In 1955, Claude Lévi-Strauss published his classic “Sad Tropics”. His reflections on Brazil, forests and the smell of burning form this article’s literary starting point. The political retrospective below concerns the fires of 2019 and describes neither a current government nor current fire conditions. The sentence about people and forests is a theme here, not a verified verbatim double quotation from the book.
In 2019, extensive areas burned in Brazil and Bolivia. Not all affected areas were Amazon rainforest; other forest and landscape types also burned. The figure of about 10,000 km² previously given here, without a clear date and geographic scope, is not a reliable current value. It cannot establish a blanket record “for decades” across the whole Amazon basin.
Latin America often seems distant to European readers, although environmental changes cross borders. In the media comparison at the time, Brazil received more attention than Bolivia. European immigration is only one part of Brazil’s history; indigenous and Afro-Brazilian perspectives also belong to this diverse country.
In the political context of 2019, the then Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, often called the “Trump of the Tropics”, faced international criticism. The original article referred to his accusations against environmentalists and support for agricultural interests. That controversy must be distinguished from established causes of individual fires and today’s political situation.
Burning to clear land and converting forests into pasture are important themes in the debate about cattle farming and meat exports. However, not every satellite signal denotes the same fire, the same area or exclusively Amazon forest. The figure of about 72,000 fires cited at the time must not be read as a current Amazon total without a time period, measurement method and geographic scope. Ecosystem damage is also not described solely by counting fire locations.
The French ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote in 1955 in "Sad Tropics": "In my imagination, Brazil was a sheaf of bent palm branches, behind which bizarre architecture was hidden. The whole thing was enveloped in the smell of incense burners, a detail that, it seemed, crept in through the unconsciously perceived similarity of the words 'Brésil' (Brazil) and 'grésiller' (crackling), but which explains more than any other experience gained since then why even today, when I hear the word Brazil, the first thing I think of is the smell of burning."
Lévi-Strauss was already living in Brazil in the 1930s. He taught at the University of São Paulo as part of a French university mission. The Brazilian university was not simply founded by the French; international teaching staff contributed to its development. His travels brought him into contact with indigenous communities. These must not be described wholesale as untouched by colonialism or as “primitive peoples” without history.
His encounters in Brazil shaped his later ethnological and literary work. His concern about the destruction of cultural diversity should be read as a historical reflection. It does not establish a natural law that indigenous societies must inevitably disappear; they are also communities shaping the present.
"The world began without man and it will end without him," writes Lévi-Strauss. Man would never have existed without forests. In the West, man sacrificed the forest long ago for progress, culture and order.
“Sad Tropics” combines travel memoir, essay, literary description and ethnological reflection. The French title “Tristes Tropiques” brings sadness and the tropics together; the previous claim that “Tropiques” itself means literary irritation has no linguistic basis. The work can also be interpreted as criticism of longing for untouched origins and the supposed permanence of our civilisation.
Among the burned areas of the Amazon, archaeologists often find remnants of ancient civilizations whose civilizations collapsed and whose traces were once again overgrown by tropical forests. In Lévi-Strauss's "Sad Tropics," the Amazon is also both: beginning and end.
In 2019, extensive areas burned in Brazil and Bolivia. Not all affected areas were Amazon rainforest; other forest and landscape types also burned. The figure of about 10,000 km² previously given here, without a clear date and geographic scope, is not a reliable current value. It cannot establish a blanket record “for decades” across the whole Amazon basin.
Latin America often seems distant to European readers, although environmental changes cross borders. In the media comparison at the time, Brazil received more attention than Bolivia. European immigration is only one part of Brazil’s history; indigenous and Afro-Brazilian perspectives also belong to this diverse country.
In the political context of 2019, the then Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, often called the “Trump of the Tropics”, faced international criticism. The original article referred to his accusations against environmentalists and support for agricultural interests. That controversy must be distinguished from established causes of individual fires and today’s political situation.
Burning to clear land and converting forests into pasture are important themes in the debate about cattle farming and meat exports. However, not every satellite signal denotes the same fire, the same area or exclusively Amazon forest. The figure of about 72,000 fires cited at the time must not be read as a current Amazon total without a time period, measurement method and geographic scope. Ecosystem damage is also not described solely by counting fire locations.
The French ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote in 1955 in "Sad Tropics": "In my imagination, Brazil was a sheaf of bent palm branches, behind which bizarre architecture was hidden. The whole thing was enveloped in the smell of incense burners, a detail that, it seemed, crept in through the unconsciously perceived similarity of the words 'Brésil' (Brazil) and 'grésiller' (crackling), but which explains more than any other experience gained since then why even today, when I hear the word Brazil, the first thing I think of is the smell of burning."
Lévi-Strauss was already living in Brazil in the 1930s. He taught at the University of São Paulo as part of a French university mission. The Brazilian university was not simply founded by the French; international teaching staff contributed to its development. His travels brought him into contact with indigenous communities. These must not be described wholesale as untouched by colonialism or as “primitive peoples” without history.
His encounters in Brazil shaped his later ethnological and literary work. His concern about the destruction of cultural diversity should be read as a historical reflection. It does not establish a natural law that indigenous societies must inevitably disappear; they are also communities shaping the present.
"The world began without man and it will end without him," writes Lévi-Strauss. Man would never have existed without forests. In the West, man sacrificed the forest long ago for progress, culture and order.
“Sad Tropics” combines travel memoir, essay, literary description and ethnological reflection. The French title “Tristes Tropiques” brings sadness and the tropics together; the previous claim that “Tropiques” itself means literary irritation has no linguistic basis. The work can also be interpreted as criticism of longing for untouched origins and the supposed permanence of our civilisation.
Among the burned areas of the Amazon, archaeologists often find remnants of ancient civilizations whose civilizations collapsed and whose traces were once again overgrown by tropical forests. In Lévi-Strauss's "Sad Tropics," the Amazon is also both: beginning and end.
Sources: NASA: Brazil 2019; NASA: Bolivia 2019; USP; Collège de France.
