I have spent 25 years connected to and working in the Ecuadorean Amazon. When I first went there many people still lived in wooden houses with thatched roofs and worked the land with only one tool, the machete. 25 years on and the locals now choose to live in concrete block houses with tin roofs. They see this as a sign of development. Of course it means you don’t have to change the thatch so often as that is getting harder to find. The downside is they are hot and very noisy in the rain. Still a machete holds a significant place in most forest peoples homes but now it has become easier to get hold of chainsaws.
One person (usually men) can only clear so much forest in a day with a machete, imagine the difference of how much land can be cleared with a chainsaw.

I have witnessed the magical green rainforest, vibrant with life disappearing.

When I first spent 6 months living in the Panacocha Lagoon people asked if I would be lonely? How could I when every day I met with other life forms, more beautiful than you can imagine. The constant hum of Insects, croak of Frogs, thunderous calls of the Howler Monkeys and song or screech of numerous Birds.

I was so aware of how little I could see and how many eyes were watching me. The locals speak of the unseen spirits. It is not just the numerous different species who are camouflaged and incredibly difficult to see but another dimension that only very few have the privilege to know.

Many people in the west think of fairies as only found in children’s books, a fantasy. Unable to be proven by science so they can’t possibly exist.

In many cultures they may not be little fairies with gossamer wings who hang out in flowers but a huge variety of unseen forms exist.

Shamans are those individuals in the forest who have direct access to the spirit world.

Who are we westerners to say they don’t exist? When we grieve the loss of the forest, the trees and all the species who live there how many people think of the unseen realms and what happens to them?