“The fruit of the eye” guaraná. In addition, it also contains saponins, tannins … nerve stimulants that help improve the mind, fight inflammation, limit depression and prevent aging. Thousand year specialty Guaraná is a species of vine in the Sapindaceae family, scientifically known as Paullinia cupana. It is native to the Amazon basin (South America), especially common in Brazil. It is easy to distinguish guaraná from other fruit species because of its eye-catching color and shape… super creepy. It is red when ripe and splits on its own, exposing the black seeds and white flesh. Visually, it resembles the human eye. That’s why the guaraná is nicknamed “the pupil”. In Brazil, guaraná is the trademark specialty of Maúes, a municipality in the state of Amazonas. For this municipality, guaraná is tradition, culture, present and future. It can be said that the whole life here revolves around the guaraná. According to scientific analysis, guaraná seeds contain 4 times more caffeine than coffee beans. In addition, it also has many other nerve stimulants such as saponins, tannins… They have the effect of improving cognitive health, preventing cardiovascular disease, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, depression, intestinal regulation and even aphrodisiac. The native of the Maúes is the Sateré-Mawé. Since the dawn of time, their ancestors knew how to grow and use guaraná. The Sateré-Mawé people especially love and worship the guaraná. They called it “the eye of the gods”. In 1669, the western world became aware of the Sateré-Mawé guaraná, through the religious emissary João Felipe Betendorf (Portugal). This priest took on a mission to the Americas and was captured by the guaraná. In the 18th century, Portugal frantically looted guaraná from Maúes and sold it around the world. In the 19th century, guaraná spread throughout the Americas and Europe. “For us, guaraná is not only a mystical plant, but also a national origin,” said proud local resident Obadias Batista Garcia (Maúes). The land of guaraná Guaraná is an indispensable ingredient in Brazilian carbonated soft drinks. According to the legend of Sateré-Mawé, the guaraná is the reincarnation of a child beloved by the whole village who was murdered by an evil spirit. The angel was too sympathetic to everyone’s pain, so he buried the child’s right eye in the village’s ground. From the place where the eye was buried, the first guaraná tree grew, blossomed, and bore fruit. In Maúes, just 75km from the city is a huge guaraná forest, 8,000 square kilometers. The people here protect this forest strictly. Every year, they actively pick up seedlings and plant them in empty slots in the forest. The guaraná fruit harvest season lasts from November to March of the following year. Guaraná beans are just as small as coffee beans, washed, roasted, peeled and ground. People mix guaraná powder with water, knead it into a cylinder that fits in the hand, and then dry it. Dried guaraná can be preserved for several years on its own. Every time they want to use it, the Sateré-Mawé people grind it on stone, mixing it with water. They call this drink capó, used as a daily drink and holy water during holidays and Tet. In particular, Sateré-Mawé has a very unusual sharpening stone that goes well with guaraná, the ribeirinho fish tongue. This is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world, can weigh up to 200kg, possesses a rough tongue full of sharp spines 10cm long. When dried, the tongue becomes a peg that fits the guaraná. Sustainable livelihood The duo of guaraná and ribeirinho fish tongue. Currently, around Maúes there are about 2,400 Sateré-Mawé households growing and selling guaraná. They supply 500 tons of seeds per year, with completely manual harvesting and processing methods, ensuring absolute quality. In the world beverage market, guaraná is an indispensable ingredient in many energy drinks and carbonated drinks, especially Coca-Cola. Although not all Brazilians know about guaraná, their Coca-Cola consumption alone amounts to 400 million liters per year. The purchase price of guaraná in Maúes is about 24 Brazilian Reals/kg (more than 100,000 VND). In 2018, the municipality earned 13.94 million BR (equivalent to 60,000 billion VND) with just guaraná. In addition to Maúes, Brazil has many other guaraná-growing regions, such as Presidente Figueosystemo, Urucará… Every year, they produce tens of thousands of tons of guaraná and sell it around the world. In recent years, Brazil offers guaraná tourism services. In Maúes, visitors can tour the plantations, watch the process, enjoy guaraná on site and participate in the guaraná festival: Festa de Guaraná. Festa de Guaraná is an annual festival held around the end of November or the beginning of December. It lasts 3 days with various types of performances, fun, fairs, sports competitions, beauty… For decades, guaranás in Brazil have been trying to find indigenous recognition for Sateré-Mawé. They claim, the Sateré-Mawé people are the fathers of guaraná: “If there were no Sateré-Mawé people, there would be no guaraná”. In 2020, Sateré-Mawé’s guaraná was awarded the “Brazilian origin” certificate. This is the first and only certification given to an indigenous community in the country. It creates an exclusive brand, helping Sateré-Mawé to promote its name to the world. In the field of guaraná production in Brazil, only the Sateré-Mawé people still carry out the entire process by hand. The rest of the farmers have industrialized.

Cleio Junior, a firefighter at the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, discovered a dead anteater while he was on a fire control mission near the Amazonas state. Photo: Reuters. The above data is based on the research results of MAAP when conducting the analysis of very high resolution satellite images and data, recorded in the territories of all countries in the Amazon Delta, including Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana and Surinam. Accordingly, the Amazon’s primary forest area lost in the past year alone is equivalent to that of the Central American nation of El Salvador. The countries with the most loss of Amazon primary forests in 2020 are Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, respectively. Still according to the MAAP, more than 65% of deforestation of the entire Amazon region in 2020 was recorded in Brazil. South America’s largest country by acreage has lost a total of 1.5 million hectares of forest in the past year, up more than 13% from the year before. The area of ​​deforestation in Brazil is nearly twice the size of Puerto Rico and is mainly concentrated in the south of the country. Meanwhile, the deforestation area in Bolivia in 2020 amounted to a record 240,000 hectares, mainly due to the fires occurring in the Southeast of the country that destroyed the forests in the ecosystems. Chiquitano and Chaco slices. In the case of Peru, the country lost 190,000 hectares of primary forest last year, up 18% from 2019 and also a record number. The main cause of deforestation in Peru is attributed to the burning of forests for arable land. Since mid-2019, data from the early warning satellite system showed that the deforestation rate in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil tended to increase, to the fastest in a decade. According to the Brazilian Institute of Aerospace Research (INPE), the alarm system recorded forest deforestation in May up to 739 km2. This is higher than the 550 square kilometers recorded in May 2018, and twice as high as the area of ​​forest that was destroyed two years ago. According to the head of INPE, Claudio Almeida, 2019 is a “bad year” for the Amazon. As the country with the most area of ​​Amazon, but Brazil is also the country with the most forest loss in 2018 with nearly 16,187 km2. The main reason is due to deforestation for livestock, soybean cultivation and mining. According to the data of Mapbiomas – a research project on the disappearance of protective forest areas in the Amazon forest, in the last 30 years there has been 953,000 hectares of lost forest including protected areas, lands indigenous and inland lands. It is recognized that this figure is equivalent to 6 times the size of the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and South America. The results of Mapbiomas add that, excluding protection forests, the Amazon forest area destroyed in the past 30 years has reached 39.8 million hectares, equivalent to 19% of the total natural forest area ever existed. in 1985. Satellite imagery also shows that 84% of the lost area of ​​the world’s largest rainforest has become agricultural land, including pastures and pastures. farmyard. In early December 2020, the European Union (EU) envoy to Brazil, Ambassador Ignacio Ybanez said, until Brazil has not committed to preventing deforestation of the Amazon, the Free Trade Agreement between the EU and the South American Common Market (Mercosur) will not be approved by the parliament of the EU member states to come into force. This happens when the world is concerned about the “green lung of the Earth” that is Amazon being burned more and more. The EU Embassy in Brazil mentioned the deforestation of the Amazon and participation in the Paris Agreement on climate change. In fact, the Amazon wildfire is already at an alarming rate. It not only affects a few countries but is also global because it is the largest forest in the world with immeasurable value.