Gold miner turned nature guide

Once he despoiled nature; now the forest provides his living

By Roger Hamilton

Machete in hand, the guide hurries to take the lead on the path that goes through alternating stands of bamboo and vine-festooned trees. He always goes first, he says, so that he can check under fallen tree trunks for snakes.

Francisco Carvalho Souza can do it all. He can coax a tiny wren out of the underbrush by recording its call and playing it back. He can take his client to a mineral lick to view an enormous tapir. Then, back at the lodge, he can mix a first-rate caipirinha, with just the right amount of mashed lemons and sugar.

Some guides have impressive academic credentials. But others, such as Souza, must rely only on their love for nature, a respect for people, and their own initiative.

Souza's life story encapsulates many of the complexities of life in Brazil's vast interior. He was born and raised in the hardscrabble state of Piauí, where his father instilled in him an appreciation for the natural world. He recalls learning about medicinal plants. He also remembers when his father would catch marauding jaguars in homemade wooden traps, and turn them over to the authorities for relocation. “My father always put a high value on nature,” he recalls.

At age 18, after completing eight years of school, Souza left home to seek his fortune in the Amazonian state of Pará. There he maintained machinery for a Japanese mining company. He also found time to take a course in jungle survival and plant identification, thinking it might be useful in the future.

Soon came the news of big gold strikes in the neighboring state of Mato Grosso. He and thousands of other garimpeiros converged on the rich ore deposits around present day Alta Floresta. He and seven companions used pressurized streams of water to dislodge ore deposits and extract the precious metal with mercury.

But he grew disillusioned. “Mining was not what I thought it would be,” he says. “The mines were places of violence, of drugs, alcohol, and prostitution. It was absurd to be in the company of people who would take the lives of others.”

Nor could he stomach the damage to the environment. “One thing that really caught my attention was the sickness, the malaria, and the yellow fever,” he says. He could personally see that the silt and mercury being dumped in the river destroyed aquatic life and ultimately sickened animals and people.

After about three years, Souza started having health problems himself. “I was always telling my companions that mining was not the future,” he says. “It never was, and never could be.”

Then he had an experience that changed his life. In the course of one of his illnesses, a botched injection left him paralyzed from the waist down. He despaired of ever walking again. A group of evangelical Christians heard of his plight and prayed for him. The prayers were answered, and Souza became a born-again Christian. Today he can discourse on the Bible with all the authority and conviction of a country preacher.

Back on his feet, Souza took a job at the Alta Floresta airport, again doing machinery maintenance. There he met a man who invited him to work on his family resort on an island in the river. The man’s wife, Vitória da Riva Carvalho (see A businesswoman with a mission), then offered him a job at an ecotourism lodge she was constructing on the nearby Cristalino River.

The lodge soon began attracting scientists studying birds, butterflies, animals, and medicinal plants. Professional guides brought parties of tourists. Souza’s job was to do whatever the visitors needed getting done. I would get up very early, work into the night, climb a tree, whatever they wanted,” he says.

While he was working he was learning. “It was informal training, but with the highest authorities.”

Today, Souza guides clients on his own. “I don't consider myself to be a professional,” he says modestly. “But the little I have learned I can pass on to other people.”

He feels at home with the ecolodge’s rules: Recyle everything—fruit peels in one can, paper in another, batteries in another. No smoking on the trails, to prevent littering from cigarette butts. All water is treated: “Absolutely no waste from the lodge goes into the river,” he says.

He has his own personal rules also. “The first principle is respect the client. That I learned from my parents. The second principle is to satisfy the client’s wishes. This I learned here at the lodge.”

“I always knew I wanted to work in nature,” he says. “Now I have a future I never had as a garimpeiro.”