View a gallery of images from the exhibition under 'multimedia' below

Amazon Footprints is a fundraising photographic exhibition by Merseyside photographer Colin McPherson which opens later this week. It shows life on Brazil’s Highway 163, a 1000-mile long dusty strip of road next to the mighty river Tapajós, which has become the frontline in the battle to save the Amazon rainforest from exploitation and destruction by loggers, cattle ranchers, soy farmers and multinational companies.

The photographs document the daily lives of people who live on or near the highway and whose way of life is changing as rapidly as the environment around them. Although some villages are offered protection from the destruction caused by deforestation in protected reserves, the seemingly irreversible process of transforming large areas of virgin forest into agricultural land for cattle and large-scale soy production means that everyone living in the forest can expect change and disruption.

The photographs will be shown for the first time at Elude in Liverpool and money raised from the show will go directly to a project to help a community of ‘riberinhos’ (river dwellers) to maintain their sustainable way of life. The aim is to raise the funds necessary for the purchase of a small boat for the schoolchildren of Nova Sociedade, a typical small village, situated on the banks of the Arapiuns, a tributary of the Tapajós in the lower Amazon. Around £1000 would enable a boat to be purchased and fitted out with an engine and enough fuel to run it for many months. To raise the necessary money, signed prints from the exhibition will be sold for special prices starting at £40.00 with prints also available for purchase online from www.colinmcpherson.co.uk.

Wirral-based Colin McPherson’s images in the Amazon Footprints exhibition were taken at the end of 2005. Commenting on the exhibition, Colin McPherson said: “I am delighted to be able to exhibit my photographs at Elude and have the opportunity to raise some much-needed money for a threatened community. As well as raising awareness about the threat to the environment in the Amazonian rainforest, I hope that exhibiting the photographs will give people an insight into the way of life of the people there.”

The exhibition will be viewable online and prints available to purchase from the 28th May at www.colinmcpherson.co.uk.

Amazon Footprints - a journey along Brazil’s Highway 163
Elude, 15 Porter Street, Liverpool L3 7BL,
May 28 – June 18 (Wed-Sat 6-10pm, Sun 1-11pm)

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