If A Man Falls in the Forest, Does Anyone Hear?

The bodies of Da Silva and Do Espirito Santo are carried to their final resting place – Photo: Boing Boing

In his Tedx Amazonia talk this year, environmental activist Joao Claudio Ribeiro da Silva did not leave us with any doubts: “I may be talking to you here today,” he said,”and in a month, you may hear news that I’ve disappeared. I ask myself: Am I scared? I am. I am a human being, I get scared. But it doesn’t make me shut my mouth. As long as I am able to walk, I will be denouncing those who harm the forest.”

Just last Tuesday, Da Silva and his wife, Maria de Espirito Santo, were found dead in their home in Northern Brazil. They had been ambushed and shot by the hired men of rainforest logging and cattle ranch interests. They were buried the following day, in the same sacred earth that holds their predecessors: Chico Mendes, Dorothy Strang, indigenous Guarani tribes, and the many land rights activists who have fallen before them.

Da Silva was an advocate of the original Forest Code, which required that farms and settlements to conserve 80% of the forest on land in Amazon regions, 35% in savanna, and 20% elsewhere. He worked to expose the logging companies who were openly harvesting trees from these slated forest reserves. Yet more recently, politicians had also been working to pass a revised Forest Code, which reduced the amount of forest reserve to 50% and exempted small plots from having to preserve any forest at all. Non-compliant companies were also forgiven for any previous illegal deforestation practices. The new Forest Code was passed by Congress the day after Da Silva’s death.

If we ask ourselves, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?” we must also ask ourselves, “And if a man falls?”

The death of Da Silva and his wife will not change anything in Brazil’s rainforest policy, as silent or as loud as it may be, but as consumers, we can respond. If you’re thinking that it will be awhile before you buy that teak dining room table anyway, I can assure that our abuse of the rainforest hits much closer to home than that. Just last year, Shell signed a $12 billion ethanol production contract with the Brazilian corporation, Cosan, (and you may of noticed Obama rubbing shoulders with the government recently as well). Sugarcane is a fundamental element in the production of ethanol, which is used in our gasoline, and it is estimated that 70 ethanol refineries will be opened as a result of this contract. The question left unclear is where those refineries will be opened and from what land will that colossal amount of sugarcane be harvested? I think the newly revised, freshly passed Forest Code discreetly provides a solution and it is an indignation.

Da Silva said, “As long as I am able to walk, I will be denouncing those who harm the forest.” Thus, in his honor, I suggest that we walk. Let’s forget the convenience of our cars and let us reconnect with our feet. Because after all, it is our feet that we will need most when our time comes to stand tall, against all the corruption and greed this world breeds, just like Da Silva and his wife did.