Modern Amazon is a series of multimedia reports about three Indigenous women who, in order to confront the social and environmental crisis affecting their territories and cultures, are reclaiming traditional knowledge as an economic alternative to extractivism. The stories of these women will serve as a guiding thread to delve into different issues of today's Amazon.
With Silvana Marubo, in Atalaia do Norte, Brazil, we will learn about the struggle of an association of craftswomen who have migrated to the city and make a living by selling the everyday items of their cultures. The complex issues of the Terra Indígena Vale do Javarí, known for the recent deaths of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, will be the backdrop.
In Leticia, Colombia, Anitalia Pijachi, the winner of the National Prize for Traditional Cuisine, will show how the chagra, the traditional plantation of the Amazonian peoples, can continue to be a valuable source of food, even if it is less and less practiced. We will learn about a project he is carrying out in several river communities to strengthen their own gastronomy and combat malnutrition. And we will see how to successfully integrate chagra and gastronomy into cultural tourism circuits.
We will spend a few days on the Pisqui River, Peru, in the home community of Justina Cerrano, a Shipiba doctor who uses ayahuasca in her healing ceremonies. We will contrast the local medical practices with those developed in Arkana, a retreat center in Iquitos that specializes in receiving "ayahuasca tourists," where Justina works, and we will learn about the consequences of this millionaire business.
