World Social Forum Highlights the Amazon’s Diversity
IPS News – 2 November 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL: The international council of the World Social Forum met this week in the northern Brazilian city of Belem to plan the next steps to be taken by global activists, including the eighth edition of the WSF, to be held in January 2009 in Brazil’s Amazon region. Cándido Grzybowski, one of the main organisers of the forum and director-general of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), said the global meeting will bring visibility to the diversity of the population in the Amazon region, which is comprised of indigenous groups, “palenques” or “quilombos” (communities originally founded by escaped African slaves) and riverbank-dwellers, not to mention rural labourers who are exploited in modern-day slavery conditions. As illustrations of negative effects, he mentioned militarisation, the appropriation of traditional knowledge and natural resources by the colonial power, and restrictions on freedom of circulation, which is a cultural tradition among local communities, like native groups or residents of “quilombos”. Read the article…
