Sit down for dinner with Bebé
Meal suggestion: Stir fry with Brazil nuts
Grace: God of our daily bread, move among us as we gather together. Help us to savour our food and our friendship, and feel nourished for the week ahead. Amen.
Starter – meet Bebé
Bebé lives in the beautiful Amazon rainforest in Brazil, and is a member of the quilombola community: descendants of slaves who escaped to the forest for safety. Bebé is a ‘castanheira’: a woman respected in her community, Abuí, for her knowledge of where wild Brazil nut trees grow.
To gather Brazil nuts the quilombolas embark on a tough journey, sometimes travelling for several days by boat and on foot to reach trees deep in the rainforest.
The journey is worth it because Brazil nuts are fundamental for Bebé’s community, who live in poverty. Without the money they earn from selling nuts, life in the rainforest would be even more of a struggle. CPI, a Christian Aid partner organisation, is helping the community to get legal rights to the land. CPI’s support matters, not just to Bebé’s community, but for us too: we all need Bebé and the quilombolas to stay put.
In the last 40 years, almost 20 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed – an area three times larger than the UK. In territories under the control of quilombolas or indigenous people, just one per cent of forest cover has been lost. The quilombolas are at the heart of the struggle against deforestation and climate change, partly because they know how to live in the forest without damaging it, and partly because they protect the land from exploitation by big companies.
The consequences of rainforest destruction are dire for the animals and people who live there, but also for the whole world. The destruction of forests worldwide causes more CO2 emissions than every plane, car, lorry, ship and train on the planet combined.
Main – chew it over
• What are some of the things that we do (collectively or as individuals) that can harm the livelihoods of other people?
• Is climate change something that you worry about? Can we do anything about it?
• Do you know whether the government is taking action on climate change or helping you to tread more lightly on the earth?
Coffee – take action together
Bebé asks that we join her in praying ‘that the loggers and the illegal fishers forget us and forget our lands and rivers, because deforestation is a very bad thing and they are creating a lot of problems for us’. After praying, write to your MP to ask them what they are doing about climate change. Remember to include your full name and address so that they can reply to your message.
