The Pantanal; a major ecological shift

In July of 1989, I arrived into the interior of the Pantanal, by truck, boat and by horse back. I'd been invited for a personal stay by a good Brazilian friend, whose generational family owned a vast Brazilian ranch, and one supposedly, that still existed from "a hundred years past".

For nearly a century, "Fazenda Porangaba" had remained a totally isolated cattle ranch, and through those many years, held on to a singular 19th century way of life. Nearly the size of the Florida Everglades, this ranch land named "Porangaba", was smack dab in the middle of the Pantanal, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which encompassed that far-away, remote southwestern border of Brazil.  July is their winter month, their dry month - a time when I spent three weeks there on a seemingly never ending landscape - first, as their invited guest, and second, as that rare outsider.

Then about ten years ago, I had heard rumors that Fazenda Porangaba had been sold.  And sold off - as a family owned and operated, sustainable land - to a large corporate agri-business with the great potential for future development.

The ranch's "Pantaneiros" (local cowpokes) - with their herd dog, on their cattle drive while crossing the dry seasonal wetlands of the Pantanal.

Our third day out, the "pantaneiros" rounded-up cattle into herding pens at Campo Eunice. One of the ranch's many outlying cattle holding areas.

Joao, a "pantaneiro" (cowhand) at Campo Eunice.

'Trail camps' throughout the Pantanal were set up for the ranch's long seasonal cattle drives.

A typical family's living quarters for the ranch's "pantaneiros".  Most cowhands and their families live many days from any town, without electricity or running water - and call home these tiny "ranchos" deep in the Pantanal.

  Joao's two daughters raised in their family's two room "rancho".

A cow's slaughter for the ranch-hands daily sustenance and a treat of fresh, warm blood for their domesticated pigs. (agency dupe)

 

 

Then, two days ago, I came upon this timely article from the New York Times's, digital edition.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/world/americas/brazil-pantanal-wetlands-michel-temer.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

 

Another disheartening, follow-up article from the New York Times (October 13th, 2020)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/13/climate/pantanal-brazil-fires.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Climate%20and%20Environment 

My day wearing 'Bears Ears'

It was in the summer of 2006, when I stopped for a smoke, looked at the map and listened hard.   Where I would later learn in the surrounding stillness, of sacred sites and ancient pictographs - the over-all significance of Bears Ears.

Today, hard to fathom that our country's president has just rolled back nearly two million acres of public lands (for private use) of the surrounding, ancestral red rock canyons, at Bears Ears National Monument.

On Monday, the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, the Ute and the "Great Broads for Wilderness" - all filed suit in Federal Court in the hope of protecting these ancient lands from potential drilling and/or future mining.

My first ever visit - but to the Native Americans protesting this recent outcome, "It's a historical trauma our people have been through, over and over".

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/opinion/bears-ears-monument.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region


On that solo journey in southeastern Utah.