Environmental activist Arteval Duarte has been raising awareness for deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by carrying out stunts with poisonous, dangerous reptiles. His most recent stunt shows Duarte climbing into a small box and kneeling onto a floor of broken glass. A second man handcuffs Duarte’s hands behind his back and places a live snake in the box with him. The man proceeds to close the box and suspend it in the air with heavy chains. Finally, he lights the box on fire which is quickly engulfed in flames.
Much to his viewers’ relief, the man extinguishes the fire and opens the box, only to find Duarte with the snake wrapped around his neck and its head between his teeth.
Duarte has worked with dangerous animals for over 15 years, and his stunts are an effort to attract attention and get 
people talking about the Amazon Rainforest. In another video, Duarte carefully places two vampire bats inside of his mouth. In the video (skip to :42 unless you speak Portuguese), you see him place the bats on his tongue one at a time for a moment, without fully closing his lips so as not to crush them. In an instant, the first bat emerges and flies off, but the second one slowly crawls out and hangs himself from the edge of Duarte’s facial hair before quickly following the former.
This is not Duarte’s first stunt. Earlier this year, Arteval attempted to bring attention to the Amazonian rainforest by holding snakes in his mouth. Yes, you’ve read that correctly, snakes. If that wasn’t a questionable choice as it is, he was doing this while walking over broken glass.
Duarte has put three tarantulas in his mouth simultaneously, a poisonous frog and a venomous snake, scorpions and centipedes, and you guessed it, more snakes. You can see all of his videos (they’re in Portuguese but the footage speaks for itself) on his Youtube channel.
But his acts have not gone unnoticed and his message is not lost. Duarte has been working with reptiles and dangerous animals for over 15 years in Brazil and has been carrying out these wild acts in an ongoing demonstration.
Let’s Talk About the Amazon Rainforest
Brazil has the majority of the Amazonian rainforest (about 4.7 million hectares), but heavy deforestation due to illegal logging, cattle raising, soybean production and fires have cut the rainforest down by about 87% of its original glory. Deforestation accelerated rapidly from 1991 to 2003, due to major commercial enterprise and little political action, though has been slowly declining in recent years. Brazil has recently come up with a policy through the Amazon Fund called REDD+ – reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (plus related pro-forest activities) – that basically works as a monetary incentive to countries who follow them.
Why You Should Care about the Amazon
Trees are carbon sponges, creating fresh O2 so we’re not stuck with C02. While the majority of earth’s oxygen is made up from algae in our oceans, a single tree can produce about 260 lbs of oxygen a year. The Amazon is currently made up of over 390 billion trees; that’s a lot of quality 02.
A recent NASA study discovered that the Amazon consumes more C02 than it produces, helping to reduce global warming.
More than half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in this rainforest, 25% of which make up the world’s supply of plant-based medicine. Additionally, 20% of the entire world’s fresh water is in the Amazon Basin, according to The Rainforest Foundation.
If the entire Amazon rainforest was destroyed, life on Earth is at risk. Our rainforests help keep this planet habitable!
Watch the video below to see Duarte’s daring stunt to raise awareness:
What You Can Do to Help
While not everyone has money to donate, time to volunteer, or political leverage, you can always practice conscious buying. Illegal loggers only supply when there is a demand, and the illegal fishermen only fish when you’re looking to fill your aquarium. Be conscious of your power as a consumer today to keep the planet safe for tomorrow.
Kudos to Arteval Duarte for prompting today’s discussion on the Amazon Rainforest! Please share this news and comment your thoughts below!
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