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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Dan Collyns in Wanderland

The Mennonites being accused of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon

Mennonite men in Wanderland, Loreto region, in the Peruvian Amazon.
Mennonite men in Wanderland, Loreto region, in the Peruvian Amazon. Photograph: Dan Collyns/The Guardian

Were it not for the ebullient fecundity of the Amazon rainforest surrounding it, Wanderland could almost be a stretch of Dutch farmland from the 19th century; a straight muddy track bisects rows of neatly spaced farmyards with perpendicular houses and barns.

A typical morning begins as horse-drawn buggies driven by smiling blond-haired, blue-eyed boys collect shiny churns of fresh milk from farm gates to be made into cheese. The name given to this pastoral idyll carved out of thick foliage of the jungle seems to need little translation, even from Plautdietsch, the mixture of Low German and Dutch spoken by its inhabitants.

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