This book includes a foreword by Sting, plus an introduction and endorsements by Sir Ghillean Prance, the British botanist and ecologist, and John Hemming, the historian and explorer and expert on Incas and indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin.
Sue Cunningham's photography has been published all over the world. She has exhibited in the UK, Switzerland, Brazil, USA and Japan. The heart of the Amazon is inaccessible and inhospitable, and contact with the tribes is something rarely experienced by outsiders. This book was only made possible because of Sue Cunningham's relationship with the Xingu tribes, developed over the past 30 years. The book highlights the resilience of the indigenous people against deforestation, dams and pollution.
Photojournalist Sue Cunningham and writer Patrick Cunningham celebrate cultural difference and call for better stewardship of the world. Sue's stunning photographs demonstrate the spiritual and material value of the Xingu tribes to all mankind; they keep the forest alive and they protect the climate of South America and the rest of the world. Their spiritual connection to their environment and the wider Earth shows us an alternative way to connect to the natural richness of the planet, built on foundations completely different from those of global materialism.
During their expedition by boat, the authors followed the course of the Xingu river, a tributary of the Amazon, travelling 2500 km through the heart of Brazil. They visited 48 tribal villages in this remote part of the Amazon, accessible only by small plane or by negotiating the rapids of the Xingu. This is the story of the tribal communities they met; their daily lives, their connection to the land and to the rivers, the threats which pervade each day of their lives. It is also a validation of their importance to the rest of the world; why these small, remote and often secretive indigenous communities are so important to our own lives and to our shared planet. It is a celebration of their vibrant cultures, their rituals and their rites of passage, of cultures very different from each other, but with a shared spiritual basis which respects the trees, the rivers and the rain. And it is a call for the world to protect them, their lands and their forests and rivers from the destruction which our avaricious greed for natural resources drives ever closer and deeper into their realm.