The historic drought in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has reduced the Rio Negro to a trickle and put at risk the livelihoods of remote Indigenous and riverside communities
nder the scorching midday sun, Pedrina Brito de Mendonça picks her way through sandy terrain dotted with shrubs and driftwood. Sandbanks and cracked mudflats stretch into the distance, hemmed in by a line of trees on the horizon, while fresh grass grows around an almost stagnant water channel.
“It was as if the beach suddenly rose, shutting off the mouth of the streams, the mouth of the river, closing everything off and leaving us in a tough situation,” says Abilio Lopes, who lives on the left bank of the Rio Negro in the Indigenous Baré community of São Tomé . “We manage to make flour , we fish, but we have to buy the rest of our food in Manaus,” says Nelson Brito, the president of the Santa Helena do Inglês community, which is usually 10 minutes upstream from Saracá in a motorised dugout. It is now a 2km walk along the arid riverbed. Schoolchildren are without classes, weekly visits from a medical team have been suspended, and residents pray that no one falls seriously ill.
“Without the income from tourism, we’re dependent on Bolsa Família,” says Siqueira, referring to the government’s social programme that provides low-income families with a 600 reais monthly handout. “It’s a case of climate injustice. Those who cause the least harm suffer the affects the most,” says Virgilio Viana, the head of theA researcher from the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development retrieves dead dolphins from the Tefé lake, on the south bank of the Rio Solimões, which has been affected by high temperatures and drought.The end of October usually means the start of the rainy season in the Amazon basin, but relief will be slow to arrive this year.