Backlands
Arrabalde
In Search of the Amazon
On behalf of: Companhia das Letras
In this book, João Moreira Salles blends historical reports, interviews, and ecologic and economic research to portray different perceptions of the Amazon rainforest and showcase the public and political indifference that has led to its exploitation and devastation.
The Amazon rainforest produces 20% of the planet’s freshwater and houses around 16,000 species of trees. The largest tropical rainforest in the world, it contains mysteries that still entice researchers and laypeople. When investigating the way its land has been occupied throughout the past four decades, João Moreira Salles showcases the lack of curiosity and affection that directed the way the biome has been exploited, devastated, and reduced to a function of extractivism.
The result of Moreira Salles’s six-month stay in Pará, Backlands invites us to look closely to the rainforest, in its biological and social complexity, in its natural, powerful disorder, that baffled the rational mind of many of the men who tried to turn it into a business. A kaleidoscope of Brazilians’ relationship to the Amazon, this volume is a defense of this great cultural asset, and an essay about its present and future possibilities.
João Moreira Salles is a documentary filmmaker, movie producer, and the founder of Piauí magazine. Among other films, he has directed Nelson Freire (2003), Entreatos (2004), Santiago (2006), and No intenso agora (2017).