Mother Earth in the Eyes Kachiri

The 40th anniversary of the release of one of the first films dedicated to ecological condemnation is a paradigmatic example of how being is destroying wildlife on Earth.

Cinema and Mother Earth

The same year that Woody Allen dyed Cairo's purple rose, Marty McFly broke the box office with the Delorian in Back to the Future and Meryl Streep was lost in Robert Redford's oceanic pupils under the reddish Kenyan sunsets, a courageous John Boorman would dare with The Emerald Jungle (1985), filling the big screen with chlorophylic green in a kind of ecological-cinematographic complaint against destructive, contagious and advanced human civilization.

Apparently, a true story inspired the plot of the film, in which an American engineer working to direct the construction of a huge dam in the Amazon suffers the kidnapping of his 8-year-old son by an indigenous tribe. In that vast jungle, the father would dedicate years of his life to searching for his son until he finally found him, now a young adult.

Boorman's film wanted to capture an essential moment in the conservation of the largest memory biome on planet Earth, and is a paradigmatic example of how the human being has severely accelerated the loss of global biodiversity. In 1985, the agricultural expansion policies promoted by the government of Brazilian President José Sarney broke tens of thousands of hectares of virgin forest to obtain land for growing soybeans, corn, coffee, bananas or pineapples and also obtaining fields for extensive grazing of cattle, while drilling and mining projects for copper, tin and bauxite were authorized.

Amazon rainforest deforestation

The following interactive link graphically recreates the process of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, between 1985 and 2017.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lestw5/amazon_deforestation_from_1985_to_2017/?tl=es-es&rdt=61843

The destruction of the Amazon has become an example that, not by manifold and recurrent, is less alarming. In this sense, the loss of natural habitat and its associated species as a result of human activities is a scientifically irrefutable fact that, on the anniversary of World Earth Day, we should keep in mind. The results of the last issue of the scientific study “Living Planet Report 2024" (WWF) confirmed the studies of the IUCN (2012) and the famous species loss chart (Ceballos et al, 2015), concluding with a shocking fact: between 1970 and 2020, the populations of vertebrate species in the world decreased by an average of 68% and those species on the verge of extinction (with less than 1,000 individuals counted) increased dramatically, accelerating 15 times the natural extinction rate of species that has always been part of evolution and the dynamics of biocenosis in terrestrial ecosystems.

It also highlights the fact that this loss of biodiversity is not homogeneous nor does it affect all regions of the planet equally. Wildlife loss is accentuated in two types of regions. First, those with few financial resources, but very rich in raw materials, with authoritarian or weak governments and whose economy is being intervened by foreign multinationals. On the other hand, at the opposite pole, highly industrialized countries, with disproportionate levels of consumption and which have little legal regulation regarding conservation and environmental protection, also have significant rates of loss in biodiversity, as can be seen clearly in the map that accompanies the WWF report (2020).

This worrying situation, extensively studied and alerted by the scientific community, requires the greatest commitment of all society to reverse effects that will result in a clear deterioration in the living conditions of the human species and that we must face by dedicating greater efforts to the conservation of wildlife, to fairer and more sustainable production and to responsible consumption, coherent and committed to the needs of the historical moment in which we have lived. Only when these three actions are taken together can we reverse a loss of biodiversity that, otherwise, will have unknown consequences starting in the second century of this millennium.

International Mother Earth Day, April 22

Returning to the film again The Emerald Jungle, those who saw her when they were still children will forever remember that frame in which Kachiri, the girl from the tribe who would become the romantic companion of Tommy, the adopted child, looked at the camera with the irresistible seduction of free and wild life, synthesizing in that indelible image the powerful beauty and at the same time the fragility of the Earth's ecosystems. It seems as if the entire planet, in an allegory of spiritual symbolism, speaks through its captivating eyes, asking us to reflect on our relationship with nature and the impact of our actions, begging the world that the time when governments, large corporations and citizens come together to protect LIFE, has arrived.

On this World Earth Day, let's remember that every action counts. From reducing our consumption of products that contribute to deforestation, pollution and resource depletion, to requiring our political representatives to protect our ecosystems, we all have a role to play. The Amazon is a symbol of the richness of wildlife and of the fragility of our planet. Let's not let their lament become an echo of the past. It's time to act, for us and for future generations.

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