Thirst for justice
In the Amazon both the people and the forest are locked in a violent struggle for survival. Must their interests clash? asks our wandering editor David Ransom as he sets out from a remote corner of the jungle.

Defiance in the forest
Use not abuse. The rubber tappers are coming together to say 'no' to the barons - and 'yes' to the forest.

Natural magic
The Amazonian rainforest works in a unique way. Jackie Morris gives it a unique illustration.

The devil's design
The Kampa Indians call white people 'devils'. Have these 'devils' - that the Kampa have had to learn to live with - anything useful to offer? Alex Shankland investigates.

Hell hath no hammock
We are back with our editor - and things are going wrong in ways that may amuse us more than they amuse him.

THE AMAZON - THE FACTS

Urban exiles
Violence rules the lives of the city-dwellers of the Amazon. But it does not stop them talking - or acting.

Simply . The Amazon's hidden history

Invading justice
Land seizure can be a good thing, Anna Feuchtwang discovers.

Gathering strength
Which is most important: who is doing the damage or what is doing the damage? David Ransom reaches a conclusion.

ACTION

'If you don't sure, don't start! If you sure, make stop!' I read this cryptic and forbidding advice on the back of a child's T-shirt in the tiny airport of Cruzeiro do Sul. I am frightened by flying and by forests at night. Yet there I was, about to set out on another alarming flight through the turbulent air above the largest and most intimidating forest of them all - the Amazon. It was one of many times I felt unequal to the perverse challenge this magazine often presented.

You might think this is an odd subject for us to tackle. It concerns a place (the Amazon) rather than a country; a thing (the rainforest) rather than people; an issue (deforestation) that has, perhaps, received more than its fair share of media attention already. Generally we prefer to search out subjects that are neglected by the rest of the media - like Vietnam, which we covered in February.

Yet it is also, I think, quite timely. If Vietnam turned out to be a lesson in the failure of old-style communism, the Amazon shows up the quite awful state of affairs in the free market Third World. For many of the people who live there national boundaries are an artificial imposition. The same is true for the environment. By taking a closer look at the environment and the people I felt we might fill a big gap in the usual media coverage. The Amazon is too often painted in the exotic, romantic colours of tragic catastrophe. But there's an awful lot of it left and no shortage of people willing to protect it - when they are not being brutalized or ignored. Far better, I thought, to look for life, rather than death, in the rainforest.

Lack of time and money meant I could only visit one of the nine countries of the Amazon. That had to be Brazil, where most of it is. But I was always aware of the fact that there must be many things I was missing. For example, I never heard a baby cry and no-one ever begged money off me in Brazil. I think only two of the people I talked to were older than 60 - the place is so full of children you can easily forget that they don't live very long. I was often very uncomfortable, but never actually sick - although my eardrums never quite got used to the constant, shattering human din of Brazil. But then my return to London was hardly comfortable or reassuring. I stepped out of a deserted London airport into bitter winter cold, the middle of the Gulf war and the path of an on-coming tank. I suddenly felt tempted to seek asylum in Brazil.

Although I've done much of the writing, the magazine is far from being all my own work. Alex Shankland and Anna Feuchtwang have written pieces because they were both, at different times, as much a part of the experience as I was. There is always a 'second' editor, in this case Vanessa, who gave me ideas for the 'visuals' and helped make the whole thing more readable. And there is always a designer, in this case Clive, who also did many of the illustrations for this issue. Both designer and second editor, quite by chance, had been in the Amazon which I think has made the result more accurate, less completely subjective.

Then there were the organizations which gave me help - in the UK especially the Gaia Foundation and Oxfam. In Brazil the Union of Indigenous Nations (UNI), the National Council of Rubber Tappers in Cruzeiro do Sul, the Federation of Organizations for Social and Educational Assistance (FASE) and the Movement of Rural and Urban Women contributed a great deal. Above all Alex Shankland shepherded me towards my most telling experiences, and a better understanding of them, with great patience. I am deeply indebted to him.

What the people of the Amazon want most, however, is not gratitude but change. The interest that we - you the readers - take in their hard struggle to achieve it gives them greater strength. I am still, however, left with a keen sense of how impossibly ambitious it is to try and do them, and the magical place they inhabit, the justice they deserve and rarely get.

Letters
Letter from Tamil Nadu
Update: Africa special
Endpiece by Maria Naseem
Reviews: including Ruskin classic
Briefly
Country profile: Zaire

COVER PHOTOS: Kayapo Indian child Rio Branco / Magnum; the forest of the Jurua River Cynthia Brito / F4 Sao Paulo.
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