06/08/2023
"Cows do not belong in the amazon.
There are now more cows in the jungle than jaguars." - msl, 2021
This painting sketch was created in 2021 in Peru while on journey to the Amazon jungle.
A trip organized with the hopes and dream of creating an art center that would serve as a nature reserve.
This dream had to be put down / redirected, once properly assessed... However, to witness the devastation of nature and the systems that keep it will forever lay deep grooves in my being. It was surreal and heart breaking.
The last time I had been to this area of the amazon was in 2013. Places that you could only get to by a two day river ride, you can now be delivered to by an asphalt highway that much resembled the California 5. To arrive at the same jungle station I had been to in 2013, now, from this paved, tolled road you make a left at a logging settlement to a rocky dirt road (a road that a van can still drive through), until you get to the last dusty town that opens to the great Tambopata river.
This whole journey was heavily peppered with mono crop cacao farms, logging stations, and cattle ranches. The only trees left standing were the Brazil nut trees. They stood like naked giants in a field. Old. Protected and prohibited from being cut by Peruvian law because of their abundant production$ of cash crop. It was 2021 and I could now see miles across the flat landscape that was once the lush rainforest, green and crawling with life. The site of it resembled the great plains of middle America, USA. "...What have we done?"
From that last (and growing) town, Lucerna, you finally continue up river in a long wooden boat for 30 mins.
The paved road. Transcontinental Highway was completed in 2011. This highway offers a paved road for transport. It slices directly through the amazon rainforest, connecting Brazil and Peru - coast to coast, across South America.
It was crazy to breathe. Places once only accessible by courage and feet, now have a direct rout for Semis and extraction.
I learned so much on that journey, and through this failed process and derailed dream...
A story to be continued...
This is a painting of what I felt to be a spirit of the forest.
