快猫短视频

Conrad Feather is a founder of the Peru-based NGO Shinai Serjali () and is currently studying at the University of St Andrews. He is the first person from that university to have won the international prize it administers. The St Andrews Prize for the Environment is an annual award for innovative solutions to environmental problems that combine good science with economic and political realism (). Alun Anderson is one of the prize鈥檚 trustees.

How did you end up aged 21 living in the remotest part of the Amazon?

I was studying anthropology at Cambridge. One rainy day I was in a bookshop and came on a poem about Manu national park in Peru and how it 鈥渢hrobbed with wildlife鈥�. The phrase captivated me. What can a place be like that throbs with life? I had to go.

You don鈥檛 exactly look like an explorer鈥�

I did once have an enormous beard. No, to tell the truth I鈥檝e always been a terrible traveller. I was always the one who got sick on the ferry on family holidays. But it didn鈥檛 stop me, so I must have an adventurous spirit.

The poem may have inspired you, but most people wouldn鈥檛 go further鈥�

I started researching the area and found two American anthropologists who had worked with the Nahua in the lands bordering the western side of Manu national park. They said it would be really useful to go and find out about the threats from loggers.

With help from the student-run expedition society I found four other Cambridge students 鈥� three girls and one guy 鈥� willing to go. Then I set out on my own on a reconnaissance trip to ask the Nahua whether they would let us come and live among them. That was April 2000. It was a crazy trip. I did not speak Spanish, let alone Nahua. All I had was the first name of one contact who might be living in the small logging town of Sepahua. Eventually I found Federico and he agreed to help. From there we travelled for four days in a dugout canoe, up the Urubamba river and then to the headwaters of the Mishagua, where the Nahua live.

The Nahua are a very small people. Just 250 of them survive today. Until the 1980s they resisted all attempts at contact from the outside world. They fought against loggers coming into their territory, and both Nahua and loggers were killed. Then when contact was made, epidemics ravaged the population and hundreds died. The survivors have all moved into the one village of Serjali. We knew that logging was continuing to be a big problem.

What did the Nahua make of you?

I was very ignorant and could not really explain my project well, but they are very affectionate even with people they don鈥檛 really know. The important thing was that they understood I wanted to come back with four friends and stay there for three months. They held a communal meeting and they said: yes, you can come back along with Federico, who could speak both Nahua and Spanish. I was very happy and went back to let the others know.

Our first three months were fantastic. We worked incredibly hard conducting interviews with different people, trying to understand the community and its concerns. At the end of our stay we held a big meeting. The whole village came along. We borrowed a gigantic pot and made an English rice pudding. We explained everything that we had learned from them and they asked questions and corrected things. Then we ate the rice pudding, which I served with a canoe paddle. Afterwards we explained the things we had learned in Lima on our way to the village. We had learned about the political and legal status of the area where the Nahua lived, and that it is a designated reserve where loggers should not come.

They didn鈥檛 know these things?

No, they didn鈥檛 know any of these things.

Could you promise them anything?

No, but we explained to them that we were going to write a report and give it to the government so that the government would know about them and their problems. And everything we knew we recorded in Spanish as a report in their 鈥渂ook of acts鈥� 鈥� an official book that records important meetings within the community. We wrote out the entire law of their reserve that we had brought from Lima. Although we didn鈥檛 know at the time, that turned out to be of great importance.

I went back to finish my degree, but unfortunately that following summer there was an invasion of more than 250 loggers. The Nahua set out on an epic journey to get help. They could not go to Sepahua, the nearest town, because all the loggers lived there, so they had to build a raft and head across the watershed to Manu national park and to a town on the other side. It was a two-week journey. No one who went spoke Spanish, but they carried their community book with them everywhere. They showed it to park officials, biologists and members of the indigenous federation they met. Everyone could read it and see, 鈥淥h yes, they live in a reserve, it is illegal to log there.鈥� The Nahua were able to get letters written on their behalf that copied out word for word the report that we had written in their book. So even while we were away the project was already having an impact. It was at this point that I returned and found out about the invasion. Except for short trips home I stayed for almost three years, gradually learning both Spanish and Nahua.

How did you help with the immediate problems of the logger invasion?

I spent about three months in the community and then travelled with the Nahua to Lima to protest. I went back and forth to the jungle just trying to keep ahead of the logging situation. Every day I was in the government offices hassling them; they got totally sick of me. But they finally established temporary guard posts at the entrance to the Nahua area, and got rid of the illegal loggers. That was almost a year after the loggers invaded.

Was that a permanent solution?

No. The guard posts were soon withdrawn. The Nahua told me they wanted to have more security from loggers and wanted a land title. So, along with one of my friends, we explained that in Peru the biggest land title an indigenous community has ever been awarded is about a tenth of the size of the Nahua鈥檚 territory, which at 2000 square kilometres is very big. But we advised them that if they made a proper map of their land, then they would have a chance of gaining a title for the entire area.

So we trained the Nahua how to use GPS devices and how to make a map. First we had to explain what a map is and why it is important. We explained that it is like a language that the government uses to know where everything is. For example, if you want to tell the government there are loggers coming up the river that the Nahua call 鈥淭he River where Lots of People have Died鈥� the government will just say 鈥淲here is that?鈥� You must give them a number because the government thinks only in terms of numbers. Every place has a number and you can get this number by this machine, the GPS, that communicates with the stars.

They got it straight away. We spent over a year collecting information and putting it into a computer. It is a cultural map. It explains where they go hunting and fishing, where they collect important plants and fruit, where they have had villages in the past and where people have died and are buried. It contains almost everything that is important to them. The objective is to show that this isn鈥檛 empty space. It looks like virgin rainforest to our eyes, but for the Nahua every rock and tree has meaning and the map is the easiest way of expressing that.

Why do they need so much space?

To maintain a subsistence way of life they do need a very large area of land. Also, the epidemics nearly wiped them out, but the population is growing rapidly now. They used to live in three villages several days鈥� journey apart, and I think they will soon start to split up again. If you look at all the other indigenous communities, the titles they鈥檝e won have been miserly. This has meant that they have no sustainable resource base. They can鈥檛 live the way they used to. Without secure land tenure the Nahua won鈥檛 have the opportunity of making decisions about their future. And without secure land tenure there is no hope of conserving the rainforest. What kind of incentive do they have for conserving something that they may not have in 10 years鈥� time? If you give people inalienable rights over land then they have an incentive to think about their future. Acquiring such land titles is a fundamental step.

The Nahua鈥檚 lands are particularly important because the two rivers passing through them provide the only access route into Manu national park from the west. If the Nahua are effective guardians then loggers cannot get into Manu. There is no road. The rivers are the only way in.

We can already see the map working. On the river banks going into the Nahua land we worked with the Nahua to erect giant signs incorporating the map and announcing that this was 鈥淓l territorio del pueblo Nahua鈥�. We put them up last summer. Some of the loggers laughed, but it is hard to deny the importance of something so big and so official-looking. Some loggers turn back at the signs. Some small groups have gone all the way up to Serjali. But helped by the signposts the Nahua feel confident enough to say, 鈥淣o, go away鈥�. They are able to do this as long as there isn鈥檛 another mass invasion. Many of the loggers are reasonable people who trade with the Nahua. Only a few are cowboys.

How will winning the St Andrews Prize for the Environment help?

It will enable me to extend the mapping work already done with the Nahua. I would like to donate a laptop with a solar panel so they can transfer the information from the GPS themselves and go on adding details to the map. They have already learned to use a digital camera and we have discussed the idea of them taking photos if loggers invade again. Then they could travel down to Sepahua and email the photos to the forestry authorities. The loggers used to be blas茅 about the government not doing anything, but when we got it to take action in 2001 they were totally shocked. They are now aware that the government can act if they are caught logging illegally.

You鈥檒l stick with this?

My personal ambition is to see the Nahua through to their land title. The procedure is now under way but still needs constant political pressure on the government. In 2002 we set up an NGO called Shinai Serjali to continue to help the Nahua and other peoples like them. But the objective of our organisation is to become redundant. Perhaps three to five years will be enough. Three of my friends who originally came out to Serjali 鈥� Gregor MacLennan, Dora Napolitano and Aliya Ryan 鈥� are still involved. They are out in Peru right now and working with other communities too. Personally I am committed to the Nahua because I went through the traumatic logging invasion with them.

What are the Nahua like?

They hug one another a lot and are very emotional. They love to tell stories and laugh. If there is even a small illness they go completely over the top about how they are going to die, and then when they recover everyone talks about how they nearly died. They have a strong taboo on confrontations. I have never seen an argument in the village.

It is a land without fridges so there is no storing of food. If you can catch a big animal like a tapir you cannot eat all of it immediately so you have to give most of it away. That means everybody shares.

It is hard to conceive of their way of thinking. They live in an abundant, giving environment where they can hunt and fish without worrying about resources being exhausted. There is no shortage or scarcity. When they encounter a world of money and scarcity it is totally antithetical to the way they think.

Did you have any bad times?

Yes, Federico, our guide and friend, died. He had made everything possible for us. We had travelled to Lima together to protest against the loggers. It was very sudden. He became ill and in 5 minutes he was dead. He died in my arms.