Brazilian Academy of Sciences Opens its Doors to Indigenous Leader and Shaman

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Bishop Roque Paloschi of Porto Velho, Brazil, recalls attending a meeting about development in the Amazonian state of Roraima, home of the indigenous Yanomami people, at which a government official commented that indigenous people were very poor.

Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami leader and shaman, stood up and replied, “We are not poor. We have the entire forest. We do not oppose development, but my question for you, ladies and gentlemen, is what kind of development is it that destroys nature and poisons the land and the water to concentrate profit in the hands of a few?”

Now Kopenawa has become the first Indigenous leader elected to the century-old Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

“We would like to congratulate the academy, which had the courage to elect a member of the original peoples of Brazil,” Paloschi, who is president of the Brazilian Catholic Bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council, told EarthBeat.

“It’s good that the academy has recognized the ancestral wisdom of indigenous peoples, especially at this time, when humanity is experiencing a socio-environmental crisis that is unprecedented in history, the planet is sick, and Indigenous peoples are the teachers who teach us to have a harmonious and respectful relationship with all of creation,” he said.

“For centuries, Indigenous peoples in Brazil and throughout the world have denounced the violation of their rights and the rights of nature,” Paloschi said. “In Brazil, those peoples are threatened physically, and their culture and territory are also threatened” by an economic model that turns the goods of nature into commodities, he added.

Kopenawa has gained international recognition for speaking out about massacres of his people and environmental destruction by wildcat gold miners who have invaded the Yanomami territory that straddles the border between Brazil and Venezuela. Last year, he and other leaders warned that miners had carried the new coronavirus into the territory.

“Davi Kopenawa has been a great hero of sustainability of the Amazon forests, and we are completely aligned with what he has been saying worldwide,” Luiz Davidovich, president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, told EarthBeat. “We also think that maybe he is better known outside of Brazil than in Brazil — he has received very distinguished prizes outside of Brazil — and we think it is about time to have him recognized in Brazil.”

The Brazilian Academy of Sciences has three membership categories — one for older, more experienced scientists; one for scientists under age 40; and one for “collaborators,” who are recognized for their contribution to science. Kopenawa was elected as a collaborator in November and officially became a member on January 1st, Davidovich said.

In December 2019, Kopenawa won the Right Livelihood Award, occasionally called the “alternative Nobel,” for his defense of his people’s culture, lives and territory.