“My name is Mequelina and I am Tukano,” said Mequelina Maçao recently, as she stood in the shade of a native palm hut.
She sung a salutation song to the group of giggling children who sat at her feet. Sônia Guajajara, a Yepaya from the same region, was draped in brown and red seeds found on the floor of the Amazon. She also sung a salutation song but followed quickly with a message:
“We need to save the trees. It is important because we live here.”
Maçao and Guajajara were in New York as part of Amazônia Brasil, a three-month exhibition on the Amazon rainforest at South Street Seaport. The exhibit opened on Earth Day to show that the importance of saving the Brazilian rainforest is not only about the trees, but the indigenous groups who live to protect them.
“As indigenous people living in the forest, we are the guardians and we do everything possible to avoid people coming to destroy the forest,” Guajajara said through her interpreter. “We believe if we destroy the forest, the animals and nature, we destroy humankind.”
The Amazon Rainforest spans more than 3 million square miles over northwest Brazil and parts of Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. Roughly the size of the United States the rainforest is home to the Amazon River- the world’s longest river. The rainforest covers five percent of the world’s entire surface. Every day it releases into the atmosphere a volume of water equivalent to another Amazon River and regulates the continent’s humidity, winds and the world’s climate.
“For people to understand the enormity and significance of the Amazon, they must see it,” said Dr. Eugênio Scannavino Neto, a rural field doctor who has lived in the Amazon since 1984. He is the director and founder of Projeto Saúde e Alegria- Project Health and Happiness, the group that brought the Amazônia Brasil project to New York.
In Brazil, the Amazon covers two-thirds of the country’s land area and is home to 23 million people from 180 indigenous ethnic groups, 70 of which have had no contact with the outside world.
“I wanted to make health, not only deal with sickness,” Scannavino said. “I found the Amazonian people brave, with good spirits inside and outside. They have a great knowledge of the forest, but no good health or social conditions.”
Scannavino thought if he could improve social services to the indigenous population, they could live longer and protect what is left.
“They are the real guardians of the forest,” Scannavino said. “You give them a good body and health and we can keep the earth.”
Scannavino works alongside his brother Caetano, who is also a partner in Projeto Saúde e Alegria. Their goal with this exhibit is to broaden people’s scope of understanding about the rainforest.
“People think of the rainforest, but forget the people,” said Caetano Scannavino. Amazônia Brasil “is a way of putting together the two worlds so the people in New York can understand the [rainforest] people and their future and their fights to protect the forest.”
Coming to the city was an important decision for the Amazônia Brasil team.
“New York is a huge city with a lot of different cultures and people from around the world,” said Cynthia Macedo, production manager of the exhibit. “We can make people more conscious of what’s going on from the point of view of the people inside. New York is the best place to reach out to a lot of different people and countries at once.”
The 13,000 square foot exhibit recreates the feeling of being in the Amazon including replicas of Amazonian villages in addition to crafts and representative products from the region such as leather, hammocks, fruit and seeds.
“In this exhibit, you can smell, hear, use all of your sense to understand,” said art director, Gringo Cardia.
“It is very difficult to imitate nature so I chose to make a big garden as if seeing the forest through the eyes of children,” said Cardia.
Children were in abundant supply yesterday, walking through the rainforest mists, playing with the traditional tools and learning about the vegetation.
“My favorite was the part when we went on top of the bridge and we saw the water, boats and sand,” said Daehnaishia, 8, who came with the Dodge YMCA’s Holiday Camp at P.S. 38 in Brooklyn. “If I went to the Amazon, I would play in the water and bring food for the people in case they don’t have enough.”
Norma Cortez, a mother from Brooklyn, attended the opening of the exhibit with her young son.
“I think as citizens you need to learn about other cultures,” Cortez said. “The more you learn, the better citizen you can be and help in any way you can.”
Sentiments Damani J., 7, another YMCA camper, took to heart.
“After today, I think I could plant a tree in my backyard.”