In the Amazon

I WANTED to thank Reed Johnson for his piece on Lucio Flavio Pinto [“On the Beat in the Amazon,” May 18]. It was very informative on a subject near to my heart: the conflicts of native peoples against money and politics in the wilderness areas of Brazil. It’s a subject as far-reaching as Brazil’s geography, and Johnson summed Pinto’s view of the challenge well as “Enabling humans to learn ‘how to use’ the Amazon ‘without destroying it.’ ”

James Traynor

Oxnard