Rainforest Sentinels

“The spirits of their dead inhabit the giant trees. To cut down these trees would be to kill the vessel that harbors the souls of ancestors”. Christopher Achobang, Cameroonian environmentalist

Rainforest dwellers see things in the forest we do not. The forest speaks to them. Its odors reveal a hidden presence, bird calls can contain subtle but clear warnings if you understand the language, a sudden breeze under the canopy may foreshadow a coming storm, mud tunnels of termites snaking up the trunk of a forest giant foretell the danger of collapse and deep silence can signal the proximity to a tiger. Forest hunters redefine stillness, hardly a breath, nothing but eyes moving, patiently watching, listening.

This series explores concealed histories, unseen events in equatorial rainforests from three continents - their mysticism and hard reality. Now, to a person, the cultural identities of the Rainforest Sentinels represented in this collection are as threatened as their ancestral rainforest homelands, by corrupt, unregulated resource extraction, feeding our global consumer appetite.

Image 1: ©James Whitlow Delano, Rainforest Guardian, Kuala Koh, Malaysia, Som, a Batek woman, fresh-picked flowers from the rainforest in her hair, emerges from the buttressed roots of an old growth rainforest tree. Image 2: ©James Whitlow Delano, Madonna of Djumu, Suriname, Saamaka Maroon mother with her newborn child embraced by the branches of a Kan-Kan tree, sacred to the Saamaka Maroon people. Djumu, Boven Suriname.