For hundreds of years, indigenous peoples have lived in Brazilian forests. Its rich culture carries important values for the modern world, such as respect for nature and a sustainable way of life. Hunting, fishing and agriculture are activities that work together with nature's cycles, respecting her time and moment, thus cultivating harmony with the environment.
The world's indigenous population has been largely wiped out. In Brazil, since the Portuguese colonization, the natives of the land were killed not only directly by the conflicts with the colonizers, but also by the diseases they brought.
Little is said about how much the indigenous people contributed to the mosaic of our culture. They come from the domestication of cassava and the enjoyment of various native plants, such as corn, sweet potatoes, pepper, cashew, pineapple, peanuts, papaya, pumpkin, beans, among others.
It was also the Brazilian Indians who spread the use of sleeping nets and the custom of daily bathing - a habit unknown to Europeans in the 16th century. To our Brazilian Portuguese language, about 20 thousand words were added, among them, names of places, plants and animals - all without mentioning the contribution to Brazilian legends and folklore.
In the last centuries, the country has developed without honoring and taking into account everything that the indigenous people taught us, or at least they can teach us. Today, scientific studies based on satellite data prove that indigenous lands are the areas that most block deforestation in the Amazon rainforest - the major cause of so many natural disasters.
According to data from Greenpeace, the Amazon exudes 20 trillion tons of water vapor daily into the atmosphere, with trees generating 10 times more water vapor into the atmosphere than the Amazon River. All this humidity forms the “flying rivers”, which are carried with the wind to other regions of the country, irrigating plantations and filling water reservoirs. The “Standing Amazon” is one of the largest natural carbon capture plants: it stores more than 155,555 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2eq, preventing these gases from reaching the atmosphere - therefore, it has a fundamental role in the climate balance of the entire planet . When the forest is cut down, all these gases are released, aggravating impacts on climate change, that is, the water that arrives at our taps and the food on our plates are closely linked to the existence of the forests. Deforestation in the Amazon puts the simplest and most essential things in our lives at risk.
In the Brazilian Amazon, indigenous peoples have been resisting the disasters caused by modern civilization for centuries. For them, our forest is sacred and must be honored - it is the source of life for all of us. They are the true connoisseurs and guardians of the Amazon Forest and, through ancestral wisdom that is passed on from generation to generation, keep their traditions of natural treatments alive, cultivating medicinal gardens of different species. The wealth of sacred and traditional knowledge of our indigenous people can also be seen in their songs, dances, paintings, clothes and handicrafts.
Certainly the indigenous people can also teach us about kindness in relationships, because their tribes live in harmony, they act with wisdom, love and respect between adults, children, the elderly and, of course, nature.
