How I fled from slavery | Manoel Cunha | TEDxAmazônia

Manoel Cunha was a teenage rubber tapper when he decided he no longer wanted to work in semi-slavery. He persuaded his colleagues to venture into the forest for days by boat on the river in search of autonomy. Today, at over 50, he is president of the National Council of Rubber Tappers.

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

Good afternoon, everyone.

That's feeble.

You probably didn’t eat much at lunch.

(Chuckling)

First of all, thanks for the invitation
from my comrade, Denis.

He said he'd be on vacation,
but he's probably here in the audience.

Thanks, otherwise I wouldn't
have had this chance

to tell a bit about my story.

I see me as the thousands of extractivists

who are underneath
the layers of the forest.

I wouldn't have this opportunity, Denis,

to talk to such an important audience

in such an important moment

when everyone is working together

to create a better
and fairer world for all,

because we deserve it.

As was already mentioned,
I'm Manoel Cunha,

from the town of Carauari
in the state of Amazonas,

about 700-750 km from here
as a crow flies.

It takes much longer by river.

I was born on March the 2nd, 1968.

I'm not that old,

but I know much about a sad story,

a sad and old story

that disrupted the lives of people.

Many interesting things
have happened in my life

that I'd like to share with you.

We're 14 siblings at home,

raised by an old man called Joaquim Cunha.

We didn't have many opportunities in life

and one we didn't have was to study.

At that time
- going straight to the point -

the bosses didn't want
the rubber tappers' kids to study.

They said that you didn't need
to study to tap rubber.

We never imagined
that they didn't want us to study

so as not to turn the tables on them.

We thought they were actually right -

that to tap rubber
you didn't need any schooling.

Then, when I was 11,

as I was preparing myself
to accompany my father

to help him tap rubber,

a neighbor of my boss managed
to arrange a school for us.

It wasn't a proper school,
but permission for the boss' wife

to teach the people
who lived in the country.

It took us about an hour
and a half to get there by canoe,

as our comrade from the Saúde
e Alegria project showed very well.

Despite this, my dad made
a very important decision

for his and our lives:

he sent two of my sisters to school

to learn how to read and write

so they could then teach us at home.

We couldn't go to school

because we needed
to go on the rubber trail.

The teacher took pity on them

and allowed them to go to school
only three days a week,

and would set them homework
on the other two days.

Because I was really keen
on learning to read and write,

I managed to learn from them

when they got together
to do their homework.

That was the only way I learned
to just read and write.

That is where my whole life started.

But I started working
in rubber production,

in that degrading way of life.

I still remember

one year when Dad had some health problem

and only managed to go
to the rubber forest in October.

Our summer goes from July to December.

That year, my father
arrived there in October

with only two months left in that year.

The boss had a rule:
on the 31st of December

we had to clear away
all the cups from the forest.

With all the cups taken down
we couldn't extract any more rubber.

Dad had to follow that rule

and we were harder off than ever before.

There were countless humiliations.

For example,
if we fished in Mandioca lake,

in the São Romão
rubber forest, where I lived.

The boss only let us fish there
after the 1st of August, for example.

To fish for your livelihood

on that lake before that date,

was reason for you to lose your place.

To lose your place in that region
was to almost lose your life

because all the rubber tapping
places were taken

and there were none left.

We'd put up with the humiliations

so as not to lose our place.

Fishing where it was not authorized

was also a reason to lose your place.

In our work system

we didn't know
the sale price of the product

nor the purchase price of goods.

At the end of the year,

we'd only hear a deep voice
from behind the counter, saying,

"You're in debt, you need
to produce more rubber next year."

We started to realize
that the more we produced,

the more we owed,

so we had to produce more

to made him richer,
as all the profit was his.

Then I and many others

- I'm speaking here on behalf of many -

started to rebel against that

and to consider that as wrong.

But we couldn't do it differently.

I was already grown up then,

married and a father of three children.

This is how I had lived
up to the age of 24,

I had only known 14 beaches on a river,

the equivalent of 40 minutes
by a 40 HP motorboat.

My whole life was determined
by that place.

I'd never had any other opportunity,

no one ever said
anything else was possible,

that it was possible to change the region,

to change someone's way of producing.

But one day, around May,

we heard an announcement on the radio

from an institution called MEB,
Basic Education Movement,

linked to the Catholic Church,

that would organize things
for the rubber tappers.

And we waited,

and one night, at about 8 p.m.

they went to my father's house

and spoke about how it was possible
to live a different way.

I remember to this day people saying,

"You rubber tappers
can organize yourselves,

those at the top,
the bottom and the middle,

and form a community.

Then you'll be strong enough
to demand a school, a health center,

and your kids will be able to study.

What's most interesting
is that the communities down the river,

the ones closest to the town,

are already organizing an association.

The goal is to sell our own products

through our organizations

and get rid of the criminal
system of these bosses."

I think that was
the happiest day of my life,

because I realized
that there was another way,

a different way of living,

and of living with dignity.

That's how the whole battle started.

So I'll skip ahead to 1997

when we managed to create
the first extractivist reserve

in the state of Amazonas,

there in my community, in Middle Juruá.

(Applause)

Today, those same people

who were so humiliated,

as I tried to explain here,

this association has grown
and organized itself.

From individual rubber tappers
of the São Romão rubber forest

we've become a community

and I became its leader
and a teacher as well.

Interestingly, I have
never been a student,

but I was a teacher
in my community for four years.

And with a difference:

I always saw beyond
the three Rs in education,

I saw it as a mechanism, a path, a beacon

for the transformation of a society.

I tried to show this to the youngsters
and adults that I started to teach.

I think that today,
without discriminating any region,

one of the regions with
the greatest number of community leaders

is the community of São Raimundo,

especially the Middle Juruá
extractivist reserve.

Maybe I've been part of this story

by my different method of teaching,

preparing them to face everyday problems.

In these communities,
- coming back to the present day -

looking at the way we lived,

today we sell all the production
through the association

or the cooperative,
directly to the consumers.

When our fellow speaker
from Natura company did her presentation

one of the points
she mentioned was Middle Juruá.

The Middle Juruá communities
supply about 15 to 20 tons

of vegetable oil directly to Cognis,
in Jacareí, São Paulo.

It goes from the factory tap
inside the extractivist reserve,

to Jacareí, São Paulo,

so that Cognis can process it
and then deliver to Natura.

The rubber produced by those communities

would either go to Sena Madureira in Acre,

where there was a processing plant,

or to Manicoré, in the state of Amazonas.

The meal left over
from the family production

is sold at the counter
of the association itself, in the town.

The products, the other products,

- brooms, oars, handicrafts -

all products are sold directly
to the consumer,

or to those who do the final processing,

as in the case of Natura,
which turns the oils into cosmetics.

What's interesting is that

in that period of our lives,

for much of my life I only had two shirts

and I had to hope for sunshine
to dry one of them

so I could put it on when I got home,

because one we wore at work

and the other our mother would wash
on the washing board.

Today, people lead a dignified life
inside this reserve.

And this reserve has helped to create

more than a dozen
other conservation units.

When people give talks

to organize the communities
to create protected areas,

they always cite
Middle Juruá as an example

of a region that got rid of
its slavery conditions

and which today is totally independent,

a very strong and well-organized movement.

Recently, we implemented
the Riverside Solidarity Trade

which we call canteens.

They are like small supermarkets,
spread throughout all the communities.

I'm talking about a 400-km area
in a straight line,

from the heart of the town
to the last community we serve.

This is over 54 hours by boat

which is our means of transport,

going round all the bends in the river.

So a people who succeeded
in their efforts

- despite persecution from the police,
a part that I skipped,

persecution from the bosses -

who found a way of surviving.

And most interestingly,
surviving in a sustainable manner.

Everything that's done in that reserve

is done thinking of the present
and future generations.

And if you allow me,

I'd like to tell the story
of the Andiroba tree.

When we started,

I was president
of the association at the time.

We began to make a study
of the potential of the Andiroba,

together with Amazonas State University.

We used to see flooring
made from Andiroba in some houses,

and we'd say,

"Cut some other tree, leave the Andiroba,

we're studying it."

Andiroba was only used
for homemade medicine,

or to make homemade soap

which was cheaper
than industrialized soap.

When this project
came through, even Natura,

because the big goal was
to produce energy from vegetable oil,

which is still done today.

Anyone can go there and see this.

Natura appeared exactly
at that time, in 2002,

and was interested in buying
this raw material.

We said, "No, wait a minute.

Natura wants to buy
at eight Brazilian reais a kilo of oil,

diesel costs about 0.92 reais a liter.

Listen, you can buy the diesel
and still have money left over."

Then we started to use it in the motors,

but we sold a good part.

Now there is a contract,
quite fair and organized,

between the community and Natura,
the cooperative and Cognis.

The Rubber Tappers' Council
is always present in the negotiation,

it's very well considered.

Now they are even discussing
the Middle Juruá fund

with the aim of presenting projects.

But, going back to the subject.

The families started
to sell this raw material

at 8, 10, 14, 18 reais,
and today it's sold at 24 reais

a kilo of Andiroba oil or Murumuru butter.

Now, that same family

that didn't see the importance
of Andiroba trees

and sometimes cut them
for housing material and not to sell,

now they want to know,
when they look at the Andiroba tree trails

what insolent kid walked along there

and cut the roots of their Andiroba tree,

because they fear
it will ruin the fructification.

I tell this story to show
our responsibility

in finding the true value of the forest,

in finding a way of valorizing
the forest conservation work

that our people do.

Because when we find this

like Middle Juruá found
in the Andiroba, in the Murumuru,

they need no laws or inspectors.

The best inspectors
is the community itself,

the users of the environment

when they understand this process.

This shows me...

I started talking about my own life,

I was the association's president

and became president

of the National Council
of Extractivist Populations.

Until July last year, it was called
the National Rubber Tappers' Council.

I don't think it was because...

first, because I'm very ugly
and not literate enough,

but maybe it's because
I seriously defend the importance

of living in harmony with the forest.

Climate change is here

affecting our communities very badly,

and despite that, many people,

- not this audience here -

don't understand this.

I brought some water here,
just to close my story.

I want to invite you all.

The Rubber Tappers' Council
is a non-profit grassroots organization

supported by donations,

that does great work in the Amazon.

One project has almost
20 million hectares of forest

with extractivist populations,

and the Rubber Tappers' Council
pushed this policy with the government.

To finalize, I just want to tell you

that I want us all here
to help spread this message.

People think that the great
devastation of the Amazon

is through greed for money.

People don't understand

that when the drinking water is gone,

when this fresh air we breathe is gone,

this here in my pocket
will be worth nothing.

It won't save my life,
nor that of my children,

nor the planet.

It's this money that makes us greedy.

Thanks, everybody.

(Applause)