Antônio Sena, a Brazilian pilot working for wildcat miners, escaped death when his plane went down in a remote area. He walked through the jungle for 36 days before being rescued.
He fended off attacks from highly territorial spider monkeys, which proved to be a godsend. After watching them eat a pink fruit called breu, Mr. Sena assumed it was safe for human consumption, and it became his main source of sustenance. Besides that, he ate three small blue eggs from inambu birds, and little else.
His story has been a rare piece of uplifting news for a nation hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis. But it has also put a spotlight on Brazil’s illegal mining industry, which has flourished in recent decades in Indigenous territories and other parts of the Amazon that are supposed to be sanctuaries.
ARTS AND IDEAS
How The Times covers mass shootings
After a year without a large-scale shooting in a public place, the U.S. recorded two within six days. An armed man killed eight people, including six of Asian descent, in the Atlanta area on March 16, and 10 people were killed last Monday in Boulder, Colo.
Marc Lacey, an editor who manages The Times’s live news coverage, shared the organization’s approach in handling sensitive information. Here’s an excerpt.
What are the areas of special sensitivity when dealing with victims’ families?
We want to give readers a sense of the human tragedy of the event, so that means calling up loved ones of that person. Making that phone call is never pleasant, but it’s remarkable how often relatives are eager to talk about their loved one and give the public a sense of who that person was after they died in such tragic circumstances. On the other hand, understand that the person is full of grief and may not want to talk to you.
What is something you have learned in your many years of covering mass shootings?
We should not cover a particular mass shooting as though it’s a singular event. We should cover it as part of an American phenomenon that occurs with regularity, and we should try to understand why there are so many of these shootings occurring.
