first, where were the grand cities, like those found in the riviera maya of central america, the incan empire of the andes, or the aztec temples of central mexico?   

second, the effervescence of life in the amazon rainforest is an illusory potemkin village. despite the verdant vegetation and cacophony of life, the soils of the amazon are generally nutrient-poor, rust-colored clay. amazonian soils are generally old and weathered, tired and weary. time has stripped them of their ability to retain the nutrients resulting from organic matter decomposition. plants that survive here must be adapted to efficiently assimilate any available nutrients before they are leached out of the soils by torrential rains. the land could simply not support densely populated, stratified societies (mann, 2012).

finally, indigenous populations are low. some 900,000 indigenous live in brazil today and in the early 1980s, the number was likely lower than 200,000. historians chalked up carvajal’s descriptions to the exaggeration to which many explorers were prone (mann, 2012).

recent research, however, has cast this assumption into doubt. in fact, far from being a green desert largely devoid of human settlements, archaeological, anthropological, ecological, and pedological research suggests that the amazon rainforest may be a cultural artifact engineered by indigenous cultures.

building the rainforest

while archaeologists have uncovered the vestiges of geoglyphs, likely created by amazonian indigenous cultures, most of the construction in the amazon was probably wooden. it was an obvious choice of building material, given its abundance and the rarity of stone in the region. unfortunately, wood decays if not maintained, explaining the lack of ruins in the amazon basin. these indigenous civilizations, however, did bequeath a more perennial stele, one perhaps more inspiring than any ruin: the forest itself (mann, 2012).  

indigenous populations have altered large swaths of the amazon rainforest, particularly near rivers where their settlements were concentrated. they planted a diverse array of fruit and nut trees near their communities, in part to ensure a stable and ample supply of food. unlike most annual commercial crops that strip the soil of nutrients, these tree species are adapted to the nutrient-poor soils of the amazon and cycle nutrients efficiently. they also support wildlife populations, many of which depend upon these trees’ fruits and flowers. this was a way for indigenous peoples to enact their sacred responsibilities to maintain balance between the physical and spiritual forces that permeated their world. even conservative estimates suggest the plant community composition of up to 12% of the amazon rainforest has been altered by indigenous management (mann, 2012).

just as they helped build the forest, so too did indigenous peoples build its soil. to overcome these nutrient limitations, indigenous peoples amended the soil with charcoal, bone, potsherds, and manure. these soot-black, rich soils, known as terra preta have helped recycle nutrients for centuries. to this day, terra preta soil is coveted for its fertility. it is so valuable that local farmers will sell it as potting soil rather than cultivating it. while terra preta is generally concentrated in riparian areas, it covers between 0.1% and 10% of the lowland rainforest in brazil, again demonstrating the extent and degree to which indigenous peoples in the amazon have modified the ecosystems in which they live (lehmann, 2010).

a symbiotic relationship

these are but two examples illustrating how indigenous people around the world have learned to live with the land rather than merely on it. their traditional ecological knowledge is a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief that has adapted to unique sets of environmental constraints and has been handed down from generation to generation using cultural practices and social structures. this knowledge body is expansive and considers the rights and responsibilities they have in relating to one another and nature (berkes, 1999).

the sustainability and ingenuity of this traditional ecological knowledge supported diverse, populous, and complex societies that thrived throughout the amazon basin before europeans arrived. much like the rhizobium bacteria, which provides plants with nitrogen essential for growth in return for sugars from the plants’ photosynthesis, the indigenous peoples of the amazon lived in symbiosis with their environment, taking what they needed and returning the favor to sustain the complex ecosystem on which they relied.

major threats to communities, ecosystem

this was no garden of eden, no paradise lost, but it was a home. in a matter of decades, however, it was laid to waste. in a few tumultuous years of pestilence and misery, european diseases laid waste to indigenous populations throughout amazonia. a wave of death spread out ahead of the european colonists. smallpox and measles were the harbinger of conquest.

by the time the early european explorers probed the interior of the continent, the once multitudinous indigenous communities had been overwhelmed by a pathogenic war of attrition. then, the spanish and portuguese cannons roared, laying the survivors to waste. ninety percent of the indigenous population of the americas was wiped out in a matter of a few decades. conservative estimates hold that 5 million indigenous lived in the amazon in 1500. by 1900, the number had fallen to 1 million (park, 2002).

newcomers to the region still have not developed such nuanced adaptations to place. they impose their will upon the landscape and take what they can rather than heeding its guidance and accepting what it offers. with the construction of the trans-amazonian highway in 1972, farmers poured into the hitherto unfarmed amazonian lowlands.

the highway served as the initial incision, which then splintered out across the landscape as communities sprung up around the highway, easily observed from satellite imagery as the rich carpet of green forest is tattered by patches of brown farms and ranches. these scars tell the stories of the colonists’ dreams — dreams of hope, dreams of greed. the colonists slashed and burned the vegetation that stood in their way, transforming the forest into fields. in so doing, they sowed the seeds of their own destruction alongside their crops.

because amazonian soils are largely infertile, intensive commercial crop cultivation can only be sustained for a few years before production declines. it can be exceedingly difficult for forest to regrow on land that has been cleared and abandoned after farming. seedbanks in cultivated soils are generally non-viable, so forest plants must colonize what the colonists have abandoned (holl, 2007).

seeds that arrive in open fields need to successfully germinate, which is no small task, given the pressures of seed-eating animals and livestock-compacted soils. once plants germinate, the seedlings still need to overcome nutrient limitations, oppressive heat, and dry soils. in many situations, only ruderal vegetation, such as ferns and grasses, can grow rapidly given these hurdles. once these plants gain a stranglehold, they can outcompete any other pioneer species. thus, the engine of agricultural development in the amazon consumes the forest in a vicious, downward spiral (holl, 2007).

road to recovery?

while deforestation rates dropped precipitously after the government enacted regulations in 2004, they have crept upward since 2014. this trend is likely to continue as wealthy landowners pressure the embattled brazilian government to reduce environmental regulations in light of an economic downturn and political upheaval (cowie, 2017).

but this is not a ghost story. it is not a story of surrender. it is a story of resilience, hope, and faith. indigenous peoples have survived and many continue to practice their traditional lifeways. they have not forgotten and they are willing to teach us, if only we are willing to learn. just as the indigenous built the amazon, so too can we rebuild it. but we cannot simply learn what they know of the rainforest. we must learn a new way of living ‒ a new way of relating to one another and to the earth. it is not looking into the past for answers, but rather aspiring toward a common future.

bibliography

• berkes, fikret. sacred ecology. routledge, 1999.
• cowie, sam. “activists decry temer’s amazon deforestation bill.” al jazeera. 22 july 2017.
• holl, karen d. “old field vegetation succession in the neotropics.” old fields: dynamics and restoration of abandoned farmland. by viki a. cramer and richard j. hobbs. island, 2007.
• lehmann, johannes. amazonian dark earths: origin, properties, management. kluwer academic publ., 2010.
• mann, charles c. 1491: new revelations of the americas before columbus. knopf, 2012.
• park, chris c. tropical rainforests. taylor & francis, 2002.

after becoming the ene, more and more of her sister tributaries, voyaging from the vast, craggy backbone of south america, join and transform her time and again. she is reborn and renamed with the meeting of their waters, becoming tambo after meeting the perene, ucayali after the urubamba, and finally the amazon after the marañón.

she has matured by the time she reaches the brazilian border and is no longer prone to the capricious nature of her youth. she is less deterred by the twists and turns of life, choosing a more level-headed course through the verdant lowland forests.  more of her sisters, like the putumayo and the japurá, join her in her journey, but by now she is their elder and she will not change for their sake. she remains the amazon, like the fierce hellenic women warriors of ancient greece who are her namesake.

the barasana people live on her banks here, near the border with colombia. by traversing her waters, they are able to commune with their forefathers, who did the same for centuries before them. they believe their distant ancestors traveled from the east in canoes borne by giant anacondas. the snakes transformed into rivers. their tails became headwater streams in the distant mountains and their open mouths emptied into the ocean far to the east. the first people settled near these life-giving rivers.

near manaus, her sediment-laden waters, colored like coffee with cream, finally meet those of the rio negro, stained inky black with tannins from decaying organic matter. this long into her journey, the amazon is slow to accept her sister’s embrace. they differ too much in pace and temperament. the amazon is still in a hurry to reach her destination and marches eastward faster than her sister. she is deep and cold. the rio negro, however, moves slowly, relieved to conclude her shorter journey from the colombian highlands. she still roils with the hot passion of youth. they run next to one another without mixing for almost 4 miles before the amazon relents, taking on her sister’s burden and carrying onward.

the river gives gifts to all she passes on her long journey east. fishermen pull their lives from her waters, plumbing the river’s murky depths. they toss in another line and hope against hope that she will offer up another gift so they may live another day. will she deliver a deep-bodied tambaqui? or perhaps they will be fortunate and manage to hook a giant arapaima, which can grow up to six feet long? more likely, though, the frenzied piranha will devour the bait before anything else.

sheet metal roofs of stilted houses built on her banks glint in the afternoon sun. it is the beginning of the dry season, so they stand high above the water for now, but her channel will swell with the winter rains, raising the water levels right to their doorsteps. the rising tides will also deposit sediment across some 69,498 square miles of várzea forest — the seasonal floodplain. the river’s caress will revitalize their tired, old soils with an influx of valuable nutrients that will sustain a diverse array of plants and wildlife. children play on her beaches, laughing as they haul buckets of water to fill moats dug around sandcastles. boats ferry passengers and cargo up and down the river. she becomes a highway, home, workplace, and playground, like veins radiating throughout the brazilian lowlands.

the river is the lifeblood that sustains brazil, and in large part, the entire world. she gives us the gift of life, and how do we thank her? in trying to wrench precious metals and fossil fuels from the earth, we poison her waters. we take more fish than she offers, threatening several more species with extinction. we shackle her with dams, disrupting finely tuned hydrologic and nutrient cycles, and thwarting fish movement. we burn forests for farmland, choking her waters with eroded soil. the deforestation is also undermining her very existence, as half of her water is produced from evapotranspiration within the amazon basin itself.

despite our affronts, the river takes our faults with grace. she is a sin-eater for the world, like the freshwater dolphin, who walked onto land and impregnated young women, thus assuming the transgressions of colonial missionaries. her waters absolve us of our sins, but for how much longer? the river counsels us in the gentle lapping of waves and the whispers of warm breezes. she teaches us patience, to think of the long-term and consider it broadly, to give more than we take, to run fast when we can but never pass up a chance to rest, to accept that things will always change, to leave things better than we found them. can we hear these lessons? will we listen?

by now, she is old and weary. she flows slow and full and deep. tired of her load of silt, how she longs to disencumber herself where she meets the brackish waters of the sea. finally, after traveling 4,258 miles, she reaches the atlantic. every second, 273,361 cubic yards of water flow from her mouth. here, she takes her respite, laying down her silt over 501,932 square miles of the ocean floor. after her rest, she will be lifted into the heavens and travel across the river of stars. she will fall in the distant mountains and start her long journey once more: a mighty river reborn in a raindrop.

historians once thought the lacandon were the direct descendants of the maya who built these now-ruined palaces and pyramids.  while the lacandon are certainly maya, the romantic theories of 20th century scholars have been largely disproven.  recent archaeological and anthropological evidence suggests they descended from several maya groups which sheltered together in the lacandon rainforest to escape the spanish conquistadors.  but while the ancient maya edifices have crumbled, other aspects of their life have remained intact. lacandon maya culture is expressed, in part, in their cultivation of traditional forest gardens.  these agroforests, probably based in large part on the agroforestry management of the ancient maya, allow them to conserve the surrounding tropical wet forest while still obtaining the resources they need.

entering a forest garden, or milpa, can be overwhelming, as it does not resemble gardens with neatly spaced rows of vegetables.  towering corn blocks out the sky.  squash vines sprawl across the ground.  bean plants spiral up cornstalks.  small trees dot the milpa, blurring the boundary between the forest and the garden.  despite seeming chaotic, the lacandon milpa is carefully designed; each crop plays a role. 

corn is the primary milpa crop.  in one of many maya creation myths, a pair of twins defeating the lords of the underworld, allowing their father to be reborn from his earthen tomb as maize.  thus, maize is the first father of the maya‒the wellspring of humanity.  the energy stored in corn kernels planted in little pits, like miniature earthen tombs, is channeled into vertical growth after germination.  this rapid growth requires a large amount of nutrients, especially nitrogen.  left alone, the corn’s growth plateaus in short order so lacandon famers apply their knowledge of environmental processes to solve the problem of nitrogen limitation. 

nitrogen is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere, but plants cannot utilize it to develop new tissues.  to overcome this, lacandon farmers plant leguminous beans near the corn.  legumes have a symbiotic relationship with rhizobium bacteria.  rhizobium can convert nitrogen gas to chemical forms plants can utilize.  unfortunately, the enzymes it uses to perform this conversion cannot function in the presence of oxygen.  so, legumes form a nodule around the bacteria to provide an oxygen-free workplace to repay the favor.  rhizobium then deposits the biologically available forms of nitrogen in nearby soil.  in turn, corn provides a trellis for the beans to reach higher for sunlight in return for the gift of nitrogen. 

squash completes the trinity.  the squash’s leaves shade the ground as a token of gratitude for the beans’ nitrogen, retaining soil moisture and shading weeds that might try to take advantage of the nitrogen-enriched soil. 

while corn, squash, and beans are the main three milpa crops, lacandon farmers plant dozens of crop species in their milpas, having developed a thorough ecoagricultural knowledge over centuries of observation and experimentation.  they burn vegetation to deposit carbon into patches of soil near tomatoes.  they plant moisture-tolerant crops like chayote in areas that pool water.  rather than removing trees which may shade out milpa crops, some are allowed to grow to attract birds and pollinators. 

milpa production eventually depletes soil nutrients, so lacandon farmers halt crop cultivation and leave it to become fallow.  lacandon farmers continue to manage these fallows by planting and clearing areas around desirable plants.  they even pin branches against timber trees so their grain stays straight, creating a sort of bonsai.  eventually, and in no small part due to the management of lacandon farmers, forests reclaim these fallows and soil nutrient levels recover.  at this point, the stand can be cleared and replanted as a milpa or left as a forest.

i dropped the brick and continued through the forest, which probably was a long-abandoned milpa. just as lacandon farmers care for their land, the milpa and forest care for the lacandon.  milpa crops provide plentiful and nutritious food.  fallows permit the lacandon gather medicinal and edible plants, cut timber and firewood, fish in streams, and hunt for wild game.   such indigenous cultures live still directly rely upon the land.  their ecosystem management conserves the environment by maintaining biogeochemical cycling and biodiversity.  they are both ecologically sustainable and productive, guaranteeing subsistence and preserving natural resources for future generations.  

a few miles away, farmers and ranchers are clearing the lacandon rainforest at an annual rate of five percent to raise corn and cattle commercially.  this form of agriculture is a war of attrition on the land: felling any trees that might shade crops, controlling weeds with harmful herbicides, spraying pesticides that kill any insect that might steal some yields, and dumping chemical fertilizers that leach into and pollute nearby water.  agriculture can be one of the most intimate ways in which we connect with nature, but industrial agriculture deforms this covenant by abusing land.  sustainability is forsaken in the name of profit.  indigenous cultures, like the lacandon, recognize that land is more than a source of resources we need to live; it is life itself.  perhaps they can teach us that our relationships with nature, including agriculture, must be based on reciprocity and goodwill rather than exploitation and control. 

i stood amidst the understory vegetation.  silver water droplets from last night’s rain glittered in the shafts of morning sunlight slicing through the forest canopy.  i waved a hand to shoo away the veil of mosquitoes obscuring my vision.  about five landed on the bare skin of my hand as i placed it back at my side.  they feasted where they had left off.  i stood unflinchingly, offering myself up to all manner of biting and blood-sucking creatures.  my jaw clenched, but i only dare wiggle my fingers to ward off the bloodsucking hordes lest i make a sound, disturb the calm of the morning, and scare off my quarry.

calm in the rainforest is a relative term.  the forest woke to a cacophony of sound every morning.  it was abuzz with cicadas’ high-pitched band-saw whines.  all manner of birds performed their harsh screeches and melodic arias.  rain pitter-pattered on its way downward through layers of vegetation.  on occasion, the resonant, throaty roar of howler monkeys sounded in the distance.

amidst the chaos, i heard a raspy, scolding call to my right.  i turned to face my accusers, but their voices gave away their identity.  a pair of red-throated ant-tanagers, a male and female, perched on a branch a few meters away and stared at me, chattering angrily about my intrusion.  i took a notebook and pencil from my pocket and jotted, “0730-habia fuscicauda; pair; 5 m.”  the two sustained their verbal assault for a few more moments before agreeing that i was either not a threat or not going to budge despite their entreaties.  they continued upon their morning foray through the forest, gossiping as they went.

i was in the lacandon maya village of lacanja chansayab in chiapas, the southernmost state in mexico. the lacandon are an indigenous maya peoples who reside in the lacandon rainforest along the mexican side of the usumacinta river, which separates the mexican state of chiapas from guatemala.  i came to study their “forest gardens,” though to call them gardens is a bit disingenuous.  lacandon maya gardens resemble neither the neatly spaced rows of vegetables or meticulously manicured lawns to which i was accustomed. rather than being a battle against the forces of nature, lacandon forest gardens, a type of agroforest, utilize and mimic natural processes and patterns in designing ecosystems that are productive and biodiverse.  the goal is cooperation, not control.

in the spirit of this equanimous relationship, lacandon farmers look to the birds to help restore the forest and regenerate soils after they use them for cultivating forest gardens.  while lacandon cultivate trees and other plant species that will provide them with food, they also plant and protect those which birds utilize for food or shelter.  rather than complain about birds consuming crops which they could eat themselves, lacandon are glad to share the bounty of the gardens they manage.  it wasn’t theirs in the first place; it was a gift from the earth.  in return, the birds help disperse seeds to nearby fallow plots where those plants do not yet grow.  this is particularly important in in rainforest ecosystems, where most species’ seeds are zoochorous, or dispersed by animals.  these species would never be able to deposit their seeds in the fertile soil of plots recovering from cultivation if not for the efforts of the birds.  some plant species are so dependent on birds for seed dispersal that their seeds will not germinate until they pass through the gut of birds, thereby degrading their hard outer shell.  biodiversity begets more biodiversity, so lacandon farmers plant a diverse array of crops in their gardens, supporting healthy bird populations.

lacandon farmers do not only manage individual plots to maintain bird populations.  the layout of their agroforestry system across the landscape may also contribute to elevated bird numbers and diversity.  while frequent high-intensity disturbance degrades ecosystems and prevents the development of diverse biological communities, the system stagnates if no disturbance occurs; its productivity and diversity plateaus.  sporadic intermediate-intensity disturbances, which lacandon farmers provide in the form clearing vegetation, rejuvenate many ecological systems, increasing the populations of many plant and animal species and maximizing diversity.   furthermore, species are each adapted to different ecosystem structures.  every species has a niche, which is the set of environmental conditions to which it is adapted and in which they thrive.  however, uniform landscapes that contain exclusively homogeneous habitats throughout offer only a few such niches.  thus, heterogeneity of different habitat types promotes and sustains biodiversity on a broad scale.

the lacandon maya are active members of their biological community.  while the sustainability of their agroecosystems depends on biodiversity, their ecological management contributes to the biodiversity of the region in turn.  so while i may build a birdhouse or two to attract birds to my backyard, lacandon farmers engineer entire ecosystems that support diverse and healthy bird populations.

i headed back along the trail to my camp, navigating through the verdant forest whose tall canopy formed open vaulted ceilings.  columns of liana-festooned cedro and mahogany trees held up the jade green dome above me, which was painted with brilliant reds and yellows of heliconia flowers and epiphytic bromeliads.  the incense of decaying organic matter filled the air and rose skyward.  glancing rays of early afternoon light shone through the leaves, casting shimmering light upon the forest floor like a stain-glass window.  a barred antshrike cackled in thick bushes at some joke to which i was not privy.

qabalah and sufi traditions hold that the language of birds is the key to understanding the universe.  perhaps we too will remember how to understand it one day and learn to build reciprocal relationships with nature that foster, rather than consume, biodiversity. 

slash-and-burn agriculture is justifiably criticized as one of the leading causes of deforestation in the tropics.  because fire is also the primary tool used to clear land in swidden agricultural systems managed by indigenous populations around the world, including the lacandon, these systems are often associated with and suppressed along with destructive slash-and-burn practices.  however, the burns used in traditional agroecosystems are quite different from those used to clear land for large pastures and monoculture commercial farms.  indigenous farmers who practice swidden agriculture carefully monitor environmental conditions and are guided by centuries of knowledge that is adapted to place and passed on from generation to generation over centuries.  they only burn when weather conditions can suppress fires.  they meticulously control the fire intensity, frequency, and extent through the use of fire breaks.  the fire is maintained at low-intensities, thereby pyrolizing carbon in wood, converting it from labile forms that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere into recalcitrant carbon rings that are difficult to decompose.  so, rather than exacerbating climate change, swidden agriculture may help mitigate it.  swidden burns also produce biochar, which improve soil quality, improving soil structure, nutrient holding capacity, and moisture retention.

ecological disturbances, events that suddenly disrupt an ecosystem’s function or change its structure, get a bum rap, as demonstrated by smokey the bear’s crusade to suppress forest fires.  while it may be distressing to see the charred remains of trees after a forest fire, these disturbances are important for supporting productive and diverse biological communities. 

ecosystems do not reach a stable climax state; they are dynamic.  if disturbance events that shake up the system are infrequent, ecosystems stagnate and become dominated by a few species which can exploit the available resources.  conversely, if disturbances occur too often or if they are too intense, ecosystems can only be colonized by a few opportunist species which grow quickly to the detriment of longer-lived specialist species that cannot establish themselves.  the intermediate disturbance hypothesis holds that regular, intermediate-intensity disturbances are critical to maintain the balance between these two states and, in turn, maximize the system’s diversity. 

this principle also explains why intermediate disturbances can enhance the productivity of ecosystems, or the amount of energy harnessed by plants to support other organisms.  infrequent disturbances can result in stasis, while high intensity, excessively frequent disturbances can suppress growth.  intermediately frequent and intense disturbances can reinvigorate a system with a pulse of nutrients and provide space for new species to grow, much like pruning a bush or tree encourages new shoots.

intermediate sized disturbances also have the benefit of generating habitat heterogeneity across a region.  a patchwork mosaic of many ecosystems at different stages of recovery from disturbances will provide more niches for more species than uniform landscapes.  thus, diversity begets further diversity.  fast-growing pioneer species can coexist with long-lived species that tend to only survive in highly developed ecosystems if there are habitats for both.

regular disturbances are also critical in maintaining ecosystem resilience.  resilient systems can self-organize to restructure themselves and recover function after disturbances.  broken bones can mend.  towns leveled by a storm can rebuild.  disturbed ecosystems will regrow.  the diversity that is supported and enhanced by disturbances is essential to maintain systems’ adaptive capacities so they can respond to environmental changes.  intermediate disturbances can also help prevent high intensity disturbance events that can severely undermine ecosystems’ abilities to restore themselves.  for instance, small fires burn off decaying detritus regularly, so it does not accumulate and burn in a catastrophic inferno that might fundamentally undermine an ecosystem’s ability to recover.

nach-nik had spent the previous month chopping the thick tangle of vines, ferns, and saplings in a small patch of jungle.  he waited for the perfect conditions.  it rained a few days ago and was threatening to rain again, so the vegetation surrounding the clearing was verdant and lush, contrasting the dry, withered branches and leaves on the ground.  the air was humid and still‒not a breath of wind.  we gathered buckets of water from a stream.  nach-nik strode into the clearing and put a match to a small pile of brush.  the flames leapt to life, feeding on the slash left behind in the wake of nach-nik’s machete.  nach-nik walked just ahead of the line of fire, as though guiding it on its path, dumping water where the flames became too intense.  sickly sweet smoke wafted through the trees and stung my nostrils.  in no more than half an hour, the fire burned its way across the clearing and dwindled to embers upon reaching the intact vegetation blocking its progress.  a few larger logs smoldered and the blackened earth radiated warmth.  in a few days, the clearing we burned would be cool enough to plant corn, squash, beans, chayote, papaya, and dozens more crops.  just as the maya were reborn from a corn kernel planted in the earth, so too will the farmers’ corn rise from the ashes, and give them the gift of life in return for the chance to reach toward the sun.