What's best for the rainforest?

By Doreen Leggett / dleggett@cnc.com ORLEANS - Tyler Kugler, who mines the Amazon for gold, has been feeling "a little" guilty about the havoc the mercury he uses is wreaking on the environment and native peoples.

"We'll invest in a new amalgamation process," he said, to allow mining to continue but protect the ecosystem at the same time.

Logger Alana McGillis is also exploring new eco-friendly practices her company can use. It's not like they can stop logging altogether, they pay an enormous amount of taxes.

"It's a big industry," she explained. "The government would fall apart without (us)."

Tyler and Alana were recently part of a roundtable of user groups that hammered out how to run successful businesses, without bringing about the downfall of the largest tropical rainforest in the world. Unfortunately, since they are students at Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School, their ideas won't carry much weight, much to the chagrin of Mark Aitchison, who lives smack dab in the middle of the Amazon, in Manaus, Brazil.

"They have got all the angles covered," he said.

Aitchison, who grew up in Eastham, runs his own eco-tour company in Brazil, and said everyone - miners, loggers pharmaceutical companies, indians, ecotourism operators, etc. - have their own ideas on what is best for the Amazon rainforest.

And they haven't sat down and talked it through like the students have.

"They are all competing now, that is the problem. Let's do it (all), but let's do it responsibly," he said. "There is room for everyone, especially in a country the size of Brazil."

Tuesday, Aitchison spoke to sixth-graders in Joanne Amaru's unit on the Amazon rainforest. As the operator of Swallows and Amazons - A River and Rain Forest Tour Company, he told the students about his travels and the value of ecotourism.

He teaches those who take his tours about the importance of the rainforest and its people and why they matter. Because it's only through education that people learn to care, he said, and it's that caring that translates into action.

"If we destroy the rainforests, we are destroying ourselves," Aitchison said, explaining that the forest produces an enormous amount of oxygen. It also inhales an enormous amount of carbon dioxide and helps keep the earth in balance.

But the forest is under siege, he said. It's common to see two enormous tractors, linked by a 100-yard chain, drive through the Amazon rainforest knocking down everything in their path. Loggers will then remove three mahogany trees from the mayhem.

Student Kate Probolus grasped the concept.

"Every minute [the equivalent of] 20 football fields are being destroyed," she said.

Aitchison said that part of the role of "world citizens" is to foster discussions between groups so this type of destruction doesn't happen.

He said that since the students are the future they will be pivotal in protecting endangered places. Those at the charter school are already well on their way to understanding the perils that the Amazon and its people face. The students even had a few ideas for eco-tourism operators, such as instead of clearing rainforests to build hotels, tourists should be encouraged to stay with local families.

Student Rachel Lake spoke for the Quichua, one of the indigenous groups in the Amazon, which spans nine countries.

"We really have been victims," she said. "We are losing our ways ... and (we are) a really big piece of the history of the planet."

But although the students have a sense of world politics that belies their years, it doesn't mean they didn't morph back into sixth-graders when Aitchison's 10-foot anaconda skin was unrolled.

Anacondas aren't the only animal that Aitchison has been up close and personal with. He told the students about his run-in with a piranha that ate half his big toe, and how a jaguar wandered 3 feet from him when he was sleeping on a beach. He also spoke about the Amazon River's pink dolphins, which are blind because the water is so dark with silt, and they rely on other senses to survive.

The bulk of his tours take place on riverboats with occasional treks into the forest. He said the jungle is so dense that people become claustrophobic after a couple of hours, so trips that take days are not advisable.