The crossing

Michel Heitzmann

I have seen the boto surface beside the boat. I have watched a jacaré hold perfectly still for twenty minutes. A toucan sat close enough to fill the frame. A squirrel monkey crossed my lens.

None of that is as remarkable as the snake.

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© Michel Heitzmann - Rio Negro crossing

Canon EOS R6m2 RF70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM

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It was early morning on the Rio Negro, near Novo Airão. We were aboard a small skiff, heading to a village. The guide was explaining how every plant around has a purpose. The forest is the medicine cabinet.

He cut the engine and stopped talking.

I didn’t see why at first. The water was flat and grey, the light still thin. Then he pointed at the river. I looked for a long time before I found it. A snake, crossing the Rio Negro. Alone. Moving in a straight line toward a bank so distant that the trek seemed improbable.

We watched in silence.

I don’t know what species it was. I’d like to imagine it made it.

I went to the Amazon because I wanted to see what we are screwing up.

Conservation has been built around the things we find worth saving. Things with faces. Things that photograph well. Things that fill a frame. The panda. The polar bear. The toucan. The jacaré. But what about the things we do not see, or that cause revulsion?

The snake crossing the Rio Negro had none of that. No campaign. No charisma. Nothing to offer except the fact of its crossing. One small life moving across something enormous, in a straight line, shunning attention. Surviving.

If we only protect what we find beautiful, we are not protecting anything. We are curating.

What else are we not seeing?