Who takes care of the guardians of the forest? | Ricardo Affonso Ferreira | TEDxSãoPaulo

To care for the forest, one must take care of its true guardians, the indigenous peoples, because where there is an Indian, there is still forest. The NGO Expedicionários da Saúde, EDS, was founded in 2003 by orthopedic physician Ricardo Affonso Ferreira, who also heads medical expeditions, bringing health and dignity to indigenous people living in geographically isolated areas. He has helped develop a mobile surgical center that allows the provision of high-tech surgical care in remote portions of the Brazilian Amazon. The initiative has already changed the lives of more than 50,000 indigenous people in Brazil. To date, 41 expeditions have been carried out, with a total of 8,003 surgeries and 56,604 visits. The group consists of approximately 300 volunteers, and each expedition consists of 60 professionals, including doctors, nurses and logistics personnel.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Let's take a look at this video now;
later, we'll talk a little.

(Video)

Davi Kopenawa: Without the forest,
there's hunger, illness, and lack of food.

There are two: health ...

and caring for the forest.

(Music)

(Indigenous chanting)

Ricardo Ferreira: To care for the forest,
we need to care for the indigenous people,

who are the true guardians of the forest.

They are spread out in more
than 600 lands all along the Amazon,

and they comprise about 21% of Amazonia.

There are more than 400,000 Indians,

more than 150 languages,
cultures, and different customs.

Here, on this map, you can see
these areas framed in yellow:

these are protected areas,
the indigenous lands.

Where the indigenous lands are,
there is forest.

Here, it's very obvious;
this very dark part

is where there's indigenous land,
and to its side is white land.

To preserve this forest,
these people must continue being there.

When indigenous people leave the forest,
the forest falls, the forest disappears.

This story begins in 2002,
on a trek with a group of friends

who had already been trekking all over
Latin America, even around the world.

But this trek was different,
it was to Pico da Neblina.

Pico da Neblina is a mountain
on the Brazil-Venezuela border

where the Yanomami live,

who are a people that I ...

when I was very young, 15 years old,
my grandmother gave me a book

about this people's culture, as is was.

So, on the climb, it was very interesting
because we reached the summit,

and on the descent, we stopped
at a village called Maturacá.

Maturacá is a Yanomami village.

Looking at the people, we said,

"Holy cow! Look how many cataracts
there are in people so young."

Hernias, difficulty carrying ...

The people were happy and satisfied,

but they had untreated illnesses.

I spoke with a nurse,
"But why don't you refer these people?"

And she said, "We don't have
anywhere to refer them."

My companions were mostly doctors,
so we talked a little about this,

and we decided to talk with the chiefs,

"Look, we'll return here, bring doctors

and try to help you take care of this."

Descending from Pico da Neblina
and from Maturacá

took more than seven days
by boat to Manaus.

As you can see, it's not
the easiest route on the planet!

It gave us time to consider how best
to care for the guardians of the forest.

What to do to help them?

Should we take them
to a hospital in the city

or try to bring
the hospital to the forest?

And the obvious conclusion was:

since they're the guardians of the forest,
we bring the hospital to the forest.

That was when everything started in 2003.

We had our first expedition -

only 4 doctors and 100 kilos of equipment.

This was the first
surgical center, see it?

Actually, we made two expeditions
in small hospitals,

but the conditions weren't very good.

I'm an orthopedic doctor,
and I do hip and knee prostheses.

So, infection care is very important,

and the inside of those small hospitals

was something that didn't
please us very much,

so we started to invent
a mobile surgical center

that, after 2005, just kept getting
better and better,

until today, 41 expeditions
and 15 tons of equipment later ...

This is the super-modern
surgical center now,

and it has the same qualities found
in a big hospital here in São Paulo.

As you can see, this is
a big hospital complex.

Here, we have a surgical clinic,

along with pre-
and post-operative clinics.

This is a football field.

In the middle of Amazonia,
in the middle of a village,

inside a football field
is where we created all this.

Here's a side view.

It looks like a moonscape;
the Indians think this too.

(Laughter)

Because it's ...

the temperature is 18 degrees Celsius,
and they're not used to it

because the coldest it gets
in Amazonia is 25 or 27 degrees.

Everybody's wearing blue,
has a mask, and a cap.

They get really scared,
and we always have translators with us

because the majority
don't speak Portuguese.

So the hell these people are in
is a little less hot.

Nobody wants to go to the hospital;
they go because they need to.

These people go because they can't see
and can't carry weight in the forest,

and, for them, life is very complicated.

Thirteen years later,

we were able to return to Maturacá.

There were more than 30 expeditions
between our visits.

Maturacá is a difficult place to get to;

the logistics are complicated.

So, after some time,
we returned to Maturacá.

I had a nickname there, Liar,
because I had promised I would return,

and they had heard we'd been going
all over Amazonia,

doing expeditions in every corner,
and we still hadn't returned there.

When we returned, they accepted this well

and stopped calling me Liar.

(Laughter)

Along with these indigenous populations,
we learned many things.

We thought we were going to help them,
but we ended up learning a lot.

One of our experiences,
also with the Yanomami,

was a collective hunt.

So, what happened?

We made the decision
to make an expedition to Surucuru,

which is on a plateau,
in the middle of the mountains,

near the border of Brazil and Venezuela.

There were many different peoples

and the Surucuru people
were sorcerers and warriors -

bad humored people
who fought with everybody.

So the anthropologists ...

we always went with anthropologists,

who oriented us to the cultures,
helped us know how to comport ourselves,

and know how to act together
with these people

because their way of life
is completely different.

You can be uneducated
without even knowing you're uneducated.

On this expedition,

we put four or five anthropologists
in four or five lodgings

where they stayed,
and it was all going very well,

until, about the fourth or fifth day,
there was noise and yelling.

We didn't know what it was,
and we were still afraid of these disputes

of having some ... some sort of brouhaha.

(Laughter)

Then there was this rush of people
leaving with bows and arrows,

and with terçado, fação, and tacape,
traditional knives and weapons,

everybody running.

I didn't know what it was,
and it seemed like a mess,

but it wasn't, really.

It was a collective hunt
that they were doing together.

Even the enemy peoples,
who didn't fight just for their health,

were in the hunt to kill wild pigs.

So, everybody was hollering
and helping one another.

They surrounded the wild pigs,

they killed them,

and they divided them among everybody,

Then, showing that in hunger -
or in plenty, even better -

and in health,

the people were in solidarity.

We learned this about indigenous people:

they are in solidarity,
they know how to work in a collective,

and they are generous.

The second is: those who hunt, don't eat.

Very strange, right?

For the Shinanai people,
a people only recently contacted,

the hunter and the fisher don't eat
what they hunt and fish, never!

So, we keep thinking,
"But then, what's he going to do,

if he can't eat what he hunts
and what he catches?

What's the solution for this?"

There's only one, share knowledge;

teach your neighbor to hunt and fish
so everyone has this knowledge.

So, there are things a little difficult
for us whites to understand,

but they're very cool.

One thing that we're learning is this.

We're learning to not only have solidarity
with the indigenous people in the forest,

but also to have solidarity
among ourselves as expedition members,

sharing food, sharing comfort,
leaving the bathroom cleaner,

waiting for our neighbor, and helping
our neighbor as much as we can.

The third story is sharing food.

When they have a party,
they sit in a circle and bring food.

They're the gifts they give one another;
they don't have material goods.

They have food - so, bring the banana,
bring the watermelon, bring the coconut,

bring the manioc, and share it.

One of the nearby villages
that participated in this party

had a very small harvest,

and they were going hungry in their area.

So, at the party,

they had a little pile,
they'd brought little,

and the others brought lots.

When the time came to share,
everybody decided that they take first

from those who had brought little.

They all gathered together,
divided that food into tiny pieces,

and everybody took a piece,
no matter how small it was.

Then, when they started
to have food for the others,

the food of the indigenous
people who had enough,

everyone took a little bit

and left a mountain of food

for the ones that were hungry
to take to their village.

All this so they wouldn't be embarrassed

for taking food from ones
to whom they had not given.

So, you see that very slowly
they're turning the tables

and teaching us many things, right?

This woman is a xamã Suruwará;
another isolated people.

She had already been blind
for several years.

She was operated on for cataracts.

Cataracts are what we do most,
our flagship procedure.

For me, it's one of the most
spectacular surgeries there is.

The boys we take, who aren't really boys,

but older qualified surgeons,

do a cataract surgery in 15 to 20 minutes,

something like that,
and people can see again.

This woman said,
"You gave me back my life."

(Choked voice) We've had 41 expeditions,

50,000 medical procedures rendered
and 8,000 surgeries.

(Applause)

We've covered 500,000 square kilometers
of protected forest,

an area the size of France.

And this is our motto:

"Solidarity isn't a question
of altruism, but of survival."

People, the Amazon
is the lungs of the world.

We have to take care of it.

Because of this, our slogan is:

"Caring for life, preserving the forest."

Thank you very much.

(Applause)