My favorite librarian and I planned a bit of a literary pursuit for this December that we are now enjoying -- an Advent countdown based on some of the many versions of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. On most of the 25 days, we are watching a film or television adaptation, with a few special activities also included.
Edward Marin's 1938 Version
We have been planning this for over a year, but at the last minute I decided to write about the experience on our catch-all blog called Perry La Perra. From December 1 to 25 of 2023, I am adding to the same post every day. I include a link here so that we can refer friends to it more easily.
Fellow geographer Dr. Amey and I are using these slides and this worksheet for our November 8 presentation about the use of Geochron to understand earth's seasons. This is part of the BSU-CASE Open Lab Night.
NOTE to NESTVAL Colleagues: this post is for a short course I am teaching through Bridgewater State University Senior College, beginning October 30. Material related to my presentation at the Portland virtual meeting is at the post entitled Amazon Deforestation in Lula’s Encore.
Photo: Cara Reed 2003
I am fortunate to have two very distinct outlets for my current thinking about the region. As I mention in the Lula post, this is the region that turned me into a geographer, and it was my main focus for many years -- before I developed such a strong. affinity for and identity with coffee and coffeelands.
The Amazon has remained part of my undergraduate teaching all along, but was largely absent from my scholarship and outreach activities for most of two decades. Recent events have brought me back -- both in my thinking and in my travels -- and have led me to the writing project mentioned above and to my first in-person course for BSU Senior College. The intention of both projects, of course, includes improving how I teach about the region in my undergraduate classes.
See the course main page for the relevant parts of my biography, a full description of the class, and links to all of the materials I will be using. The opening lines of the description introduce this exploration.
The Amazon is a forest, a river, and a fountain of myths. This short course is a six-part exploration of all three, with a focus on one of its most populous but little-recognized parts: Rondônia.
The outline hints at how we will explore this region in all of its dimensions.
Deforestation in the Amazon of Brazil is the problem that drew me to the study of geography when I was an undergraduate and led me to do dissertation research in the region in 1996. I did some follow-up work in 2000 and 2003 and have included the region in my teaching ever since.
It was not until the rise of Jair Bolsonaro that I returned to the region in October 2019 -- at the urging of colleagues in Rondônia who were particularly concerned about both his rhetoric and his policies toward the rain forest.
The Amazon figured prominently in his political demise, leading me to a series of questions about whether his electoral defeat would improve conditions there. This was made even more interesting by the fact that he was defeated by none other than Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva -- a man known simply as "Squid" who had served two terms as president and some time in prison.
I am exploring all of this in "Amazon Deforestation in Lula's Encore," which I am presenting at the 101st Annual Meeting of the New England & St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society in Portland, Maine on October 28, 2023. This presentation is a stepping stone toward an article I hope to submit for publication later this year.
The F/B Vieira VI is a vessel that transports many goods and a few passengers between Porto Velho and Manaus, descending the Madeira River -- the longest of the Amazon River's 1,300 tributaries -- and then ascending the main channel of the Amazon to Manaus, where the famous river is formed from the confluence of the Solimões and Negro Rivers. I spent four days on this ship with my friend Miguel, about a dozen passengers, a worthy crew, and perhaps more garlic, plantains, and watermelons than I had seen in my whole life.
Miguel was a very good sport and agreed to charter a small boat on the Amazon just a few hours after the end of the ride. My photos describing this journey are annotated and include the time we spent in Porto Velho and in Manaus after. Both those photos and a number of videos are collected in the Madeira Voyage and Down the Creek posts on my Environmental Geography blog.
The majority of the Madeira basin is upstream of Porto Velho. This usually provides an abundant, though highly variable, flow to support river traffic. Large vessels cannot go upstream, however, because of a series of waterfalls and now a dam.
I very much enjoyed my interview on the Rondoniaovivo (Rondônia Live) program earlier today (Monday, July 16). The discussion with my new friend, Porto Velho-based journalist Ivan Trazão, is now on YouTube (see below). I also recommend visiting the program's Facebook and web pages.
Ivan is an excellent, real-time translator -- he repeated all of his questions and my answers in both languages. My Portuguese is not fluent enough to have given such complete answers, but it is good enough to know that his translations were quite excellent.
We talked about the geography of the Amazon, coffee, and much more.
For my earlier writings on the Amazon in general and Rondônia in particular, please see my early Rondônia Web pages and the many Rondônia posts on my Environmental Geography blog.
This interview is part of my fifth visit to Porto Velho. The purpose of each visit has been a bit different. In 1996, I was here for three months conducting research for my dissertation on deforestation and urban expansion. In 2000, I returned for three weeks -- this time with my family -- to conduct some follow-up research and to present work on the perception of the Amazon at the Brazilian Studies Association (the only time it met in Brazil). In 2003, I returned with a biology student to assist her with research into plant biodiversity in a recently reforested area of the UNIR campus.
I was then absent from the region for 16 years (though I made many visits elsewhere in Brazil during that time. I returned in 2019 as fires in the region were sparking very serious concerns worldwide, and local scholars wished to hear my perspectives on the crisis. I have returned in 2023 with some writing projects in progress, but also on a personal journey that I will describe in the interview -- a boat trip from Porto Velho to Manaus with my friend and long-time collaborator Dr. Miguel Nenevé.
