PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru (AP) - Pope Francis traveled deep into the Amazon rainforest Friday to demand an end to the relentless exploitation of its timber, gas and gold and recognition of its indigenous people as the primary custodians to determine the future of "our common home."
Speaking to a coliseum filled with indigenous men, women and children, many of whom were bare-chested and wearing brightly-colored headdresses, Francis declared the Amazon the "heart of the church" and called for a three-fold defense of its life, land and cultures.
Francis warned indigenous people are now more threatened than ever before, and said it was "essential" for governments and other institutions to consider tribes as legitimate partners when negotiating development and conservation projects. History's first Latin American pope said their rights, cultures, languages and traditions must be respected and recovered.
"You are a living memory of the mission that God has entrusted to us all: the protection of our common home," the pope said to applause, wailing horns and beating drums from the crowd.
"Papa Francisco!" people chanted later. "The jungle is with you!"
After his speech, an indigenous man in a wheelchair who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by police during a protest placed a headdress of red and yellow feathers on the pope's head and a necklace of native beads around his neck.
Thousands of indigenous men, women and children traveled through the jungle by boat, on foot and in buses and cars to reach Puerto Maldonado, the steamy gateway to the Peruvian Amazon, to participate in what they hoped would be a turning point for the increasingly threatened ecosystem. Though many didn't quite know why Francis was coming, others saw in him a bridge with Peru's government to resolve long-standing issues like land rights.
"His desire to be with us signals an historic reconciliation with the Amazon's indigenous communities," said Edwin Vasquez, an indigenous leader. "We consider it a good step forward."
Francis' trip to the Amazon comes as the expansion of illegal gold mining and farming as well as new roads and dams have turned thousands of acres of once lush green forest into barren, contaminated wasteland. Francis previously called on world leaders to protect the Amazon, likening it to one of the "lungs of our planet."
He is also using the trip to set the stage for a big church meeting next year on the Amazon and the native people who reside there.
Before Francis' speech, Hector Sueyo, a member of the indigenous Harakbut people, told the pontiff native people are worried about the Amazon as they watch trees disappear, fish die and rivers become contaminated.
"The sky is angry and is crying because we are destroying the planet," he said.
The pontiff's warm reception in Puerto Maldonado, where he was greeted by singing children and people who ran alongside his motorcade with Vatican-colored yellow and white balloons, was a stark contrast to the pope's visit to Chile earlier in the week, where his visit provoked protests and drew smaller crowds to greet him.
In another meeting Friday, Francis denounced the sexual enslavement of women who are trafficked and forced into prostitution, saying the region's "machismo" culture cannot continue. Many women work as prostitutes in the Amazon's bars, servicing clients who often work in gold mines and other extraction industries that are polluting the Amazon's rivers, destroying its forests and upsetting its delicate ecosystem.
Francis denounced the "false gods" of the gold rush Friday, saying these "idols of avarice, money and power" corrupt people and institutions and ruin the forest.
The pope also made a reference to sterilization, a topic which still haunts many Peruvians. During the government of former President Alberto Fujimori, a health program officials said would help reduce poverty sterilized more than 300,000 women - many from poor indigenous communities. More than 2,000 women later complained they had been forcibly sterilized.
Fujimori was never charged, though he did end up behind bars for other crimes, including corruption and authorizing death squads during his rule. He was recently pardoned from a 25-year prison sentence, setting off protests around Peru.
Francis tucked the remarks into a footnote in his speech, perhaps knowing they would be politically sensitive in Peru. Francis in the past used footnotes as a way to make important but controversial points which, for whatever diplomatic or theological reason, couldn't be included in his official texts.
The most significant example was his opening to allowing civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, contained in footnote No. 351 of his 2016 document "Joy of Love." That one footnote has sparked more heated debate and criticism than anything Francis has said or done in his five years as pope.
The Amazon's native people hail from some 350 indigenous groups, some of whom live in voluntary isolation. In the centuries after Spanish colonization most traces of native spiritual beliefs were lost as missionaries converted indigenous Peruvians to Catholicism.