The Man Who Loved Pink Dolphins by Anthony Ham

Author:Anthony Ham [Anthony Ham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781761065514
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2022-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

There had been a village at Xixuaú until the 1950s. As so often happens out here, a village elder, in this case Teodorico Nascimento, died and the community fell apart. The only house Clark and the others had found in Xixuaú belonged to a caboclo family who were the direct descendants of Nascimento. When Clark had first arrived, the patriarch, Carlos Alberto Nascimento—Carlito—was unloading a boat full of booze. He was drunk most of the time they were there. Later, he admitted that he hoarded the colourful rubbish that surrounded his hut so as to make his home more beautiful. There was a small clearing, a small plot for growing manioc, and that was it. It was a true frontier homestead, a tiny scar in the forest.

It was not enough for Clark just to fall in love with Xixuaú. He wanted to save it. The more they talked, the more the idea of a nature reserve appealed to Clark and his friends, both for its own sake and as a way to help local people like Carlito. Clark had found his place. But he still didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Clark knew enough about how the Amazon worked to know that although Carlito and his lonely family were the only permanent inhabitants for miles around, others came and went. In season, they gathered Brazil nuts from the surrounding forest. At other times, they tapped rubber. Year-round, they fished and hunted and generally took from the forest what they needed. Then they moved on.

Land ownership out here on the frontier existed in the shadow of the law. If it belonged to anyone, it belonged to the government. It was public land. That didn’t mean that the government controlled this land. It was, in fact, unlikely that any government official had ever done anything more than pass by in a boat this far upriver. Xixuaú was what’s called terra devoluta, or unclaimed public land. To this day, the words terra devoluta appear on maps representing the Amazon’s uninhabited tracts. The way it always worked in the Amazon was that those who set up a home in the wilderness acquired some form of squatters’ rights to the land. They became the posseiros, the possessors of the land. It wasn’t theirs. They weren’t the owners. Nor did they get a title, at least not at first. What they did get under the law, if not on paper, were the rights to live on and use the land. Those rights were even enforceable. Under an old law known as the direito de posse, the squatters or posseiros were entitled to compensation if ever they were evicted. Codified in Article 502 of Brazil’s old Civil Code, this law also allowed posseiros to use all necessary force to defend their land.

In the old days in America’s Wild West, anyone who didn’t mind the danger and the isolation could seek out an empty place and plant a stake. They became stakeholders. It was the same in the Amazon.

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