Amazon beauty and destruction

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Can the Amazon be preserved? That important question was posed in November 2007 by the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo (The State of Sao Paulo) just before the United Nations convened its meeting on climate change in Bali, Indonesia. The paper answered it with an investigation into conditions in Brazil's Amazon region, which accounts for 60 percent of the world's largest tropical forest.

One of the byproducts of this research is a thought-provoking exhibit of 52 photographs on view at the Woodrow Wilson International Center's Brazil Institute. "This is not propaganda," insists Paulo Sotero, a former Washington correspondent for the Brazilian newspaper who serves as the institute's director. "The photos show the reality of the places and peoples of the Amazon — the good, the bad and the ugly."

The purpose of the exhibit, he says, is to call attention to the debate taking place in Brazil over the struggle to both conserve and develop its rain forest.

The images on display represent the work of four Estado photographers: Jose Luis Conceicao, Ed Ferreira, Jonne Roriz and Dida Sampaio, who traveled throughout the Brazilian Amazon, an area of 1.6 million square miles, for more than three months. They don't hit you over the head with a visual barrage of deforested pastures and polluted waters but wake you up to both the treasures and the despoilment of the Amazon. For every scene of destruction, there are two or three more of incredible beauty, reminding the viewer of what is at stake as this resource-rich region increasingly is degraded.

Brazil is home to 13 percent of the world's plants and animals, most of which inhabit its rain forests. Several photos capture this wildlife, including a red-faced monkey, a confettilike swarm of butterflies and a flock of herons flying over a fish sanctuary for the pirarucu, the cod of the Amazon.

The productivity of indigenous peoples also is heralded in photographs showing villagers fishing, rubber-tapping trees and toasting yucca flour. Among the portraits is the machete-wielding "Robinson Crusoe of the Amazon," the son of a "rubber soldier" who led extraction expeditions during World War II.

Upon closer inspection, some of the more picturesque photos of villages and riverfronts turn out to harbor the polluting effects of human activity. "Living on Stilts" by Salvadoran-born Mr. Roriz shows a row of cottages elevated above the Rio Negro — and piles of trash along the water's edge. "Means of Transportation," also by Mr. Roriz, depicts a child walking toward a paddle boat jutting into a deep blue river. It appears to be a benign scene until you read the text under the picture explaining that the opaque, acidic waters are inhospitable to alligators, piranhas, mosquitoes and even parasitic fish.

The most obviously destructive effects of deforestation are revealed in photographs of gold mining, which sends polluting mercury into rivers and streams. "Lunar Landscape" by Mr. Conceicao is an orange wasteland almost as barren as the moon. "The New Frontier," another photo by Mr. Conceicao, documents a prospecting village more rough and tumble than the Wild West. Its jumble of shacks, tree trunks, television satellite dishes and garbage forms a jarring contrast against the green backdrop of the rain forest.

Deforestation accounts for two thirds of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions, prompting debate over how to extract resources from the Amazon without degrading the environment. In the past, Brazilians blamed foreigners for exploiting the Amazon, but now, according to Mr. Sotero, they are looking inward to find ways of preventing their own countrymen from breaking the law. The exhibit reveals several examples of blatant disregard for environmental policy, including a photograph of a farmer burning the rain forest so he can grow pineapples. In another scene, a fisherman stands before skeletal trees poking out of a lake formed by a hydroelectric station. Other photographs allude to the felling of forests for cattle ranches and roads.

Development and preservation can be compatible, the Estado newspaper asserted, and several photographs make the point with scenes of the Amazon's sustainable development reserves. Yet, the paper concluded, "as motivating as these examples are, they are also limited." The most likely scenario is continued destruction of the rain forest, turning the more scenic images in this show into relics.

WHAT: "Amazonia Photography"

WHERE: Brazil Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, fourth floor

WHEN: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Through March 19.

ADMISSION: Free

PHONE: 202/691-4087

WEB SITE: www.wilsoncenter.org