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Miguel Sague, center, leads a crowd of people along Forbes Avenue in Oakland to support action to stop deforestation and wildfires in the Amazon rainforest on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019.
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Amazon rainforest fires spark activist rally in Oakland

Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette

Amazon rainforest fires spark activist rally in Oakland

The destructive fires burning in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are about 4,500 miles from Pittsburgh, but some of those attending Sunday afternoon’s “Action for the Amazonia” rally at Schenley Plaza in Oakland had a closer cultural connection.

Miguel Sague, a member of the Caney Indigenous Spiritual Circle in Pittsburgh and a medicine man with the Tiano people — who he said are the ‘inheritors of the Amazon rainforest” — called the fires devastating.

“I find the fires particularly significant personally,” said Mr. Sague, who is retired from the Pittsburgh Public Schools, where he taught art. “This is a big deal for a lot of our people who are activists in the save-the-rainforests movement.”

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About 100 people attended the rally, organized by Team Pachamama, a new nonprofit group focused on creating societal and environmental change through community building activities. Pachamama is a word used by the Quechua people of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador meaning “Mother Earth.”

A fire burns along the road to Jacunda National Forest near the city of Porto Velho, Brazil, on Aug. 26, 2019.
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Kevin May, who founded Team Pachamama, said the rally was an opportunity to educate and inspire activism around a serious ecological disaster. He said similar rallies are planned in additional U.S. cities later this week.

“The Amazon fires are stirring concern in a lot of minds and hearts,” Mr. May said. “People are seeing and reacting to the rapid destruction in the rainforest that is so important to the world’s ecosystem.”

Last week, more than 2,500 fires were reported burning in the rainforest — so many that the smoke is visible from space. The fires have also created a plume of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.

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The Amazon rainforest, sometimes referred to as “the lungs of the planet,” generates more than 20% of the world’s oxygen and contains 10% of the planet’s known biodiversity. The fires, most set to convert forest stands to farm and pasture land, are burning the homes and lands of indigenous tribes and threatening the diverse animals and plants in the region.

Ruby Williams, one of a dozen members of the Shoshone-Yamase tribe at the rally, said the human-caused fires are a serious problem not just for indigenous people but for the entire planet.

“People have no idea or understanding of the seriousness of the fires, what the rainforest does for the planet and how the fires can mess things up,” said Ms. Williams, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., but whose tribe counts members “from here to Brazil.”

Mr. Sague was critical of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who he said campaigned on a pro-development, anti-environment platform and is “the Brazilian Trump.”

Smoke billows from forest fires in the municipality of Candeias do Jamari, close to Porto Velho in Rondonia State, in the Amazon basin in northwestern Brazil, on August 24, 2019.
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“Bolsonaro has delivered the same racist, divisive message, calling the region’s indigenous people backwards and criticizing them for holding up progress,” Mr. Sague said. “We all expected something like this, but he is allowing the fires to just go nuts, causing historical levels of damage that will take decades to recover from.”

Team Pachamama’s Facebook page said the rally was intentionally staged alongside “Dippy,” the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur statue on Forbes Avenue and the Jurassic period’s precursor to today’s fossil fuels, to focus on efforts to transition out of fossil fuels and stem the growing tide of extinctions related to Earth’s changing climate.

Many at the rally held homemade signs with messages like “There are no jobs on a dead planet,” “Climate change is real,” and “There is no Planet B.” Following a series of speeches, they marched several blocks up Forbes Avenue into the Oakland business district and then around the plaza.

Other organizations represented at the gathering, including Project Love Coalition, NoPetroPA, Pittsburgh UNITED, Last Chance Earth, Extinction Rebellion Pittsburgh, Sustainable Monroeville, Breathe Project, Transition Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Vegan Society.

Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1983 or on Twitter @donhopey

First Published: September 2, 2019, 12:25 a.m.

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Miguel Sague, center, leads a crowd of people along Forbes Avenue in Oakland to support action to stop deforestation and wildfires in the Amazon rainforest on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019.  (Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette)
Ruby Williams, left, helps her daughter, Asia, 10, put on a headband decorated in the style of their Shoshone native American heritage at a rally in Oakland.  (Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette)
Khamia Williams, 5, a member of the Shoshone native American tribe who lives in the South Side, displays her “Save Amazonia” poster at a rally in Oakland.  (Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette)
Khamia Williams, 5, a member of the Shoshone native American tribe who lives in the South Side, displays her “Save Amazonia” poster at a rally in Oakland.  (Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette)
A family that lives in the Southside and is from the Shoshone native American tribe listens to speakers while holding signs at a rally in Oakland.  (Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette)
Deliylah Johnson, 26, a member of the Shoshone native American tribe who lives in the South Side, greets Miguel Sague, right, at a rally in Oakland.  (Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette)
Miguel Sague, left, an indigenous Caribbean organizer, listens while Maren Cooke, a local environmental and sustainability researcher and blogger, speaks about local environmental action at a rally in Oakland.  (Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette)
Christian Snyder/Post-Gazette
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