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Book Review
| O Mito Moderno da Natureza Intocada [The Modern Myth of Untouched Nature]. By Antonio Carlos Diegues. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Hucitec Ltda., 4th ed. 2002. 176 pp. Bibliography. $13.14.
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| John Muir's final and epic journey to the Brazilian Amazon went practically unnoticed at the time. Nevertheless, Muir and other icons of the American conservation movement would leave big footprints on Brazil's land and people. Their ideal of wilderness as a place where man visits but does not remain became not only the bedrock philosophy of America's national park system, but that of Brazil and many other countries as well. A worthy export indeed, most Americans would say. |
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Not so, replies Antonio Carlos Diegues. This professor of economics and rural sociology at the University of S˜o Paulo maintains that the U.S.-inspired "myth of untouched nature" has been bad for traditional peoples and even bad for biological diversity. This book, currently available in Portuguese, would be of great value to scholars worldwide should a translation become available. |
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According to Diegues, there is nothing worthy of emulation in the way the United States forcibly expelled Native Americans in order to establish Yellowstone National Park. Following suit, Brazil created its otherwise admirable system of protected areas by replacing indigenous peoples, artesanal fishermen, and forest "extractivists" with tourists and park guards. |
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In embracing this U.S. "myth," Brazil's urban elites have created what Diegues calls "cultural artifacts," protected areas that reflect a vision of what nature should be rather than what it really is. The results have been impoverished landscapes in which formerly vibrant human cultures have disappeared. A collateral victim has been a certain degree of biological diversity, because some species depend on such practices as shifting agriculture. "Biodiversity cannot be protected without recognizing the positive role that cultural diversity plays in protecting nature," he writes. |
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These areas have lost something else: the systems of beliefs, ethical prescriptions, and rituals that order traditional people's relation to their environment. These are also myths, in the truest, most profound sense. In contrast, the word "myth" as used in Diegues's title simply means falsehood. |
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Diegues acknowledges that urban elitists are not the only threat to traditional peoples. Far more powerful are the forces of materialism and its capitalist handmaiden. So the question must be asked: If traditional peoples are disappearing anyway, is it not better to turn their former homes into "untouched nature" rather than cattle ranches and soybean fields? If there is an answer to this dilemma, it's likely that an innovative country such as Brazil will find it. Maybe it already has. Diegues briefly traces the history of a new kind of conservation unit called an "extractive reserve." It was not the brainchild of a scientist or environmentalist, but of the humble labor leader Chico Mendes. Before he was killed, he had gained international fame by successfully defending his people's right to live in the western Amazon. |
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Not surprisingly, Diegues concludes that poor countries have something to teach their rich neighbor to the north. "Recognizing the existence of these [traditional peoples] is a recent phenomenon," he writes, "the result of a rise in Third World countries of a different environmentalism from that of the industrialized countries." |
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Roger Hamilton is editor of the magazine of the Inter-American Development Bank. He reports and writes extensively on biodiversity conservation in Latin America. The views expressed here represent his views alone, and not necessarily those of the institution. |
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