The Forest Knows, Life In The Amazon

Il fotografo Nicoló Lanfranchi racconta la storia straordinaria del popolo Asháninka in Amazzonia

The Forest Knows is a photographic project by Nicoló Lanfranchi that tells the extraordinary story of the Asháninka people, inhabitants of the village of Apiwtxa, located in the Acre region of the Amazon (Brazil). At the centre of this visual tale is the figure of Benki Piyãko, a shaman and environmental activist, who together with his brothers led an incredible forest reforestation project, planting millions of trees and regenerating territories once devastated by deforestation.

The Apiwtxa community has been threatened by colonisers, rubber plantation workers, and now, loggers. When loggers attempted to enter the Amazon forest, the land of the Apiwtxa people, members of the Apiwtxa community used various non-violent tactics to stop the loggers, including forming a human barrier to physically stop the tractors from entering. NGOs also helped to report these loggers to the authorities. However, the Peruvian government eventually authorised logging companies to cut down trees in the Amazon rainforest.