Listening to the Rainforest: Words of a Yanomami Wise Man

The Yanomami people live in a large expanse of forest on the border between Brazil and Venezuela. The Terra Floresta, as they call the rainforest and jungle where they live, is for them a living being that feels and suffers, as well as a world of worlds made up of a rich natural, human and spiritual fabric. Today, this biome that is key to planetary health and home to some 54,000 people continues to be seriously threatened by voracious extractivism dating back hundreds of years that is responsible for thousands of deaths. The mass invasion of illegal miners, extensive cattle farming, fires and deforestation are pushing the territory and its communities to the limit, despite having been declared “Yanomami indigenous land” by the Brazilian Government 30 years ago.

Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami spiritual and political spokesperson, has been on the frontline fighting for the survival of his people for almost five decades. As a spiritual leader, his function is to keep the Terra Floresta alive by dialoguing with the spirits that protect its rivers, mountains and forests, and safeguarding it from the predatory madness of the “white man”. For him, explaining who they are as a people and sharing the ancestral wisdom of those who have never departed from nature is key to preventing their annihilation.