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 To get a bird's eye view of the park, we have to compete with the vultures that alight amid plastic sacks in the makeshift neighborhood dump. Young men loiter across the way in front of a dilapidated shack that passes for the corner bar. The valley below shows signs of incursions by poor families like the ones who have mounted the favela that surrounds us on higher ground.
This is a homecoming for Murilo Drummond. Two decades ago the professor of genetics and evolution began to visit this area. At the time it was one of the few remaining sections of Amazon rainforest within the city limits of São Luís, capital of the state of Maranhão with close to a million inhabitants. Drummond frequently brought students on field trips and led research expeditions. Back then this dump replete with vultures was relatively pristine. In 1980, 3,200 hectares were set aside as Bacanga State Park after being a Water Protection Area since 1944. Much of the city's drinking water comes from reservoirs inside the park. In theory, the park designation further restricted human settlement and activities in the area. Population growth in Maranhão stands at 1.5% a year. As elsewhere in Brazil, affordable housing remains scarce. So instead of trying to address the incursions, public officials periodically whittle down the size of the park to reflect the new human settlements. The original 3,200 hectares have already been scaled back to 2,800. "Now they want to redefine it again," says Drummond. To win votes at election time, many politicians organize and sponsor invasions by the homeless. According to some estimates, the de facto size of the park is 30% smaller than when it was decreed 25 years ago. In the late 1980s, researchers concentrated on a section of the park called the Sacavém forest reserve. Each time they returned, scientists observed new signs of human encroachment. "You could see the degradation and the growing population in the vicinity," recalls Drummond. Professors and students protested to administrators at Maranhão Federal University. The dean took the leaders aside and promised to give them an area near the campus to conduct research if they'd stop denouncing the environmental deterioration of the park. "He was trying to keep us quiet," said Drummond. Drummond and his colleagues answered by founding an environmental group called Amavida (Loves Life) to continue their activist work outside the confines of academia. Down the steep grade of a dirt road, past an old convent and to the left, is the headquarters of the Maranhão state environmental police. With 70 men and two four-wheel drive vehicles, this office tries to enforce environmental law for the entire state - over 333,000 square kilometers, an area just slightly smaller than the entire country of Germany. Behind the cramped barracks, Amavida has established a bee-raising station similar to ones it helps locals operate in small communities in the semi-arid northeastern section of the state. With the sponsorship of a local company, Amavida provides beekeepers with native species and technical and marketing assistance. The project has won awards from the Brazilian-German Chamber of Commerce and the Ford Foundation. The bee-raising scheme represents an important proactive step for Amavida. Perhaps because there were so few environmental groups around when Amavida was founded in 1990, it began by running around putting out fires. Need to protest environmental damage caused by a shipwrecked tanker? Call Amavida. Need somebody to help implement a neighborhood tree-planting scheme? Amavida to the rescue. Need input to help write the state environmental code? Amavida would supply the experts. The group's early years were marked by protests and ill-fated attempts to work in partnership with the public sector. Finally in 1994 it joined forces with a private company to establish a field station to research migratory birds. "That got us away from just protesting all the time," recalls Drummond. The beekeeping initiative followed. Today Amavida activists continue to serve on sundry official commissions and the group operates as an informal incubator for fledgling environmental groups in the city and state. As we head out to Bacanga State Park accompanied by two police officers in their official jeep, I spot a half-dozen grazing cattle. Economic activity like grazing is formally prohibited inside park limits, but these cows aren't alone. A truck loaded with empty chicken coops whizzes past, hardly taking notice of us. On the right a partially unfinished luxury home stands behind a security gate. A judge issued an embargo on further construction, according to the officers, but somehow the structure continues to creep to completion. Adds one of the cops: "There are soccer fields all over the place back here." The state set itself up for land disputes by going only half way when it established the park. It used the principle of eminent domain to claim ownership of private property but failed to compensate the former owners. Beyond the luxury home, a rock quarry operated openly for years. An asphalt plant occupies a large swath of another section of the park. Soon, on our right, we approach a parched area dotted with seedlings, most about waste high. Here's evidence of the first round of Amavida's reforestation program. With the help of community volunteers, Amavida planted 15,000 seedlings of eight different species of native trees, including Ipê and Acácia. School children did most of the honors, though evidence remains of the volunteers from a local mental hospital who built a little rock fence around their seedlings. Not many student researchers frequent Bacanga anymore. The district is now considered one of São Luís' most dangerous. But Amavida hopes reforestation and environmental education in the nearby communities will help begin to turn things around. Says graduate student Clarissa Moreira Coelho, an activist with Planeta Vida, an Amavida partner group: "We're going to work with the communities around the park so that they come to defend it." For More Information Amavida: http://www.amavida.org.br/ The Bacanga Reforestation Project: http://www.bacangaflorestaviva.org/ Amavida receives support from the Greengrants Alliance of Funds (GAF) - www.greengrants.org -, a Colorado-based foundation, through its Brazilian representative, the Center for Social and Environmental Support (CASA). GAF and CASA bridge the gap between those who can offer financial support and grassroots groups that can make effective use of that support by identifying worthy organizations and moving funds at minimal cost. A former correspondent in Brazil for The Financial Times and Business Week, Bill Hinchberger is the founder and editor of BrazilMax - http://www.BrazilMax.com and contributor to the IRC Americas Program www.americaspolicy.org. The Center for Social and Environmental Support (CASA) and the Greengrants Alliance of Funds provided support for this article.
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