Terra vermelha

  • Dates
    2014 - Ongoing
  • Author
  • Topics Contemporary Issues, Documentary
  • Locations Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima

Terra Vermelha is an ongoing project that documents the growing social crisis in Brazil’s Amazon region, in the states of Pará, Amazonas, Rondonia and Roraima.

The Amazon Rainforest is often referred to as the ‘Lungs of our Planet,’ still imagined as the unspoiled home of isolated, disconnected tribes. A thick, green stain on the map — the world’s largest — laid there by the hand of God, with no sign of man’s.

From up close though, it’s way more than woods, mines and dams: cities have grown out of the jungle, into a green favela. Fields are burning, and the dark, steady stream of the Amazon river a safe conduct for cocaine. The riverbanks are littered with trash, and bodies.

In Brazil, the Amazon region is by itself bigger than the entire European Union and hosts a population the size of Romania. It’s one of the richest parts of the country, in terms of natural resources, yet one of the poorest. Where the trees are carved into crosses.

“Terra Vermelha,” which means red earth, is an ongoing project that documents the growing social crisis in Brazil’s Amazon region, in the states of Pará, Amazonas, Rondonia and Roraima.

The first part of the project focuses on rising violence in the Amazon’s urban centers, mostly related to the drug trade. In the region’s main cities, homicides rates are among the highest in the world. The poor live in precarious shantytowns, where militias and gang warfare rule the streets. The prisons are overflowing, and gangs can easily gain their control. Outside those urban areas, the world’s highest number of environmental and indigenous activists is systematically killed, perpetuating a cycle of impunity.

The second part covers the construction of new towns and the recently expanded cities like Altamira — famous for its hydro-power dam, and for being Brazil’s murder capital in 2017. It documents the violence that comes with rapid and unregulated urbanisation, and consequential social problems such as drug addiction and prostitution.

The third part of the project focuses on rural violence, such as the land conflicts between cattle ranchers fighting with landless peasants and environmental activists over territory.

Peasants illegally chopping down trees on slave wages or working in illegal gold mines, while mega development projects such as dams and mines destroy local ecosystems. Entire communities are being displaced.

Deforestation, unregulated development, pollution and crime. All of these scenarios are driven by the same forces; poverty, weak institutions, corruption and savage self-interest. More than in other places, in the Amazon region it becomes clear that land is worth more than human life. And on the path towards the destruction of the planet, the first and closest step for mankind is still its own annihilation.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A man walking away from a flooded area during an heavy rain in the Cidade de Deus, one of the poorest and most violent neighborhood of Manaus, the capital state of Amazonas.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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Junior (37) poses with his gun for a portrait in the periphery of Manaus. Junior is a member of the the Familia do Norte drug gang (FDN) and the boss of six drug traffic points in Manaus. He was sentenced to prison twice and said that he participated in several raids to kill people belonging to rival drug gangs in Manaus. The Amazonian capital of Manaus is currently in the midst of a violent drug war, with the local gang FDN fighting off the encroaching PCC from Sao Paulo - Brazil’s most powerful drug gang – for control of the city’s drug trade and trafficking routes.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A cross outside the city of Machadinho do Oeste in Rondonia. The region is ground zero in terms of Brazil’s environmental conflict, undergoing mass illegal deforestation, illegal gold mining, land grabbing and large scale development projects.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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The dead body of a gang member shot to death by a police officer during a bank robbery in Belem, capital state of Pará. Belem has turned one of Brazil's most violent city.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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Relatives of inmates detained inside the Cremacao police imprisonment facility in Belem, the capital of Pará state. The people above react after hearing the gun shots of a special operations police squad, who fired their weapons while suppressing a revolt inside the prison. The rebellion started due to the conditions of overcrowding inside the cells: 212 inmates shared a space designed for 92 people.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A twenty six year old Venezuelan prostitute is portrayed in a street of Boa Vista, capital state of Roraima. She said she needed money to buy food and medicine for her family back home. Some desperate Venezuelan women have turned to prostitution after they crossed into Brazilian Amazon to flee the humanitarian and economical crisis in Venezuela.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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Aripã Karipuna is seen during a patrol inside the Karipuna reserve. The Karipuna Indigenous territory in Brazil’s North-western state of Rondonia sits on the so called “arc of deforestation,” the agricultural frontier advancing into the Amazon forest and one of the front lines of the country’s deadly conflict over land and resources. Since 2015, the land has been increasingly targeted by loggers and land grabbers but the tribesmen so far say their complaints have fallen on deaf ears. In Rondonia, death threats are serious. The state consistently tops the list of land conflict killings, with 15 already in 2017, according to watchdog group Comissão Pastoral da Terra.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A burning field in southern Pará state set on fire by landless peasants in order to occupy it. Disputes over land have grown drastically in recent years across the Amazon. According to Amnesty International more than 271 rural workers and leaders have been killed in Pará alone since 1996.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A Warao child sleeps under mosquito netting in a shelter that has become home for dozens of other indigenous people outside Boa Vista. Widespread hunger and an unstable economy and government across Venezuela have driven these people out in search for a better life in the Brazilian Amazon region.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A girl is seen in the Terra Nossa II, a poor camp of landless peasants who are occupying a public land in the state of Rondonia. Occupations produce conflicts with local ranch owners, who hire private armed guards to intimidate the landless farmers and destroy their crops. The Brazilian Rondonia state, part of the Amazon region, consistently tops the list of land conflict killings, with 15 already in 2017, according to watchdog group Comissão Pastoral da Terra. Across Brazil, the number of land killings stands at 64 in 2017, with 49 occurring in Amazon states.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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The Helenira Resende Camp, a land in southern Pará occupied in 2009 by 642 families belonging to the Landless Workers Movement (MST). The camp occupies 50 hectares within the Cedro ranch, an estate covering a total area of almost 15,000 hectares.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A truck blocking the TransAmazonian Highway after an accident. The Transamazonian is a 4000km road across the Amazon rainforest started during the 1970′s under the Brazilian dictatorship. The construction of the TransAmazonian highway has hystorically been the gateway to the Amazon rainforest, allowing its colonization and its destruction, and contributing to introduce drug and arms trafficking into the region.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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Two drug dealers sniffing cocaine in the periphery of Manuas. Raul (on the left) was shot to death on April 2016 by a rival drug gang. The Amazonian capital of Manaus is currently in the midst of a violent drug war, with local gangs fighting for the control of the city’s drug trade and violent gangsters killing each other over territory and drug debts as low as $2.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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An overcrowded cell inside the triage facility of the Americano Penitentiary complex in Santa Izabel do Pará where 302 inmates share a space designed for 148 people. Cells designed to host 12 people end up containing more than 25 prisoners. Severe overcrowding is plaguing the Amazon region's penal system and it raises tensions inside the cells where is relatively easy for drug gangs to take control of the facilities.

© Tommaso Protti - Image from the Terra vermelha photography project
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A girl passing out inside an overcrowded bus of people leaving an illegal funk party in the periphery of Manaus. People entered inside the bus to escape from the tear gases of the Brazilian military police arrived on the scene to disperse the crowd and close the party. Over the past few years, funk parties have been gradually banned in Manaus because of suspicion that they funnel funds to organised crime.

© Tommaso Protti - Residents in Vila dos Barcos, a poor neighborhood of stilt houses in Belem.
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Residents in Vila dos Barcos, a poor neighborhood of stilt houses in Belem.

© Tommaso Protti - Two girls at the crime scene of an homicide in Manaus.
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Two girls at the crime scene of an homicide in Manaus.

© Tommaso Protti - A boy taking a bath at night in the Tocantins river, a tributary of the Amazon River in the state of Pará.
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A boy taking a bath at night in the Tocantins river, a tributary of the Amazon River in the state of Pará.

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