Rediscovering Amazonia in a project of the Unesco: the International Institute of the Amazonian Hylea

• Autor(a) principal: Domingues, Heloisa M. Bertol
• Data de Publicação: 2000
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Estudos Históricos (Rio de Janeiro)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/reh/article/view/2119
• topic: UNESCO

This paper deals with one of the first projects of the Unesco, which was created in the context of the conciliation of the nations in the immediate post-Second World War. In this sense, the IIHA was analysed as a rediscovery of the Amazon value, considered of great political and scientific significance, representative of the wet tropical world. The analysis allowed to relate the idea of [re]discovery to that of colonization, that includes imperialism and political nationalism. The IIHA would join the South American countries whose territories integrate the region, but disputes among them, an exacerbated nationalism that appeared in Brazil, and the changes in Unesco's political objectives ended up by undermining the project. In spite of reiterated attempts to legalize it, the IIHA, along with Unesco, was charged, on both sides, of imperialist. In its place, Brazil created the National Institute of Amazon Research (INPA) in the beginning of the 1950's.