The present crisis is destroying the horizon of hope for much of humanity, particularly for the young. There is a vacuum of dreams and of causes which are capable of mobilizing people. Miguel d’Escoto, President of the UN General Assembly, recently said, following J. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate of economics: «The legacy of this crisis will be a battle of global dimensions about ideas, or to put it better, about which dream is the best for humanity and for the Earth.»

Things generally start from below, from something that appears insignificant but which is headed in the right direction, and carries the potentialities of the new. These were the thoughts that came to mind when I took part of the 12th Inter-Faith Encounter of Faith Based Communities in Porto Velho, Rondonia, Brazil, in mid-July. More than three thousand people, representing more than a hundred thousand communities, came from every corner of Brazil.  For three years, with good help, they had prepared themselves, studying the social and ecologic problems of the Amazon. Thus the theme was formulated: «From the Womb of the Earth, the cry that comes from the Amazon.»

I took part in group sessions and the plenary. I was entranced by the level of consciousness about local and global ecological questions, global warming and the tragedy that can befall all of humanity if we do not change our ways. What worried them most was the impact of the great projects planned for the Amazon: more than 50 hydroelectric, mining enterprises, iron and steel works and the opening of highways. They were indignant at the advance of agribusiness and industrial agriculture in the Amazon jungle and closed areas. Curiously, they understood that such macro-projects are within the logic of the backwards model of growth, imposed from above, with no dialogue with local indigenous populations, the siringueros, riberenos, palenqueros (descendants of freed-slaves) and others. They resist, block roads, surround workplaces to force the directors into dialogue. They know such projects will be carried out regardless, but want to show that they can be done differently, by seeking alternatives that are less damaging to nature.

The five cries that burst into the Amazon were analyzed in detail: the cry of the original peoples, forced to relocate and to lose their lands, their traditions and cultures; the cry of the Earth, illegally taken over and devastated for gain and profit; the cry of the waters, often polluted by the mercury of open mining, that kills fish and deprives the peoples who live by the rivers of subsistence; the cry of the devastated jungles. To them it was clear that the problem is not that the soil is poor, but with what lives above it; the plants, the animals, the millions of insects, in fact, the biodiversity. The calling of the Amazon is not to become a land for soybeans, sugar cane or cattle, but to maintain herself intact, so as to be able to guarantee the equilibrium of the world's weather systems, to assure humidity to distant regions reached by the "flying rivers" that arise from the jungles, because every large tree sends nearly 300 liters of water daily into the atmosphere, in the form of humidity; and the cry of the cities, 40% of which are without drinking water, and 80% without sewer systems.

Clear conclusions were reached: the CEBs should not be only faith-based communities but also ecology-based communities, something that is already present in their CEBs acronym. Forestania must be assumed, this is, how to be citizens of the preserved forests, and support popular movements and political parties linked to social transformation.

In those four days the African words spoken by Don Moacyr Grechi, the extraordinary Bishop of the jungle, resounded everywhere: «simple people, doing small things in unimportant places, united, can make extraordinary things happen.» And the people of the CEBs are making miracles. Here there is a path, and the seeds of the future for humanity.

God does not plant trees, the Bishop said, God plants seeds. Among them are the CEBs: the seeds of the new.

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian, Earthcharter Commission

(Free translation from the Spanish by, Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas)