Amazon Alive

I’m a journalist and nature photographer. From 1998 to 2001, I’ve lived in Alta Floresta, a small city in the South Amazon Forest. I arrived with the idea of making a big photo archive of fauna and flora of the South Amazon, which is a region of transition between the fenced-in land and the tropical rain forest. It’s a collection that was never done before, and may never be done. My original plan was to stay for just four months and go back to Sao Paulo. But, during this period, I fell in love with the region and its natural beauty. The local fauna is so rich that only in the Cristalino Basin, where I took most of my pictures, can we find more than 600 species of birds.

In order to create this recognition and record of the fauna, especially the birds, I was met and was helped by some people of the region. They were very different, special and friendly, as none I have ever met anywhere, anytime during my life. For your better comprehension about how complicated it is photographing in the jungle, to just take a dozen pictures of a deer, I had to track it in the forest for six days. In case of some birds, it was necessary to have "eagle eyes" to just see them. Fortunately, I had a native tracker accompanying me 24 hours a day during my "baptism".

Back to civilization, more than four years later, I brought with me more than a thousand pictures (some very rare ones, of animals like the Tamanduaí, the World's smallest anteater), a beautiful wife, more life experience, fewer preconceptions and a lot of memories, good and bad ones. Nevertheless, enclosed in a lot of difficulties, I came back with the certainty that everything was worthwhile and I had no regrets. After one year living in Sao Paulo, I realized that a Metropolis was not my place anymore. In my thirties, tired of desperately looking for jobs (and then trying to keep them...) and watching the economical situation of Brazil getting worse and worse, I decided to move to Canada. I have loved Canada since I was a kid and I have been here as tourist and student many times in the last years.

Finally, I landed in Edmonton seven months ago. During this short period, after many colds and sore-throats because of the "quite different" winters, I feel now that this is my place. My wife and I are experiencing different things and we are very excited about our new lives. We know that living here will be hard during the first years, even more difficult than in the Amazon. As immigrants, we have just crossed the starting line. But we plan to study and become Canadian professionals and citizens. Then, we can start a new family and go back to Brazil every two or three years to visit our folks.

But, after all those different experiences, my biggest desire continues to be going back to the jungle from time to time to smell the woods after the rain, touch the humid soil, taste a new-harvested native cocoa, listen the Musician Wren’s song and take more pictures to satisfy one's longings when I am far from the Amazon Alive...

Nando Facchini

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