Excerpt from news.mongabay.com
COMBU ISLAND, Brazil — Brazilian poet and songwriter Ruy Barata, born in 1920 in Santarém, in Brazil’s Amazonian state of Pará, once wrote ballads that captured the essence of ribeirinhos, the riverside people across the country. “This river is my street. Mine and yours, mururé,” he wrote, in lyrics that elegantly celebrate the traditions of communities living along riverbanks in the Amazon — a region where peoples, forests and rivers coexist in peace. Local inhabitants use the word mururé to designate several species of aquatic plants that can be easily seen in waterways throughout this part of Brazil.