforts on women is because they suffer
disproportionately from loss of forests because they
are repositories of knowledge, they process the
nontimber forest products, the fruits and the remedies
and so when the forest falls their children will not
be cared for properly. Also we found that bringing
them into the discussion with the men brought a voice
of caution and thrift. They were thinking long term,
they were thinking about their grandchildren and that
aided the discussion with the men about what the
outcome of the timber sale might be.
13:40 Narration:
She hired Gloria Gaia, a local women’s rights activist
and expert on herbal medicine to encourage women to
get involved.
13:51 Gloria:
These isolated communities have many women with a
beautiful intelligence, it’s just that they are far
away from information. It’s a way to teach these women
to have the courage to seriously discuss forest conservation
with their families and their communities.
14:31 Patricia:
There’s an exclusion of the disenfranchised,
especially women, from decisions that affect their
livelihoods in general throughout Amazonia. The women
had extraordinarily traditional roles when we began
there. Over time by having examples of different women
coming in from different places, women like
themselves, like Gloria, who have really worked to
gain their rights, to fight for equal rights, to be
heard, to change the inferior position of women made
an enormous difference in how they saw their possibilities and
their potential.
15:15 Maroca:
You can film me, you can quote me, let me tell
you that the one who suffers most is the woman from
the countryside. Any women who says her husband works
harder is lying. It is the woman who works harder!
Woman are very capable- Like this girl right here. She
has four kids and takes care of them all by herself. She doesn’t work much on the farm, but at home she has no time. She cooks, she gets water, she cleans and takes care of the children. She runs from one thing to another all day long. Are you going to
tell me this woman isn’t exploited? Even while I’m sitting here, I’m consumed with thoughts of my children. It’s exploitation!
16:05 Trilby:
Did the men who sold the forest consult the women first?
16:15 Maroca:
Never. Not with any of us. Not with the wives, not
with the daughters, not with the grandmothers.
16:24 Conceição:
We have to take an active interest. If they are going
to make a decision, we should tell them that we have
to do it together. Because we have the same rights.
Otherwise, it’s no good.
16:39 Song “Logico Ecologico”
There go the paca, the cutia, the arancua. There go
the deer, your past was beautiful, but sad is your
future. There go the macaw, the arianha, the capivara.
There goes mucura, the dark forest is being destroyed,
the imbiaras are disappearing. I want to see the
jaguar! only if painted. I want to see the owl! Only
if stuffed. So where are all the animals? They’re
running from the fire. They’re running from the
riffle. There goes the Tocantins River in danger. May
your courage keep you from getting stuck behind the
dam. There goes the forest lying down upon the ground.
Forest without legs- you are rooted down and cannot escape.
17:44 Patricia:
Thirty years ago we are looking at a hand full of
species being taken out. Today there are over 300
species being taken out of the forest in Pará. Most of
this wood, currently is being utilized within Brazil
about 95 to 98 percent of it. However s the forests in
Asia and Africa are diminishing the Amazon is poised
to become the center of timber production for the
world. And this change has been so very rapid it
hasn’t given communities time to prepare and say wait!
we need to negotiate, and say you can’t take that
fruit tree, you need to leave my medicinal oil tree.
And that leaves open a tremendous opportunity for
education. We find that when we bring information
about the economic value of the standing forest to a
community there is no way they will sell a Piquiá tree
for two real or the equivalent of two dollars when the
average number of fruits that tree can give which is a
four hundred annual average, is sixty real, or sixty dollars.
18:44 Patricia:
You know what was taken out of the forest? All of the
things that we’re going to use now to heal the body. Jatoba- who took jatoba? The loggers took it. Pau d’arco- a miraculous medicine. And also copaiba and andiroba.
19:08 Narration:
Patricia put the results of her six years of research into two books. “Recipes Without Words” is an illustrated guide to making natural remedies for people who can’t read.
19:19 Dona Ana:
Take three little pieces, and mix it in a liter of water.
19:29 Narration:
“Fruit Trees in the Lives of Amazonians” is a field
guide for local people on the ecology, economic value
and traditional uses of 13 fruit trees. Gloria is
incorporating Patricia’s books into her work with
women’s groups throughout Amazonia. (Together,
Patricia and Gloria are teaching women the benefits of
forest conservation and encouraging them to get
involved in debates on forest management in their
communities.)
19:55 Gloria Gaia:
I participated in the research of this book “Fruit
Trees in the Lives of Amazonians”. My participation in
this work reinforced my desire to continue educating
people who live in the forest but don’t know how
valuable it is. It became very clear to me as it does
to other people who read and reflect- that Amazonia is
rich because it has forest.
20:38 Raimunda:
Look everyone. This is a really good remedy for
malaria. My kid got malaria and the medicine he took
wasn’t working. I was taught to boil one leaf of
quina with another leaf of avocado, and two leaves of
boldo. I boiled them in three cups of water and let it
cool down. He took three doses of the liquid per day.
That’s what worked for my son.
21:14 Off-camera voice:
Did he get better?
21:16 Raimunda:
He got better.
21:20 Gloria Gaia:
I see the power of women's decision. It has arrived
everywhere. They have decided that without them
nothing will change. This message is being passed on
from woman to woman. And a great network is being
formed. And it is the strength of this network that
will bring change.
21:45 Dona Ana:
We had a meeting in April where we decided not to sell
what’s left of the forest. We met with the husbands, the sons, all the guys… so that they wouldn’t sell it anymore.
22:05 José (son of Vanjoca):
Things changed a lot. When we were kids, the father
was the head of the house. If there was some business
to be done, he would handle it himself. Now we know
better. A man has one idea how to do business, and a
women has another and together we see which one is better.
22:40 Dona Ana:
In the past, if the husbands didn't ask for our opinions, or ask us for an answer, we would sit quietly on the side. Now, no. Women have to be in the middle!
Nova Timboteua
23:38 Narration:
Nova Timboteua is another town in Amazonia under
pressure from big business. Unlike Quinandeua, the
surrounding forest was converted to agricultural land
generations ago. Infrastructure is better here than
in much of Amazonia. The city lies along a main road,
and has postal service and access to electricity,
telephones and running water. Few families can afford
to take advantage of such resources however, and
continue to live in the same simple way since the area
was first settled over 150 years ago. In the 1960’s
ranchers arrived to stake their claim in the Amazonian
frontier. Because there are virtually no paying jobs
in the area, securing a piece of farmland is crucial
for local people. Many farmers in Nova Timboteua have
lost their land and even their lives in the often brutal competition with
powerful ranchers. Women are leading the resistance.
24:44 Sister Lygia Constantino da Silva has been a member of
the order the Sisters of the Good Shepherd and an
activist for the rights of women and poor people since
1946. ( She first came to Nova Timboteua in 1980 to
help farmers resist pressure from ranchers who were
trying to force them off of their land. It has been
her home ever since.)
25:04 Sister Lygia Constantino da Silva:
For us the Bible is a source of inspiration, because
the people here are very catholic. They are people for
whom the word of God has great power. But the word of
God can be used to blind people. If the word of God is
not used in a way that truly illuminates people, it
can cause even greater alienation. Our work began here
with the farmers. Because we saw that they were in the
majority. We began to meet with them to analyze their
situation as a majority that was being dominated.
26:08 Their wives were also interested to learn more. So we
began to meet with them as well so that they could
learn to appreciate their dignity and self
worth. Because women had always believed themselves to
be inferior, and in many ways they were led to believe
that.
26:35 Selma:
It was a huge change, because we women were used to
staying home with our arms crossed not participating.
26:49 Narration:
Soon after their arrival in Nova Timboteua, rancehrs
took control of the agricultural workers union and
used it to control local farmers.
26:59 Carmen:
Women never entered the farmer's union because they
always said that a married woman should be dependant
on her husband, not the union. And so we always felt a
certain fear. But when all of us became aware of the
importance of being unionized we prepared ourselves to
occupy the union.
27:22 Selma:
Since we started working with the community and the
church we discovered that we are people too, and that
we live in this world to be respected and to be
citizens like everybody else. We began to value
ourselves as people and uncrossed our arms to join the
fight.
27:51 Song:
Whoever wants to challenge us, come and take a
hit! The union will be ours, we won’t give up. We’ll
vote for Chapa 2!
28:07 Narration:
Loca women, who were not allowed to vote in the union,
decided they had had enough. Surrounded by ranchers,
100 women farmers risked their lives and occupied the
union headquarters for ten days until they won the
right to vote. They went on to form the Margarita
Barbosa Women’s Association of Nova Timboteua. Dona
Maria is one of the associations founding members.
She (participated in the occupation of the union
headquarters and) remains an active member of the
association, despite her husband’s disapproval.
28:46 Dona Maria:
I would have believed that he didn't mind if he had
just said“go”, but no! I had to jump through hoops to
get to go. And now he keeps quiet about it. He used to
complain. At home, he would tell me that he didn’t
like what I was doing because it interfered with the
housework. He’d object to everything I did and I would
just listen. One day I came home at about six
o’clock. He was sitting outside with my cousin and he
said “Finally”! I told him that I have to go out
again and I wasn’t sure when I was coming back. He was
furious. He told me that when I got home, he wouldn’t
let me in. I said that I would break the door down
because I have the right to be in this house! My
cousin said that“If I were Maria’s husband, there is
no way I would let her go!” “Imagine” he said, “she
was gone all day yesterday and today, and you let her
talk to you like that! I would slap her in the face
right now!” I said to him “If you are such a man, then
I dare you to come here and slap me!” I was so angry.
I never liked that cousin much.
30:11 Chico:
It’s up to her. I don’t tell her what to do. It’s up
to her. She can work. She can work until she dies. And
when she dies, that’s it.
30:35 Narration:
Over the years, Maria and Chico watched as nearly all
their neighbors were pressured off their land and
moved away. (Maria and Chico continue to resist and
have no plans to leave their land.)
31:00 Dona Maria:
What happens is deprivation for those who sell their
land. Because that little money they pay isn’t worth
anything, and the land has so much to give. Its where
we take our bread to feed ourselves. The ranchers are
against the farmers. They don’t have the slightest
sympathy for us. Sometimes they let the cattle onto
our land, and our crops get trampled. And when the
farmers fight back, they kill them! They are taking
so much land to plant grass and nothing to eat. Just
pasture for the cows, it's awful.
32:05 Chico:
Many people enter the movement right away. Others want
nothing to do with it. They say it's some kind of communism.
32:21 Trilby:
Are you a communist?
32:23 Chico:
No, they just say that.
32:32 Trilby:
What’s a communist?
32:33 Chico:
Who knows! I’ve heard this since I was little but I
have no clue what it is.
32:42 Dona Ana:
Through the struggle, we make progress bit by bit.
They kill 4 or 5, but 30, 40, 200 keep on fighting. Sometimes women complain that when they go to the meetings their husbands fight with them later. They won’t let them back into the house, etc. I say to these men- “Do you like her”? “Yes, like her” they’ll say. Well when we like someone we respect them. If not, its so meandon’t you think? Then he’ll ask, “But is it only women?” And I tell him “no”, it was started by women but everyone- men, women, the young, the old, everyone has a right to be there.
34:21 Song “Sem Medo de Ser Mulher” (Without Fear of Being a Woman):
To change society the way we want it to be, we participate without fear
of being women. Without women the fight is only half fought, we
participate without fear of being women, strengthening popular
movements, we participate without fear of being women.
35:05 Cleidiane:
I’ve participated in the association since I was a
child. I was practically raised in the middle of
them! I’ve been watching and hearing everything that
goes on there. My mother brought me. And I formed my
opinions based on what I learned there. I began to
think of ways to change the things that are wrong, to
solve our problems and fight for our rights. I like it here.
35:42 Narration:
(Cleidiane is one of the associations youngest
members. She believes that the best days in Nova
Timboteua lie ahead and wants to be part of
progressive change in her community.)
35:52 Cleidiane:
A lot of young people go to the city in search of
work, but very often they don’t find it. I think that
we should try to find ways of getting work here in
our community. Like the association is doing. It
organizes workshops on business and various
other courses where we can learn things that can be
applied here at home.
36:19 Sister Lygia:
This course here is about money management. What is
money management? Without it, you can never hold on to
your money.
36:25 Narration:
Every meeting Sister Lygia presents a new list of free
classes offered in the area on topics ranging from
women’s health and new legislation affecting farmers,
to adult literacy and how to start your own business.
36:38 Sister Lygia: You get it and fritter it away without
gaining anything!
36:44 Narration:
Although Nova Timboteua has been largely deforested
for many generations, forests remain an important of
the regions cultural identity. Today women are
determined that their children know more than stories
about the forest. (They have obtained a piece of land
from the city and are creating a forest park and
members are planting popular fruit and medicine trees
on their properties.)
37:06 Sister Lygia:
This is a forest preserve with various species. Some
which are already extinct in our area. The preserve
must be a place where future generations can benefit
from the natural environment.
37:28 Noema:
Each one of us here at the association committed
ourselves to planting a tree on our land. After one
year we have our results. We each wrote down the names
of the trees we planted and put them into this box.
37:46 Sister Lygia:
For example, Luzia do Nacimento planted andiroba and
açai. In the community Kilometer 15, Lourdes planted
cupuacu and pupunha and two anjirobeira trees.
38:04 Dona Maria, Lourdes:
We want the Northeast of Pará to be green forever.
38:20 Sister Lygia:
Everything that has ever been accomplished in this
world has been the fruit of a great passion. No one
can do anything unless you have a strong internal force.
This force for us comes from faith. For some, that force
can come from other sources. There is no saying which is
better or more important. The fact is, no one can do anything
without an interior force or passion that carries you
forward. God doesn’t want anyone to be poor. God
doesn’t love poverty. He made everyone so that they
could be happy. This is everyone’s right. Christ came
so that everyone could live not just any scrappy
little life, but a life of abundance. But if people
don’t fight for this, they won’t get it. Because the
people in power are comfortable. Liberation theology
teaches us to create our own liberation. We can’t wait
for somebody to liberate us, because no one can
liberate anyone else. But we have to do it together, because
alone, you can’t accomplish anything.
40:13 Narration:
This year, Dona Maria is joining Sister Lygia, Gloria
Gaia and thousands of other activists to participate
in the annual protest of Amazonia which takes place
simultaneously in dozens of cities throughout Para.
40:40 Gloria Gaia:
We are going to the farmer’s camp. This is the 16th
annual “Protest of Amazonia”.
41:05 Ines:
We won’t accept this anymore! We are here to demand
what we deserve. We want them to listen to what we
have to say and sign the document that describes what
we want. If that doesn’t happen we won’t leave here!
41:24 Narration:
Women’s participation in Brazil’s increasingly
powerful populist movement is growing each year.
Sister Lygia and Gloria Gaia are here in solidarity
with women activists who have joined tens of thousands
of protesters from across the Amazon region to demand
a better future for themselves and their families.
41:50 Gloria Gaia:
Without organization and participation we are going to
become increasingly exploited. It is worth it for us
to leave our families and our jobs to come together
with other workers and other women in order to gather
the power to win our rights.
42:07 Ines:
My oldest daughter is taking care of my other children
so that I could come here. Because our kids are living
without healthcare, without education, without loans
so that we can work. We don’t have any of these
things. When we come to demand our rights, it’s
painful, but we come anyway. We don’t come looking for
trouble, We come looking for our rights as citizens to
live in this country with dignity. And as long as we
don’t have our rights, we have to fight. And it’s a
fight for everyone.
42:48 Activist at microphone:
For 500 years we have been left out of history, and
now we are here to say that the next 500 years will be different! Women will be respected. A farm worker will no longer be
forced to leave his home and find work in the city where he goes starving and without a dignified home, without healthcare, and education.
43:27 Caption:
From informal background meetings to major international conferences like the International Women’s Conference of the Amazonian Forest, women all over Amazonia are working together to create better lives for themselves and their families. The courageous women are discovering their power to overcome centuries of oppression to change the course of history for the benefit of all.
43:41 closing credits begin
In these times that we live, in this era of destruction, of neoliberalism, of greed and wealth without limits, I don’t know who suffers most. If it’s human beings ,the earth or the ecology. Everyone is crying out in enormous pain and it is time for us to do something.
01:08 Narration:
Brazil's Amazon region contains nearly one third of
the world's tropical rainforest. It is also home to
over 20 million people. Although Amazonia is most
famous for its many Indian tribes, 94% of its
population is of mixed Indigenous, African and
European descent. The majority of Amazonians support
themselves by farming, and hunting and gathering as
they have done since the region was first settled in
the 1500's. Over 17 thousand kilometers of Brazil's
Amazon forest are cleared each year. The growth and
spread of ranches alone are responsible for over 80%
of that loss. In thousands of communities across the
region, women have decided it is time to take action.
They are working together to protect their farms,
their forests and their way of life, and in the
process are discovering their power to change the
world for the better.
Captions:
2:33 Daughters of the Canopy
2:37 a film by Trilby MacDonald
03:11 The Capim river flows through the state of Pará in the
North of Brazil. For thousands of years its banks
Were lined by dense rainforest. Since the arrival of
the timber industry, most of that forest has given way
to fields, and scattered clusters of young trees.
Consequences have been severe for the village of
Quinandeua, which is largely dependent on forests
resources for its survival.
04:24 Dona Ana is one of Quinandeua's original settlers and
is its oldest resident.
Dona Ana:
04:30 This selling of wood that started in our
community- I’m not sure exactly but it seems… it began
about 15 years ago. We women never tried to prevent it
because we never imagined that one day it would run
out. People from other states started to arrive
here- from Ceará, Maranhão and all over the
place. They said they were selling wood and living
well. And so people around here started to sell wood
too. My sons, my nephews… But life around here hasn’t
improved at all. It’s just as it always was.
06:06 Narration:
Maroca and Vanjoca live in Quinandeua and work the
land to support themselves and their eleven children.
The sell farinha, a course flour made from manioc root
in order to buy food and other household supplies.
06:20 Vanjoca:
We thought things would be different. We wanted to
drink coffee, to have soap, meat and beans. We needed
help maintaining our family. The money we made
selling manioc wasn’t enough to get by. When we
decided to sell wood we thought our lives would
improve. But we lost out in the end. We didn’t think
of the forest’s value and now it’s all gone.
06:54 Narration:
It takes them a week to make a sac of farinha which
they sell for approximately ten dollars. To make
enough money to survive, Vanjoca, together with the
older men of the village, sold most of the forest
surrounding Quinandeua for a few hundred dollars.
Vanjoca did not consider the value of the products his
family takes for free from the forest when he agreed
to sell it. Between 1993 and 1999 the combined
effects of logging and fires reduced consumption of
fibers, fruit and game in Quinandeua by 70%. When
forests were plentiful, Vanjoca's family ate meat
twice a week. Now they are lucky if they can find
game once a month. (Fruit and medicine are scarcer
still and must be purchased with money from farinha
sales.)
07:47 Gloria Gaia:
The connection I see between woman and forest is that
woman is here to create life. The forest is the same.
It is here to produce. It is here to offer its beauty
for the benefit of women. The forest offers happiness
to women. If there is forest, women have the
possibility of a happy life. That is why women’s
suffering is much greater when the forest is destroyed
because she knows that she has lost a piece of her
life. If there is no forest, she has nowhere to get
fruit for her children, she has nowhere to find
medicine she doesn’t have a way to improve her
life. When the forest goes, everything else goes with it.
08:43 Song “Brega Ecologica”:
Where have the fish gone who used to live in the sea?
Where is the açai, the little black fruit from Pará?
There is no more wood, there is nothing left to take,
when everything is gone, famine comes here to stay.
09:07 Graca:
It’s all gone. It was cut down to make ranches, to
make pasture for the cows, and it means that it’s over
for us. There is no more game, and often it is even
hard to fish. When we go out in the sun we just burn
and get sick. We get rained on and burned without a
tree to protect us. The fish are gone because trees
are no longer dropping fruit into the river. It is
very difficult. We even go hungry…It’s a shame.
09:42 Song “Brega Ecologica” continued:
I worry when I look at the past and analyze the
future. I see how nature, the source of beauty and
pure air is being attacked by huge fires and dams. How
sad that nature has lost the splendor of her landscape!
10:17 Narration:
Famers in Quinandeua asked the local farmers union for
help in finding ways to make money other than by
producing farinha and selling trees to timber
companies. At the time. Dr. Patricia Shanley, and
American ethnobotanist researching fruits, medicinal
plants and other forest products in Amazonia, was
working for the Woods Hole Research Center. She heard
about Quinandeua through the farmers union and would
spend the next six years in the community to lead one
of the most in depth studies of nontimber forest
products ever conducted.
10:52 Dr. Patrica Shanley:
Both the ecological study and the study of fruit
consumption went over a period of six years, and
without the enormous cooperation from the community we
never would have gotten the data that we did. They
were looking for ways to get quick cash. Timber
offers cash in your pocket in one day. The logger
shows up, he takes out the wood and he gives you cash.
No one shows up to buy fruit. So the research
results didn't show that is was going to be easy to
sell your uxi, your piquia or your andiroba oil and
get cash in your pocket. What the research results
did show is that these nontimber forest products have
a very high value for subsistence.
11:36 Narration:
Through their participation in Patricia's study,
Mangueira and his family decided that his forests were
too valuable to cut down.
11:43 Mangeira:
Her research was to show the community the value of
the forest. And in this area here, wood and fruit are
both important. She wanted to show the value of the
forest, and so she did her study. She asked me if I’d
agree to preserve this little area here for five or
six years, and I said I would. Now if we need fruit or
wood we're more relaxed because we have it, and it’s
more difficult for them because they don’t. It was
good because it gave me experience. If it wasn’t for
this experience, I’d have sold my wood too.
12:45 Patricia:
Here we have Asia. Is there a lot of forest there? Very
little.
12:55 Narration:
Patricia developed workshops using the data she
collected to educate communities in Amazonia about the
importance of forest products for local economies.
13:05 Patricia:
One of the reasons we began focusing our extension and
education efforts on women is because they suffer
disproportionately from loss of forests because they
are repositories of knowledge, they process the
nontimber forest products, the fruits and the remedies
and so when the forest falls their children will not
be cared for properly. Also we found that bringing
them into the discussion with the men brought a voice
of caution and thrift. They were thinking long term,
they were thinking about their grandchildren and that
aided the discussion with the men about what the
outcome of the timber sale might be.
13:40 Narration:
She hired Gloria Gaia, a local women’s rights activist
and expert on herbal medicine to encourage women to
get involved.
13:51 Gloria:
These isolated communities have many women with a
beautiful intelligence, it’s just that they are far
away from information. It’s a way to teach these women
to have the courage to seriously discuss forest conservation
with their families and their communities.
14:31 Patricia:
There’s an exclusion of the disenfranchised,
especially women, from decisions that affect their
livelihoods in general throughout Amazonia. The women
had extraordinarily traditional roles when we began
there. Over time by having examples of different women
coming in from different places, women like
themselves, like Gloria, who have really worked to
gain their rights, to fight for equal rights, to be
heard, to change the inferior position of women made
an enormous difference in how they saw their possibilities and
their potential.
15:15 Maroca:
You can film me, you can quote me, let me tell
you that the one who suffers most is the woman from
the countryside. Any women who says her husband works
harder is lying. It is the woman who works harder!
Woman are very capable- Like this girl right here. She
has four kids and takes care of them all by herself. She doesn’t work much on the farm, but at home she has no time. She cooks, she gets water, she cleans and takes care of the children. She runs from one thing to another all day long. Are you going to
tell me this woman isn’t exploited? Even while I’m sitting here, I’m consumed with thoughts of my children. It’s exploitation!
16:05 Trilby:
Did the men who sold the forest consult the women first?
16:15 Maroca:
Never. Not with any of us. Not with the wives, not
with the daughters, not with the grandmothers.
16:24 Conceição:
We have to take an active interest. If they are going
to make a decision, we should tell them that we have
to do it together. Because we have the same rights.
Otherwise, it’s no good.
16:39 Song “Logico Ecologico”
There go the paca, the cutia, the arancua. There go
the deer, your past was beautiful, but sad is your
future. There go the macaw, the arianha, the capivara.
There goes mucura, the dark forest is being destroyed,
the imbiaras are disappearing. I want to see the
jaguar! only if painted. I want to see the owl! Only
if stuffed. So where are all the animals? They’re
running from the fire. They’re running from the
riffle. There goes the Tocantins River in danger. May
your courage keep you from getting stuck behind the
dam. There goes the forest lying down upon the ground.
Forest without legs- you are rooted down and cannot escape.
17:44 Patricia:
Thirty years ago we are looking at a hand full of
species being taken out. Today there are over 300
species being taken out of the forest in Pará. Most of
this wood, currently is being utilized within Brazil
about 95 to 98 percent of it. However s the forests in
Asia and Africa are diminishing the Amazon is poised
to become the center of timber production for the
world. And this change has been so very rapid it
hasn’t given communities time to prepare and say wait!
we need to negotiate, and say you can’t take that
fruit tree, you need to leave my medicinal oil tree.
And that leaves open a tremendous opportunity for
education. We find that when we bring information
about the economic value of the standing forest to a
community there is no way they will sell a Piquiá tree
for two real or the equivalent of two dollars when the
average number of fruits that tree can give which is a
four hundred annual average, is sixty real, or sixty dollars.
18:44 Patricia:
You know what was taken out of the forest? All of the
things that we’re going to use now to heal the body. Jatoba- who took jatoba? The loggers took it. Pau d’arco- a miraculous medicine. And also copaiba and andiroba.
19:08 Narration:
Patricia put the results of her six years of research into two books. “Recipes Without Words” is an illustrated guide to making natural remedies for people who can’t read.
19:19 Dona Ana:
Take three little pieces, and mix it in a liter of water.
19:29 Narration:
“Fruit Trees in the Lives of Amazonians” is a field
guide for local people on the ecology, economic value
and traditional uses of 13 fruit trees. Gloria is
incorporating Patricia’s books into her work with
women’s groups throughout Amazonia. (Together,
Patricia and Gloria are teaching women the benefits of
forest conservation and encouraging them to get
involved in debates on forest management in their
communities.)
19:55 Gloria Gaia:
I participated in the research of this book “Fruit
Trees in the Lives of Amazonians”. My participation in
this work reinforced my desire to continue educating
people who live in the forest but don’t know how
valuable it is. It became very clear to me as it does
to other people who read and reflect- that Amazonia is
rich because it has forest.
20:38 Raimunda:
Look everyone. This is a really good remedy for
malaria. My kid got malaria and the medicine he took
wasn’t working. I was taught to boil one leaf of
quina with another leaf of avocado, and two leaves of
boldo. I boiled them in three cups of water and let it
cool down. He took three doses of the liquid per day.
That’s what worked for my son.
21:14 Off-camera voice:
Did he get better?
21:16 Raimunda:
He got better.
21:20 Gloria Gaia:
I see the power of women's decision. It has arrived
everywhere. They have decided that without them
nothing will change. This message is being passed on
from woman to woman. And a great network is being
formed. And it is the strength of this network that
will bring change.
21:45 Dona Ana:
We had a meeting in April where we decided not to sell
what’s left of the forest. We met with the husbands, the sons, all the guys… so that they wouldn’t sell it anymore.
22:05 José (son of Vanjoca):
Things changed a lot. When we were kids, the father
was the head of the house. If there was some business
to be done, he would handle it himself. Now we know
better. A man has one idea how to do business, and a
women has another and together we see which one is better.
22:40 Dona Ana:
In the past, if the husbands didn't ask for our opinions, or ask us for an answer, we would sit quietly on the side. Now, no. Women have to be in the middle!
Nova Timboteua
23:38 Narration:
Nova Timboteua is another town in Amazonia under
pressure from big business. Unlike Quinandeua, the
surrounding forest was converted to agricultural land
generations ago. Infrastructure is better here than
in much of Amazonia. The city lies along a main road,
and has postal service and access to electricity,
telephones and running water. Few families can afford
to take advantage of such resources however, and
continue to live in the same simple way since the area
was first settled over 150 years ago. In the 1960’s
ranchers arrived to stake their claim in the Amazonian
frontier. Because there are virtually no paying jobs
in the area, securing a piece of farmland is crucial
for local people. Many farmers in Nova Timboteua have
lost their land and even their lives in the often brutal competition with
powerful ranchers. Women are leading the resistance.
24:44 Sister Lygia Constantino da Silva has been a member of
the order the Sisters of the Good Shepherd and an
activist for the rights of women and poor people since
1946. ( She first came to Nova Timboteua in 1980 to
help farmers resist pressure from ranchers who were
trying to force them off of their land. It has been
her home ever since.)
25:04 Sister Lygia Constantino da Silva:
For us the Bible is a source of inspiration, because
the people here are very catholic. They are people for
whom the word of God has great power. But the word of
God can be used to blind people. If the word of God is
not used in a way that truly illuminates people, it
can cause even greater alienation. Our work began here
with the farmers. Because we saw that they were in the
majority. We began to meet with them to analyze their
situation as a majority that was being dominated.
26:08 Their wives were also interested to learn more. So we
began to meet with them as well so that they could
learn to appreciate their dignity and self
worth. Because women had always believed themselves to
be inferior, and in many ways they were led to believe
that.
26:35 Selma:
It was a huge change, because we women were used to
staying home with our arms crossed not participating.
26:49 Narration:
Soon after their arrival in Nova Timboteua, rancehrs
took control of the agricultural workers union and
used it to control local farmers.
26:59 Carmen:
Women never entered the farmer's union because they
always said that a married woman should be dependant
on her husband, not the union. And so we always felt a
certain fear. But when all of us became aware of the
importance of being unionized we prepared ourselves to
occupy the union.
27:22 Selma:
Since we started working with the community and the
church we discovered that we are people too, and that
we live in this world to be respected and to be
citizens like everybody else. We began to value
ourselves as people and uncrossed our arms to join the
fight.
27:51 Song:
Whoever wants to challenge us, come and take a
hit! The union will be ours, we won’t give up. We’ll
vote for Chapa 2!
28:07 Narration:
Loca women, who were not allowed to vote in the union,
decided they had had enough. Surrounded by ranchers,
100 women farmers risked their lives and occupied the
union headquarters for ten days until they won the
right to vote. They went on to form the Margarita
Barbosa Women’s Association of Nova Timboteua. Dona
Maria is one of the associations founding members.
She (participated in the occupation of the union
headquarters and) remains an active member of the
association, despite her husband’s disapproval.
28:46 Dona Maria:
I would have believed that he didn't mind if he had
just said“go”, but no! I had to jump through hoops to
get to go. And now he keeps quiet about it. He used to
complain. At home, he would tell me that he didn’t
like what I was doing because it interfered with the
housework. He’d object to everything I did and I would
just listen. One day I came home at about six
o’clock. He was sitting outside with my cousin and he
said “Finally”! I told him that I have to go out
again and I wasn’t sure when I was coming back. He was
furious. He told me that when I got home, he wouldn’t
let me in. I said that I would break the door down
because I have the right to be in this house! My
cousin said that“If I were Maria’s husband, there is
no way I would let her go!” “Imagine” he said, “she
was gone all day yesterday and today, and you let her
talk to you like that! I would slap her in the face
right now!” I said to him “If you are such a man, then
I dare you to come here and slap me!” I was so angry.
I never liked that cousin much.
30:11 Chico:
It’s up to her. I don’t tell her what to do. It’s up
to her. She can work. She can work until she dies. And
when she dies, that’s it.
30:35 Narration:
Over the years, Maria and Chico watched as nearly all
their neighbors were pressured off their land and
moved away. (Maria and Chico continue to resist and
have no plans to leave their land.)
31:00 Dona Maria:
What happens is deprivation for those who sell their
land. Because that little money they pay isn’t worth
anything, and the land has so much to give. Its where
we take our bread to feed ourselves. The ranchers are
against the farmers. They don’t have the slightest
sympathy for us. Sometimes they let the cattle onto
our land, and our crops get trampled. And when the
farmers fight back, they kill them! They are taking
so much land to plant grass and nothing to eat. Just
pasture for the cows, it's awful.
32:05 Chico:
Many people enter the movement right away. Others want
nothing to do with it. They say it's some kind of communism.
32:21 Trilby:
Are you a communist?
32:23 Chico:
No, they just say that.
32:32 Trilby:
What’s a communist?
32:33 Chico:
Who knows! I’ve heard this since I was little but I
have no clue what it is.
32:42 Dona Ana:
Through the struggle, we make progress bit by bit.
They kill 4 or 5, but 30, 40, 200 keep on fighting. Sometimes women complain that when they go to the meetings their husbands fight with them later. They won’t let them back into the house, etc. I say to these men- “Do you like her”? “Yes, like her” they’ll say. Well when we like someone we respect them. If not, its so meandon’t you think? Then he’ll ask, “But is it only women?” And I tell him “no”, it was started by women but everyone- men, women, the young, the old, everyone has a right to be there.
34:21 Song “Sem Medo de Ser Mulher” (Without Fear of Being a Woman):
To change society the way we want it to be, we participate without fear
of being women. Without women the fight is only half fought, we
participate without fear of being women, strengthening popular
movements, we participate without fear of being women.
35:05 Cleidiane:
I’ve participated in the association since I was a
child. I was practically raised in the middle of
them! I’ve been watching and hearing everything that
goes on there. My mother brought me. And I formed my
opinions based on what I learned there. I began to
think of ways to change the things that are wrong, to
solve our problems and fight for our rights. I like it here.
35:42 Narration:
(Cleidiane is one of the associations youngest
members. She believes that the best days in Nova
Timboteua lie ahead and wants to be part of
progressive change in her community.)
35:52 Cleidiane:
A lot of young people go to the city in search of
work, but very often they don’t find it. I think that
we should try to find ways of getting work here in
our community. Like the association is doing. It
organizes workshops on business and various
other courses where we can learn things that can be
applied here at home.
36:19 Sister Lygia:
This course here is about money management. What is
money management? Without it, you can never hold on to
your money.
36:25 Narration:
Every meeting Sister Lygia presents a new list of free
classes offered in the area on topics ranging from
women’s health and new legislation affecting farmers,
to adult literacy and how to start your own business.
36:38 Sister Lygia: You get it and fritter it away without
gaining anything!
36:44 Narration:
Although Nova Timboteua has been largely deforested
for many generations, forests remain an important of
the regions cultural identity. Today women are
determined that their children know more than stories
about the forest. (They have obtained a piece of land
from the city and are creating a forest park and
members are planting popular fruit and medicine trees
on their properties.)
37:06 Sister Lygia:
This is a forest preserve with various species. Some
which are already extinct in our area. The preserve
must be a place where future generations can benefit
from the natural environment.
37:28 Noema:
Each one of us here at the association committed
ourselves to planting a tree on our land. After one
year we have our results. We each wrote down the names
of the trees we planted and put them into this box.
37:46 Sister Lygia:
For example, Luzia do Nacimento planted andiroba and
açai. In the community Kilometer 15, Lourdes planted
cupuacu and pupunha and two anjirobeira trees.
38:04 Dona Maria, Lourdes:
We want the Northeast of Pará to be green forever.
38:20 Sister Lygia:
Everything that has ever been accomplished in this
world has been the fruit of a great passion. No one
can do anything unless you have a strong internal force.
This force for us comes from faith. For some, that force
can come from other sources. There is no saying which is
better or more important. The fact is, no one can do anything
without an interior force or passion that carries you
forward. God doesn’t want anyone to be poor. God
doesn’t love poverty. He made everyone so that they
could be happy. This is everyone’s right. Christ came
so that everyone could live not just any scrappy
little life, but a life of abundance. But if people
don’t fight for this, they won’t get it. Because the
people in power are comfortable. Liberation theology
teaches us to create our own liberation. We can’t wait
for somebody to liberate us, because no one can
liberate anyone else. But we have to do it together, because
alone, you can’t accomplish anything.
40:13 Narration:
This year, Dona Maria is joining Sister Lygia, Gloria
Gaia and thousands of other activists to participate
in the annual protest of Amazonia which takes place
simultaneously in dozens of cities throughout Para.
40:40 Gloria Gaia:
We are going to the farmer’s camp. This is the 16th
annual “Protest of Amazonia”.
41:05 Ines:
We won’t accept this anymore! We are here to demand
what we deserve. We want them to listen to what we
have to say and sign the document that describes what
we want. If that doesn’t happen we won’t leave here!
41:24 Narration:
Women’s participation in Brazil’s increasingly
powerful populist movement is growing each year.
Sister Lygia and Gloria Gaia are here in solidarity
with women activists who have joined tens of thousands
of protesters from across the Amazon region to demand
a better future for themselves and their families.
41:50 Gloria Gaia:
Without organization and participation we are going to
become increasingly exploited. It is worth it for us
to leave our families and our jobs to come together
with other workers and other women in order to gather
the power to win our rights.
42:07 Ines:
My oldest daughter is taking care of my other children
so that I could come here. Because our kids are living
without healthcare, without education, without loans
so that we can work. We don’t have any of these
things. When we come to demand our rights, it’s
painful, but we come anyway. We don’t come looking for
trouble, We come looking for our rights as citizens to
live in this country with dignity. And as long as we
don’t have our rights, we have to fight. And it’s a
fight for everyone.
42:48 Activist at microphone:
For 500 years we have been left out of history, and
now we are here to say that the next 500 years will be different! Women will be respected. A farm worker will no longer be
forced to leave his home and find work in the city where he goes starving and without a dignified home, without healthcare, and education.
43:27 Caption:
From informal background meetings to major international conferences like the International Women’s Conference of the Amazonian Forest, women all over Amazonia are working together to create better lives for themselves and their families. The courageous women are discovering their power to overcome centuries of oppression to change the course of history for the benefit of all.
43:41 closing credits begin