Bamba Ring — A commitment and its symbols
“My bamba ring/ I will give to whom deserves to wear it”. This lyrics became memorable in the voice of Alcione, Brazilian singer. This samba lyrics have reached most corners of our continentally-dimentioned country. So has the vernacular that confers meaning to the song. “Bamba”is a Brazilian popular word to refer to someone who is deeply linked to a certain subject; in the case of this song, the musical genre “samba” itself.
Being great-granddaughter of two incredible samba musicians, and growing up surrounded by the “samba” popular imaginary; receiving a “bamba ring” had been a hidden dream for most of my life. The kind of naive, childish dream one would not even bother hoping for it to come true. I ended up receiving mine as a gift from my mother at my Masters’ graduation ceremony in Columbia University, amongst many screams, joyful tears and family hugs.
There is this tradition, spread in both anglo-saxan and latinoamerican world, of giving newly-graduates a ring symbolizing the enlightenment and knowledge acquired in prior years, right? My mother, Sonia, wanted me to have one. And in her sensibility, she ended up reminding me once more why I embraced the social-environmentalist cause in the first place.
It is a ring made of “Jarina”, a seed from an Amazonic palm tree (Phytelephas macrocarpa) that equals ivory in color and thickness. Engraved on the jarina seed, the signature cut of my great-grandfather from his times working extracting latex, the raw material that becomes rubber, from rainforest trees. My great-grandfather was a meticulous man, who bleed rubber trees with a distinguishable precision. Inequivocal lines leading to the collecting cup, is what the engraved drawing represents. Made by a gread eco-artist named César Farias, who also spent his childhood gravitating around the “seringais”, forest spots where rubber trees were abundant and its workers, know as “seringueiros” (rubber tappers) lived.
That is where it begins my ancestral environmentalism. From the Brazilian workers that were lured to move into the forest, and (for survival, stubborness or grace) learned so much from it. Its mysteries, its dangers, its diseases, and their healing. Their indigenous neighbors, with whom were shared conflicts, hope, knowledge and time; eventually culminating in a political aliance and lasting friendship.
Forest peoples managed to figure out not only how to survive in the forest, by how to bring the world’s attention to what was happening in our corner of the world. Thanks to the leadership of Wilson Pinheiro, Chico Mendes (may they rest in peace) and many others a very tropical way of protecting the forest — and the sustainable lifestyles that surround it — was born.
The Rubber Tapper movement managed to influence a great set of Brazilian policies (environmental laws, economic subsidies, rural education, law enforcement and more), and that is where I first learned that hope can be a pragmatic asset. That holding on to hope as a fuel for one to responsibly dream with a better future can be the key to change history. To build an environmentally coherent future, through beautifully simple solutions.
Pragmatical hope was never more needed. Amongst all the environmental crisis the human communities experience, we must clearly envision our way out. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is already a shared consensus on what needs to be done. Now it is up to us, policymakers, innovators, entrepreneurs, citizens to nurture our hope into a future.
It is with my Amazonian hope and willingness to work that I will arrive in Denmark. And I am sure that UNLEASH will give me 1000+ reasons to believe, and many opportunities to turn hope into history. It is a truly honor to participate in this historical moment. See you all there!
Mata a dentro. Mundo a fora.
(Into the woods. Out to the world)
Iara Vicente
Master of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy @ Columbia University; Founder of NTF Consulting.
