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Visiting the Amazon is a 2000-3000 km trip from most large cities in the country, fuel prices and plane tickets are awfully expensive right now, and for most hi

by Qem 4y ago

Visiting the Amazon is a 2000-3000 km trip from most large cities in the country, fuel prices and plane tickets are awfully expensive right now, and for most history, so it's a trip that would cost multiple times the minimum wage in Brazil. So it's not that surprising most people in the country din't ever visit there, unless they were already born close to it. Also, the most easily reachable parts are already very degraded. Roads spell doom to the forest. Pristine forest is far from the areas with affordable amenities that would please most tourists. In the brief time period air travel became more affordable, in the Lula-Dilma government terms, most people that could travel skipped domestic tourism and went straight into international travel, as from large cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro a plane ticket to Argentina, Chile, or even Europe used to be very often cheaper than a ticket to, say, Manaus.

dlisboa 4y ago
> Also, the most easily reachable parts are already very degraded. Roads spell doom to the forest. Pristine forest is far from the areas with affordable amenities that would please most tourists. That's not really correct in my experience. You can find "deep wilderness" in about 30-40 minutes from the city of Manaus (by boat), as in places with no human activity at all. And Manaus is very reachable (actually what people consider "the Amazon"). The city doesn't sprawl too far, and you have deforestation along the roads, but it's quite impressive how the "deep" jungle starts just after the last man-made structure. There are more areas of uninterrupted forest than in any other region probably in the world. And I visited in 2020, not really long ago. I'm Brazilian and I didn't really expect that, knowing our bad track record of deforestation. I thought the "real" jungle would be much further away. Coming from the Southeast of Brazil I can see the difference, and I'd call forests in this region definitely degraded. But up there it's as close to pristine as it gets with human involvement. The tragedy is that it's not for long.

by Qem 4y ago

dlisboa 4y ago

> Also, the most easily reachable parts are already very degraded. Roads spell doom to the forest. Pristine forest is far from the areas with affordable amenities that would please most tourists. That's not really correct in my experience. You can find "deep wilderness" in about 30-40 minutes from the city of Manaus (by boat), as in places with no human activity at all. And Manaus is very reachable (actually what people consider "the Amazon"). The city doesn't sprawl too far, and you have deforestation along the roads, but it's quite impressive how the "deep" jungle starts just after the last man-made structure. There are more areas of uninterrupted forest than in any other region probably in the world. And I visited in 2020, not really long ago. I'm Brazilian and I didn't really expect that, knowing our bad track record of deforestation. I thought the "real" jungle would be much further away. Coming from the Southeast of Brazil I can see the difference, and I'd call forests in this region definitely degraded. But up there it's as close to pristine as it gets with human involvement. The tragedy is that it's not for long.