The view of the Amazon from the air is spectacular. A broad river winding its way through dense jungle back to source, giant lily pads sit like stepping stones across its tributaries and above, white egrets floating in the breeze. Dotted along the riverside, people can be seen fishing in canoes or transporting produce down river.
Currently the water is high and floods the landscape. From the Greenpeace plane 'Amazon Edge' (in which I spent most of yesterday), it is possible to see bemused horses standing in shallow waters and the tops of vegetable gardens poking through its murky brown surface. The tranquillity of river life is broken only by the movement of barges carrying cargos of Amazonian soya and timber from deep within the jungle for shipment to supermarkets, fast food outlets and DIY stores across Europe.
So it seemed appropriate when today a handful of our activists dodged the farmers and flew beyond Santarém, to unfurl a 300 sq m banner in the middle of a soya field born out of rainforest destruction. Emblazoned on the new green crop, a white banner reading "KFC - Amazon Criminal".
KFC hold their annual shareholders meeting in Louiseville today. They, like many other companies, are complicit in the rampant deforestation that is taking place in the Brazilian Amazon. The chickens that end up as cheap buckets of drumsticks sold in its fast food chains in the UK are fed on Amazon soya. It may be finger lickin' good, but at what cost?
And on the river, we complimented our banner team's activities. Stringing a sail between two of our inflatables, reading "Fora Cargill - Cargill Out", we went over to the outside edge of their illegal port facility as they unloaded soya destined for Europe from a barge.
Almost immediately we were met by two Cargill boats, bringing out employees wearing the company logo on hats and shirts. Their strategy was to intimidate us by coming within centimetres of the inflatables, threatening and shouting abuse at our volunteers - their favourite catch phrase of the day being, "Get one of your bitches to give me a blow job." I'm not sure what kind of public communications training Cargill invest in, but it's a school I've yet to come across.
So another day concludes in the Amazon. I stand in awe of those who fight here on a daily basis - indigenous people, local communities and activists. It's very humbling.
