“This is what our elders who are great shamans say. These are the xapiri’s words, which they pass on to us. These are the ones I want the white people to hear. … Once the gold miners arrived where we live … They soiled the rivers with yellowish mire and filled them with xawara epidemic fumes from their machines. I saw them ravage the river’s sources with the avidity of scrawny dogs. All this to find gold, so the white people can use it to make themselves teeth and ornaments or keep it locked in their houses. … These white people’s thought is obscured by their avidity for gold. They are evil beings.”
- Yanomami spokesman and shaman Davi Kopenawa in the chapter “Metal Smoke” of his book “The Falling Sky”

Gold mining and the…
View original post 175 more words

On May 20, the world marks the fourth annual World Bee Day via a virtual event hosted by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, guided by the theme “Bee engaged—Build Back Better for Bees.” Bees play an important role in pollination, a process that is critical to the survival of ecosystems, biodiversity, food security and sustainability, and they have been under threat at rates 100 to 1,000 times higher than normal because of habitat loss and other human impacts, including the climate crisis. Unsustainable agricultural approaches like monoculture and the damaging effects of pesticides have greatly harmed the world’s bee population. This year’s event aims to achieve global awareness of the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened food insecurity, while advocating for ways in which to regenerate the environment and protect these vital pollinators.
You must be logged in to post a comment.