Posted by Leah Miñoza in Green Leaders, Green Opinions | 0 Comments
God’s steward: Father Edilberto Sena’s fight for the Amazon
On March 1, 2009, 60-something year old Brazilian priest Father Edilberto Sena went on TV to convince the British and European consumers to ‘eat less meat’ and to ‘tackle soya exporters’ while fighting off large multi- and trans- national corporations. Many wondered who Father Edilberto Sena was.
Protector of the Amazon
Father Sena is a Roman Catholic priest who has added defense of the Amazon to his already heavy pastoral load. He established the Amazon Defence Front to protect the forest against plans of the government to encourage development aggression – a kind of development that puts profits first over environmental and people concerns. He created the Front because he believes that Brazil’s government betrayed the Amazon and therefore did not keep their promise to the Brazilian population of protecting the forest.
Father Sena believes that the Amazon faces five main threats: agri-business chiefly from soya farmers, loggers, cattle ranchers; mineral companies; and the Brazilian federal government.
He has campaigned against the destruction of the Amazon for many years; and along with Greenpeace, Father Sena fights against multinationals like the American transnational grain trader Cargill. Father Sena has been trying to stop Cargill from using its new port located near the Amazon River since 2001. Cargill’s soya exporting activities help supply the dairy and meat industries of Holland, France, and Britain. Soya crops have replaced Brazil’s forests.
Faith in all his Work and in the People
Father Sena practices faith in all his work. A believer of liberation theology, he believes that doing God’s work on earth is mostly about fighting poverty and social injustice, rather than just praying. After going to the Amazon wilderness in the 1980s as the parish priest of an abandoned church serving a community of 20,000 people, Father Sena returned from a self-imposed exile and engaged in political activism again.
Father Sena has been running a Catholic rural radio station for nine years in Santarem, his hometown. Reaching around 500,000 people in the Amazon, the radio station draws attention to his campaigns.
Father Edilberto Sena’s philosophy is this: “I am a human being and see what is happening there, and I am a native Amazonian, so I can’t cross my arms and close my eyes.”
He believes that armies of small ants joined together can break down what seem impossibly large structures. Father Sena believes that the collective unity and action of the Brazilian people will be the decisive factor in the protection of the Amazon.
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