Just as scars accumulate on the bark of the seringueiras (rubber trees, Hevea Brasiliensis) throughout the Amazon, so do natives carry deep wounds on their bodies dating far back in time.
The first industrial threat on a catastrophic scale that befell the Amazon was the Rubber Fever (1879/1912), which burst onto these remote lands and broke the fragile balance between human beings and the exuberant nature of the forest, which had been reached through a many centuries effort at adaptation and symbiosis. The massive extraction of rubber entailed the abuse, the enslavement and even the extermination of entire indigenous villages.
Today, among the settlers who live on the banks of the Tapajós River and its tributaries, one can see the huge, widespread damage that the industrial extraction of their rich natural resources brought to their original way of life. Modernity caused the collapse of the balanced ecosystem in this fertile and wild land.
