At The Edge Of Civilization - Life In The Amazon Basin

The unspoilt riparian Ribereños of the Amazon basin are being gradually brought into the folds of the ongoing preservation efforts of the Amazon rainforest. The author brings us this story from the very heart of these developments.

- Ishita Das

As the news cycle involving the burning Amazon runs its course, I am reminded of my two trips to the Peruvian Amazon. I had witnessed how unequivocally the river and the forest affected the lives of the villagers there, known as the mixed-race Ribereños (river people). They thrive on the fish found in the Amazon river but also suffer from diseases caused by germs in the river water, as clean drinking water is not always available in the villages. I witnessed their lives from up close, through the gateway of a small city up north in Peru, Iquitos, in the Loreto region that leads to the Peruvian Amazon. This is where the Amazon begins its journey to the Atlantic, flanked only by small to medium sized villages. These villages have names like Puma Cahua and Nueva York, San Jose de Paranapura and even Manhattan. Some tourists, like me, do venture into this region of the secondary forests of the Amazon basin. Whenever civilization has penetrated the lives of indigenous people there is more loss to the people and the environment than can be justified by development. However, at the end of the rubber boom, in the absence of an alternative industry, the region around Iquitos and the Peruvian Amazon was sort of left alone to regenerate.