"Last month, Survival released these extraordinary aerial photos of a group of about 100 uncontacted Yanomami. Funding cuts and other plans could leave groups like this extremely vulnerable."

© Guilherme Gnipper Trevisan/FUNAI/Hutukara

The Brazilian government plans to cut funding to the department protecting uncontacted tribes’ territories from loggers and miners – raising fears of the possible annihilation of people like the uncontacted Yanomami pictured above in the widely shared new photos.

The country’s indigenous affairs department– already chronically under-funded – faces further cuts as the government which came to power in April following the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff looks to reduce public spending.

Around 5,000 illegal gold miners are thought to be in the Yanomami territory. Their activities have spread malaria, and polluted the rivers with mercury.

Indigenous protests against federal budget changes in Brasilia, Brazil

© Agência Brasil

Indigenous Brazilians have been protesting in the capital Brasilia against the cuts.

Ninawa Kaxinawa told Survival: “We indigenous people are against these plans. They are very dangerous for us, and especially for uncontacted Indians. They are already living with the constant threat of loggers, miners and other invaders. They are human beings just like any others and they have the right to live as they choose."

An Awá spokesman, Amiri Awá, told the Brazilian organization CIMI: “We don’t want them to close down the Awá Guajá protection team. We want FUNAI, together with the Awá, to continue protecting our territory and our uncontacted relatives."

Yanomami leader and shaman Davi Kopenawa told Survival: “FUNAI exists to protect indigenous peoples. If President Temer cuts FUNAI’s funding, it will kill us.”

There are estimated to be more than 100 uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, most of them in Brazil. Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Most live in small groups like those seen in the attached images, and could be wiped out by violence from outsiders or diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

FUNAI agents on a patrol, Brazil

© FUNAI

Background briefing
- FUNAI is charged with protecting Brazilian tribal territories. There are twelve special teams responsible for protecting uncontacted tribes’ land, patrolling remote areas of the Amazon to monitor for invaders.
- The Yanomami indigenous reserve in northern Brazil is home to over 22,000 Yanomami people. At least three groups of them are uncontacted. The reserve is monitored by a single FUNAI ground team which urgently needs government support to protect the tribe.
- The total Yanomami population, including Yanomami in Venezuela, is around 35,000.
- Brazilians are calling the new budget proposal (constitutional amendment PEC 241/55) the “PEC of Death.” It aims to freeze the government’s spending on FUNAI, education, health care and more for twenty years. On top of this, FUNAI faces funding reductions in the 2017 annual budget which is due to be approved by Congress. 
- The FUNAI budget planned for 2017 is equivalent to that approved 14 years ago – far lower than the total the department requires to protect tribal lands.
- Brazilian politicians are also debating a series of proposals which, if implemented, could prevent the creation of any new indigenous territories, and open up existing territories to economic exploitation. These plans include a proposal known as PEC 215.
- The Yanomami Indigenous territory was created in 1992 after years of campaigning by Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, Survival International, and the Pro-Yanomami Commission (CCPY).

© Guilherme Gnipper Trevisan/FUNAI/Hutukara

Uncontacted tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a remote past. They are our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity. Where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

Their knowledge is irreplaceable and has been developed over thousands of years. They are the best guardians of their environment. And evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation.

Survival International opposes attempts by outsiders to contact them. It’s always fatal and initiating contact must be their choice alone. Those who enter uncontacted tribes’ territories deny them that choice.

Survival’s global Uncontacted Tribes campaign is pushing Brazil to halt all cuts and freezes to FUNAI funding, and ensure that it has the resources it needs to allow Brazil’s indigenous peoples to survive.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The Brazilian government has to consider the potentially genocidal consequences of these budget cuts. It is vital that they continue to protect indigenous territories, or some of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet will be wiped out. All uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. We’re doing everything we can to secure their land for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.”

Bushmen celebrating their landmark legal victory in 2006. For ten years Botswana's government has refused to uphold the court ruling.

© Survival International

On this day 10 years ago , the Central Kalahari Bushmen won an unprecedented legal victory which today is still being flouted by the Botswana government.

Botswana’s High Court ruled that the Bushmen had been illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and had the right to return home. It also recognized that banning the Bushmen from hunting was unlawful. In the words of one judge, it is “tantamount to condemning [them] to death by starvation.”

Bushman spokesman Roy Sesana said outside the court: “Today is the happiest day for us Bushmen. We have been crying for so long, but today we are crying with happiness.”

The Bushmen have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia. Today they are accused of “poaching” because they hunt to feed their families.

© Forest Woodward / Survival, 2015

Ten years on, Botswana has imposed a country-wide hunting ban and promoted the shooting of “poachers” on sight. In August, a group of Bushmen who were hunting antelope to feed their families were shot at from a police helicopter.

In a situation that has been compared to apartheid South Africa, the government is also forcing the majority of Bushmen to apply for monthly permits to enter their land. Many Bushmen are concerned that, once the current generation has passed away, they will be shut out of their land forever.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today: “Ten years ago today there were celebrations in Botswana and around the world. The Bushmen and their supporters rejoiced as the country’s top judges refused to bow to pressure and ordered the government to overturn its brutal policies. General Khama’s government has tried to brush aside this momentous ruling ever since, and anyone who cares about human rights or democracy should be appalled. Land theft is a serious and deadly crime and Survival will continue to support the Bushmen in their fight for justice.”

Ndoye, a Baka woman from Cameroon. Five people are reported to have died in her community alone at the hands of WWF-funded wildlife guards.

© Survival

In an unprecedented protest, 19 “Pygmy” communities in central Africa have denounced conservation projects on their land. Eleven of the communities have urged conservationists to stop funding the anti-poaching squads who have abused them.

The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) – two of the world’s biggest conservation organizations – have helped to create protected areas in the region from which tribal peoples have been illegally evicted.

The Baka and Bayaka “Pygmies” and their neighbors have endured years of violence, intimidation and abuse as a result of these conservation projects in Cameroon, the Congo, and the Central African Republic. But the organizations behind them, such as WWF and WCS, have failed to change their approach, and continue to fund the squads.

The Congo Basin tribes have lived sustainably in the forests of central Africa for generations.

© Selcen Kucukustel/Atlas

In one letter Baka said: ”How are we going to survive in this world? We say to those who are giving money to [the conservationists]: ’Do you want them to kill us?’ We no longer live well.”

Bayaka from the village of Socambo, said: “Despite the money that you provide to conserve the forest, we don’t benefit at all. Our ancestors lived perfectly well in this forest… Please think of us poor indigenous people who use our forest. We are fed up with how the project has cut us off from the forest.”

Bayaka from Mossapoula said: “We … are suffering a lot because of conservation. The guards threaten us, beat us, steal from us, even outside the park. And yet we have the right to enter the park. We ask you to come to Mossapoula before continuing your funding in order to hear our problems and seek our consent.”

Saki, a Bayaka woman whose husband was found murdered in the forest. From evidence at the scene, the family is convinced that he was killed by wildlife guards.

© Survival

The Bakwele chief of Ndongo said: “WWF has been coming here since 1996. We used to be very happy. But now we find ourselves marginalized and tormented in every way… We here are now only living on rice, really. Sir, your agents are very, very aggressive and we don’t want them to come here any more.

“In short, to those funders: if you have any projects, come to the field yourselves. I repeat: your agents are not here for work but for corruption. The guards have become the real poachers. They no longer respect the park limits. We no longer have access to the park.”

“Pygmies” face harassment and beatings, torture and even death while big game trophy-hunting tourists are encouraged. Tribal peoples are illegally evicted from large parts of their ancestral land and forced to live on roadsides where poverty and disease are rife. They have faced violence and plummeting health standards in the name of conservation – while WWF and WCS partner with logging companies like Rougier, CIB and SINFOCAM.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “As these powerful statements from “Pygmies” show, conservation projects are proving deadly for tribal peoples in the Congo Basin. As they see it, WWF and WCS have taken their land, ignored their rights, and continue to fund those abusing them. WWF and WCS have turned natural allies of conservation into its victims. The big conservation organisations really must start listening to these tribal peoples.”

Cameroonian wildlife guard Mpaé Désiré, who in 2015 was accused of beating Baka and in 2016 was arrested for involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.

© Facebook

Background briefing
- WWF has been active in the Congo Basin for decades. Survival first raised concerns over its proposed projects in 1991.
- The region is home to dense rainforests and several iconic species, including the giant pangolin, lowland gorilla and forest elephant. Tribal peoples like the Baka and Bayaka have been dependent on and managed this environment for generations.
- According to European Union reports, no logging activity in Cameroon is being carried out lawfully. Despite this, WWF has entered into partnerships with several companies who are active in the region.
- WWF cites the need to protect wildlife from poachers as the justification for funding, training and equipping wildlife guards. However, several of these guards have themselves been involved in the illegal wildlife trade. Earlier this year, for example, one guard, Mpaé Desiré was arrested for involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.
- A Baka man told Survival: “Guards used to open tins of sardines and leave them as bait to attract leopards, so they could hunt them for their skins." Rainforest tribes have unparalleled knowledge of their environment, but WWF has instead put its faith in armed guards and corrupt officials.

Tribal peoples have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia. Their lands are not wilderness. Evidence proves that tribal peoples are better at looking after their environment than anyone else. They are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world. They should be at the forefront of the environmental movement.

But tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation. The big conservation organizations are guilty of supporting this. They never speak out against evictions.

The big conservation organizations are partnering with industry and tourism and destroying the environment’s best allies.

Mursi in Lower Omo Valley village of Mursi Hanna on market day, Ethiopia.

© Greg Lupe/Survival

One of the most controversial dams in history is to be inaugurated today. The Gibe III dam has put an end to the natural flooding of Ethiopia’s Omo River, on which 100,000 indigenous people depend and a further 100,000 rely indirectly.

Experts have warned that this could also mean the end for Lake Turkana in Kenya – the world’s largest desert lake – and disaster for the 300,000 tribespeople living along its shores.

The dam was built by Italian engineering giant Salini Impregilo, against which Survival has filed a formal complaint that is still ongoing. Plans are now underway to build the Gibe IV and Gibe V dams downriver.

Experts warned that artificial floods were untested, offered little security and were unlikely to be released due to high costs.

© Greg Lupe/Survival

The Ethiopian government and Salini claimed that artificial floods would replace the natural floods, but for the past two years the authorities have failed to release enough water to sustain people’s livelihoods.

Many are now reliant on food aid, which has not been delivered regularly or in sufficient quantities. One witness told a board member of International Rivers in November: “The river does not provide for us anymore. My people are facing a big problem. The aid isn’t enough to live on.

“The river continues to go down. The crocodiles are still in the river, but having problems. The fish are having trouble laying their eggs. Less and less fish each year.”

Kara women, Lower Omo Valley.

© Eric Lafforgue/Survival

The region is one of the most important sites in early human evolution, and an area of exceptional biodiversity, with two World Heritage Sites and five national parks. The head of Kenya’s national conservation agency said in March that the dam was unleashing “one of the worst environmental disasters you can imagine.”

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today: “What is really being inaugurated today? Mounting hunger, insecurity and environmental destruction. For years experts urged the government and Salini to take caution – but they paid no heed. They may try to frame the ensuing famine as a natural disaster but this misery is of their own making.”

Rosa Andrade was the last female speaker of the Resígaro language

© Alberto Chirif

The last female speaker of the Resígaro language has been murdered in Peru. Her body was found decapitated at her home in the Amazon rainforest.

Rosa Andrade, 67, lived with the Ocaina tribe. Her father was Ocaina and her mother Resígaro.

The Ocaina and Resígaro tribes were victims of the rubber boom, which began at the end of the nineteenth century. Tens of thousands of Indians were enslaved by rubber barons intent on extracting rubber in the Amazon. Many indigenous people died from sheer exhaustion, or were killed by violence and diseases like flu and measles to which they had no immunity.

The Resígaro tribe was eventually wiped out, and Rosa and her brother became the last remaining speakers of the language.

Rosa was also one of the last speakers of Ocaina and was regarded as a pillar of her community. She knew a wide repertoire of songs and stories in both languages and had recently been designated, by the government, to teach children Ocaina

Five thousand of the world’s six thousand languages are indigenous, and it is estimated that an indigenous language dies once every two weeks.

There are over a hundred uncontacted tribes worldwide, and their languages are the most endangered. Survival International is campaigning for the lands of uncontacted tribes to be protected, for where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

Rosa’s community suspects that an outsider, known for violent behavior, is responsible for the murder. However, the local prosecutor has declared that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute. The community is calling for a serious investigation to take place to find the culprit.

This Baka girl was tortured by a WWF-funded anti-poaching squad in Cameroon early 2016. She was 10 years old at the time.

© Survival International

In an unprecedented move, a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has agreed to investigate a complaint that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has funded human rights abuses in Cameroon, beginning a process which until now has only been used for multinational businesses.

Survival submitted the complaint in February 2016, citing numerous examples of violent abuse and harassment against Baka “Pygmies” in Cameroon by WWF-funded anti-poaching squads. Survival also alleges that WWF failed to seek communities’ free, prior and informed consent for conservation projects on their ancestral land.

This is the first time a non-profit organization has been scrutinized in this way. The acceptance of the complaint indicates that the OECD will hold WWF to the same human rights standards as profit-making corporations.

WWFfunds anti-poaching squads in Cameroon and elsewhere in the Congo Basin. Baka and other rainforest tribes have reported systematic abuse at the hands of these squads, including arrest and beatings, torture and even death, for well over 20 years.

Baka have been forced from large areas of their ancestral land, and face violence from WWF-funded anti-poaching squads if they hunt, forage, or visit sacred sites.

© Survival International

Survival first urged WWF to change its approach in the region in 1991, but since then the situation has worsened.

Baka have repeatedly testified to Survival about the activities of these anti-poaching squads in the region. One Baka man told Survival in 2016: “[The anti-poaching squad] beat the children as well as an elderly woman with machetes. My daughter is still unwell. They made her crouch down and they beat her everywhere – on her back, on her bottom everywhere, with a machete.”

In two open letters Baka made impassioned pleas to conservationists to be allowed to stay on their land. “Conservation projects need to have mercy on how we can use the forest … because our lives depend on it.”

WWF has rejected Survival’s claims. It accepts that abuse has taken place but, in a statement in 2015, a spokesman stated that such incidents “appear to have tailed off” despite repeated testimonies from Baka themselves. In its response to the OECD, the organization cited political instability in the region and difficulties in the process of creating “protected areas” for wildlife conservation as the main reasons human rights abuses had taken place. It did not deny its involvement in funding, training and equipping guards.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The OECD admitting our complaint is a giant step for vulnerable peoples. They can already use OECD Guidelines to try and stop corporations riding roughshod over them, but this is first time ever it’s agreed that the rules also apply to industrial-scale NGOs like WWF. WWF’s work has led to decades of pain for tribal peoples in the Congo Basin. It’s done nothing effective to address the concerns of the thousands of tribal people dispossessed and mistreated through its projects. That has to change. If WWF can’t ensure those schemes meet UN and OECD standards, it simply shouldn’t be funding them. Whatever good works it might be doing elsewhere, nothing excuses its financing of human rights abuses. The big conservation organizations must stop colluding in the theft of tribal land. Tribal peoples are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world. They should be at the forefront of the environmental movement.”

Many Baka are forced to live on roadsides. Rates of alcoholism and diseases like malaria have soared, and their diet has deteriorated.

© Survival International

Background briefing
- The OECD is an international body with 35 member countries. It has developed Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises which are monitored by national contact points in each country, and offer one of the very few opportunities to hold MNEs to account if they fail to respect the human rights of communities affected by their projects.
- WWF International’s headquarters are in Switzerland, so Survival’s complaint was submitted to the Swiss contact point, as Cameroon is not a member of the OECD.
- In 2008, Survival International lodged a complaint against British-owned mining company Vedanta Resources when it was seeking to mine on the territory of the Dongria Kondh in India without the tribe’s consent. The OECD stated that Vedanta had broken its guidelines.
- WWF is the largest conservation organization in the world. According to the organization itself, only 33% of its income comes from individual donors. The rest is derived from sources including government grants, foundations, and corporations

Pygmy’ tribes like the Baka have lived in the rainforests of the Congo Basin for millennia. They are being illegally evicted in the name of conservation, but logging, poaching and other threats to endangered species like gorillas, forest elephants and pangolins continue.

© Selcen Kucukustel/Atlas

- "Pygmy” is an umbrella term commonly used to refer to the hunter-gatherer peoples of the Congo Basin and elsewhere in Central Africa. The word is considered pejorative and avoided by some tribespeople, but used by others as a convenient and easily recognized way of describing themselves.

Brazilian TV presenter Fabélia Oliveira stated that Indians will “have to die of malaria.”

© Fabélia Oliveira/ TV Record

A Brazilian television presenter has been strongly criticized for stating that Indians will “have to die of malaria.”

Fabélia Oliveira, reporting on TV Record, one of Brazil’s biggest channels, said: “Keeping the forest intact and then eating from a fridge is not indigenous culture… If they want to preserve their culture, they can’t have access to our technology. They can’t have fridges, showers or chemical medicines… They’ll have to die of malaria, tetanus, childbirth… That’s nature.”

Her comments have been rejected by Indians nationwide, who are campaigning for their right to live on their land in the way they choose to be respected. This right is guaranteed under Brazilian and international law.

Messages like Oliveira’s fuel the depiction of tribal people as backward and primitive simply because their communal ways are different. These descriptions are used by sections of industrialized societies which subject tribal people to genocidal violence, slavery and racism so they can steal their lands, resources and labor in the name of “progress” and “civilization.”

In fact, tribal peoples are contemporary and evolving societies just like any other. Many of the drugs used in Western medicine originate with tribal peoples, and have saved millions of lives.

Anti-indigenous politicians are promoting the theft of tribal peoples' land. Almost all of the Guarani Indians' forest has been stolen and destroyed to make way for large-scale plantations.

© Survival International 2015

Oliveira’s outburst echoes the views of many of Brazil’s anti-indigenous politicians promoting large-scale “development” on tribal peoples’ land and attempting to change the law to prevent the recognition and protection of their territories. Their proposals, if implemented, would be disastrous for tribes across the country and are being strongly opposed by tribal people and their allies, including Survival supporters around the world.

The presenter’s statements were triggered by the unveiling of a samba school’s indigenous theme for this year’s carnival. Their lyrics criticise the controversial Belo Monte mega-dam and the ‘agribusiness’ sector, and have provoked anger among anti-indigenous landowners and politicians.

This Baka man was beaten by guards. Survival has spoken to dozens of similar victims across the Congo Basin.

© Survival International

An internal report commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) into the impact of its conservation work in Cameroon on Baka“Pygmies” has been leaked after WWF denied it existed. It reveals:

- WWF knew that the Baka had not been consulted over the national parks which have taken over their land. However, the organization has since maintained publicly that there was “a high level of … community consent.”

- Some ecoguards patrolling the area “behave like masters and lords” towards the Baka, mounting "crackdowns” that are “terrifying.” Despite this, a WWF spokesman described the ecoguards as “performing their designated function of protecting the forests and securing the access and areas of forest communities, including … the Baka.”

- Many perpetrators of abuses are not disciplined when violations are reported by the communities “despite the communities’ condemnation, with proof.” WWF, however, continues to say publicly, “When unacceptable behavior has come to WWF’s attention… WWF has taken the issue up directly and emphatically with [the government], and improved behavior has seemed to follow.”

Without access to their ancestral land, the Baka’s health has deteriorated and they face an uncertain future.

© Survival International

- “Most of the local villages are affected [by ecoguard abuse]” – but WWF maintained in a written submission to the OECD that “the possibility of ecoguard abuse does not currently seem to be a high priority for most Baka communities.”

Contrary to its own guidelines, WWF has never released the report, despite requests from Survival International and Baka activists. In an interview with the environmental magazine Mongabay, WWF’s “Head of Issues Management” Phil Dickie denied that WWF had commissioned any investigation into Survival’s allegations.

Survival International lodged a formal complaint in February 2016 with the Swiss National Contact Point of the OECD over WWF’s activities in Cameroon. The complaint was admitted in December 2016, the first time a non-profit organization has been scrutinized in this way.

One Baka man said: “The forest used to be for the Baka but not anymore. We would walk in the forest according to the seasons but now we’re afraid. How can they forbid us from going into the forest? We don’t know how to live otherwise. They beat us, kill us and force us to flee.”

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “WWF commissions a report to look into its effect on the Baka, presumably including claims of abuse committed by the ecoguards it funds. The report confirms the abuse is widespread and routine. WWF then denies the report exists. It’s time for this big conservation organization to square up to the responsibilities it has to those who have seen their land stolen for conservation. And it’s time the world woke up to the horror that’s going on in the name of conservation. It’s not just Cameroon and not just WWF: the conservation industry has a history of taking tribal people’s land. It’s green colonialism and we’re doing all we can to fight it. Many conservationists know that tribal peoples are the best guardians of the natural world which is why the big conservation organizations should start listening to them rather than conspiring in their destruction.”

A comparison of what WWF’s internal report says about Baka abuse with what WWF have said publicly, and what the Baka say can be seen here. The full report is available on request. 

“Pygmy” is an umbrella term commonly used to refer to the hunter-gatherer peoples of the Congo Basin and elsewhere in Central Africa. The word is considered pejorative and avoided by some tribespeople, but used by others as a convenient and easily recognized way of describing themselves.

The Matsés strongly oppose oil exploration on their ancestral land

© Survival

Matsés Indians from the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon have denounced the threat of oil exploration on their ancestral land, which is home to uncontacted tribes.

Peruvian and Brazilian Matsés Indians denounce oil exploration at their binational meeting

© OGM, CTI and Grão Fino Filmes

The Matsés live in the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier, the stretch of land that straddles the borders of Peru and Brazil. There are more uncontacted tribes here than anywhere else on the planet.

Two oil blocks lie on their ancestral land. The first is in an area home to uncontacted tribes. In 2012, Canadian oil company Pacific E&P began oil exploration in this block and it is now poised to do so again.

Oil exploration is devastating for uncontacted tribes. They are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet and any operations on their land increase the risk of unwanted contact. History shows that oil exploration can wipe out uncontacted Indians, who have no resistance to the diseases brought by outsiders.

One Matsés man said at the meeting: ‘I’m worried because those isolated groups don’t know about the oil companies.’

Another oil block lies on land that is titled to contacted Matsés. In 2016, Pacific E&P pulled out, in the face of stiff opposition from the tribe. The tribe are now campaigning for the concession to be cancelled for good.

Another Matsés man said: ‘I don’t want my children to be destroyed by oil and war. That’s why we’re defending ourselves… and why we Matsés have come together. The oil companies … are insulting us and we won’t stay silent as they exploit us on our homeland. If it’s necessary, we’ll die in the war against oil.’

The local indigenous organization ORPIO is taking the Peruvian government to court over the threat of oil exploration.

Survival’s newest Ambassador Simon McBurney

© Eva Vermandel

Survival International is pleased to announce that actor, writer and director Simon McBurney has become an official Survival Ambassador.

As founder of the famous Complicite theatre company, Simon is an acclaimed theatrical artist, and has also appeared in films including the “The Manchurian Candidate,” “The Theory of Everything,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and the “Harry Potter” and “Mission Impossible” film series.

He has performed throughout the world with Complicite, and won numerous awards for his writing and directing. His most recent work is “The Encounter” – a one-man immersive theatrical experience set amongst the Amazonian Matsés tribe. The show is currently touring Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

In 1998 he received an Olivier award for his choreography in a production of “The Caucasian Chalk Circle.” He has also received two Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, the Konrad Wolf Preis, and the Nestroy-Theaterpreis. He was awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to theater.

Simon McBurney performs “The Encounter” – his acclaimed one-man show about the people of the Javari Valley in Brazil.

© Gianmarco Bresadola

Simon is a long-standing Survival supporter with an interest in indigenous rights and environmental causes. He has spent time in the Amazon with indigenous peoples.

As a Survival Ambassador, Simon will help to bring the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights to broader global attention, and to campaign to help tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.

Simon joins actors Gillian Anderson, Sir Mark Rylance, Joanna Lumley and Julie Christie, artists Sir Quentin Blake and Kurt Jackson and jeweler Pippa Small as an official Survival International Ambassador.

Survival Director Stephen Corry said: “We’re delighted to have Simon on board as one of our official Ambassadors. It’s fantastic that Simon wants to help bring our message to a wider audience, and join the fight for a world where tribal peoples are respected as contemporary societies and their human rights protected.”

These Baiga villagers were illegally evicted from Kanha Tiger Reserve in 2014.

© Survival

Tribal villagers in India have made a desperate plea to be allowed to stay on their ancestral land in central India – a region which inspired Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book– in the face of threats from the local forest department to illegally evict them.

The Baiga people from Rajak village in Achanakmar tiger reserve have been told that they must leave land they have been dependent on and managed for generations – despite there being no evidence that their presence there harms the environment. They have the right to stay under Indian and international law.

Indian campaigners have previously alleged that “corrupt officials can… siphon off money” from the funds the authorities make available for relocations.

Elsewhere in India, tribes who have been “relocated” from their ancestral land have been moved to inadequate government settlements or forced into lives of poverty on the fringes of Indian society.

These tribal people were illegally evicted from Similipal tiger reserve, and later found living in poverty under plastic sheets.

© Survival

One Baiga man said: “If somebody takes me from the jungle to the city then it is as if they are killing me.” 

In a letter to the forest department, the Baiga said: “In Rajak the land is very fertile and we have been living here for generations. But because the village is in the core area [of the tiger reserve], we are continuously under pressure. We are being told to go to Bharatpur village. We have seen the land there, it is full of stones and it will not fulfill our needs. It is not suitable for us to raise our children there and their futures will be ruined.”

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “India’s forests are still being destroyed by industrial “development” and tigers are still being poached. But forest officials choose to bully tribal people and throw them off their land. It’s a con, and it’ll harm the environment. It’s time the big conservation organizations condemned these fake “voluntary” relocations and admitted what they really are, illegal evictions that lead directly to the destruction of entire peoples.”

The devastating decline in Indian tiger numbers was mostly caused by colonial and elite hunting rather than by tribal peoples - who have lived alongside tigers for millennia.

© Survival

Background briefing
- “Relocations” must be voluntary under Indian law. Despite this, tribal people are frequently bribed, threatened with violence and, in some cases, face arrest and beatings, torture and even death.
- Achanakmar was originally established as a wildlife sanctuary and declared a tiger reserve in 2009. Its 914 square kilometers are home to tigers, leopards, sloth bears, elephants and striped hyenas, among other species.
- Baiga means “medicine man.” Baiga people are known for their distinctive tattoos, and for their very close relationship to their environment.
- Tribal people were evicted from Similipal tiger reserve in 2013, and were soon after found living in dire conditions under plastic sheets.
- Many Baiga were evicted from the nearby Kanha tiger reserve in 2014. They received no land, houses, or support but were supposed to find land to buy with their compensation money, an alien concept for those who’d lived all their lives in the forest. They told Survival: “We got some money, but we are lost – wandering in search of land. Here there is only sadness. We need the jungle.”
- In one tiger reserve in southern India where Soliga tribal people won the right to stay on their land, tiger numbers have increased at well above the national average.

Facilities in the new government settlements are inadequate. This unfinished building was supposed to serve as a school for tribal children who were moved there more than seven years ago.

© Survival

Tribal peoples’ lands are not wilderness. Evidence proves that tribal peoples are better at looking after their environment than anyone else. They are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world. They should be at the forefront of the environmental movement.

But tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation. The big conservation organizations are guilty of supporting this. They never speak out against evictions.

The Matsés have lived by hunting and gathering in the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier for generations.

© Christopher Pillitz

An indigenous organization in Peru is suing the government for failing to protect uncontacted tribes from invasion and oil exploration.

AIDESEP, Peru’s national indigenous organization, is taking Peru’s Ministry of Culture to court for failing to meet its legal obligation to map out and create five new indigenous reserves and to protect the highly vulnerable uncontacted peoples that live inside.

In 2007, Peru awarded Canadian oil company Pacific E&P the right to explore in Yavari Tapiche, a proposed indigenous reserve in the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier. AIDESEP has been calling for the creation of the reserve for 14 years, and Survival International has been leading the global campaign for uncontacted peoples’ right to determine their own futures.

Campaigners fear that uncontacted Indians in the area could be wiped out by violence from outsiders and diseases to which they have no resistance. Oil workers run the risk of coming into contact with uncontacted people, and the exploration process involves thousands of underground detonations which scare away the Indians’ game.

Contact was a disaster for the Matsés, exposing them to infectious diseases and leading to violence with outsiders.

© Survival International

The Matsés tribe, who live near the proposed reserve, have been protesting against the government’s failure to bar oil exploration. At a recent tribal meeting, one man said: “I don’t want my children to be destroyed by oil… That’s why we’re defending ourselves… and why we Matsés have come together. The oil companies… are insulting us and we won’t stay silent as they exploit us on our homeland. If it’s necessary, we’ll die in the war against oil.”

Another indigenous organization, ORPIO, is bringing another lawsuit over the threat of oil exploration.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet, but Peru’s authorities seem to consider oil company profits more important than peoples’ land, lives and human rights. This failure to create indigenous reserves is not just an environmental catastrophe, it could also lead to entire peoples being wiped out forever.”

Since contact, the Matsés have suffered severe illness, especially malaria and introduced diseases that their plant-based medicines cannot cure.

© Survival International

Background briefing
- AIDESEP is Peru’s national organization for Amazon Indians. It lobbies for indigenous Peruvians’ human rights.
- AIDESEP filed the Legal Compliance Action with Lima’s Superior Court of Justice, with the support of legal organization IDL.
- The Peruvian Ministry of Culture is responsible for mapping out and protecting tribal territories. Uncontacted tribes are supposed to have their land protected under Peruvian law but, in reality, protection is often inadequate or non-existent.
- Peru has also ratified ILO 169, the international law for tribal peoples, which requires it to respect tribal peoples’ human and land rights.
- Uncontacted tribes in the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier that could be wiped out without robust land protection include uncontacted members of the Matsés tribe.
- Many of the Matsés were forcibly contacted by American missionaries in 1969, following violent clashes with settlers in the area. Contact brought violence and disease and killed many members of the tribe.
- The 5 proposed Reserves are Yavari Tapiche, Yavari Mirim, Sierra del Divisor Occidental, Napo Tigre and Cacataibo.

The Amazon Uncontacted Frontier, a large area on the Peru-Brazil border that is home to the highest concentration of uncontacted tribes in the world.

© Survival International

We know very little about uncontacted tribes. But we do know there are more than a hundred around the world. And we know whole populations are being wiped out by genocidal violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and by diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

Uncontacted tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a remote past. They are our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity. Where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

Their knowledge is irreplaceable and has been developed over thousands of years. They are the best guardians of their environment, and evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation.

Kafukuzi Valence in his cell in Kisoro, Uganda. 2017

© Alex Ahimbisibwe/Batwa Development Organisation

A Batwa “Pygmy” man is facing up to five years in prison for hunting a small antelope inside Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a protected area from which the Batwa were violently and illegally evicted.

Kafukuzi Valence, who is to appear in court today, claims the duiker had strayed into a field adjacent to the park. The district police have reportedly said to his family that they will release him if they are paid 5,700,000 Ugandan shillings (nearly USD $1600). The Batwa can expect to receive a wage of less than one US dollar for a day’s labor.

The park was established on the ancestral homelands of the Batwa hunter-gatherers in 1991, with the support of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and without the Batwa’s consent. Now the Batwa are accused of “poaching” when they hunt to feed their families.

The Batwa have been illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands inside Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park.

© Bagaragazagod

As one Batwa man recalled: “One day, we were in the forest when we saw people coming with machine guns and they told us to get out of the forest. We were very scared so we started to run not knowing where to go, and some of us disappeared. They either died or went somewhere we didn’t know. As a result of the eviction, everybody is now scattered.”

The Batwa face arrest and imprisonment for “trespassing” inside Bwindi or the nearby Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, from which they were also evicted. Imprisoned Batwa are often forced to work in construction and waste disposal. Reports of abuse date back at least to 2001, when one Batwa man is said to have been shot at by guards when he was found inside Bwindi.

In 2013, the Batwa filed a petition before Uganda’s Constitutional Court, seeking justice for the violation of their land rights. The case is still ongoing.

Update 02/10/17: Kafukuzi is now scheduled to reappear in court on February 15. Until then he remains in policy custody.

Yoryanis Isabel Bernal Varela was shot dead in the head in Colombia © El Heraldo

An indigenous leader has been shot dead in Colombia.

Yoryanis Isabel Bernal Varela, 43, was a leader of the Wiwa tribe and a campaigner for both indigenous and women’s rights.

The Wiwa are one of four tribes that live on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a unique pyramid-shaped mountain in northern Colombia. The Sierra Nevada Indians believe it is their responsibility to maintain the balance of the universe.

Bernal Varela is the latest victim in a long line of attacks against Sierra Nevada leaders, who have been at the forefront of the indigenous movement in South America. Many Indians have been killed by drug gangs, left-wing guerrillas and the army.

In November 2012 Rogelio Mejía, the leader of one of the other Sierra Nevada tribes, the Arhuaco, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.

José Gregorio Rodríguez, secretary of the Wiwa Golkuche organization, stated: “Indigenous people are being threatened and intimidated. Today they murdered our comrade and violated our rights. Our other leaders must be protected.”

The problem is not limited to Colombia. Indigenous activists throughout Latin America are being murdered for campaigning against the theft of their lands and resources. The murderers are seldom brought to justice.

In January, Mexican Tarahumara indigenous leader Isidro Ballenero López was killed. In 2005 he had received the prestigious Goldman prize for his fight against illegal deforestation.

Kaziranga park guards are heavily armed and instructed to shoot intruders on sight

© Survival

A BBC investigation has revealed that tribal peoples living around a national park in India are facing arrest and beatings, torture and death under the Park’s notorious “shoot-on-sight” policy.

The report for television, radio and the BBC news website featured interviews with park guards, tribal people who have been affected by the policy in Kaziranga National Park, and a spokesman from WWF-India, which helps fund, train and equip park guards and advertises tours of the park through its website.

The park gets over 170,000 visitors each year. Fifty suspects were extrajudicially executed there in the last three years, and a severely disabled tribal man was shot dead in 2013. The BBC has estimated that 106 have been killed in the last 20 years. In the same period, only one official has been killed.

Reports confirm that seven-year-old Akash Orang will never fully recover after having been shot by Kaziranga park guards in 2016.

© JEEPAL

The BBC interviewed one local man who had been beaten and tortured with electric shocks during a detention by park officials before they realized he had no involvement in poaching.

The program also featured Akash Orang, a seven-year-old tribal boy who was shot in the legs by park guards last July. Akash said that: “The forest guards suddenly shot me” as he was on his way to a local shop. His father said: “He’s changed. He used to be cheerful. He isn’t any more. In the night, he wakes up in pain and he cries for his mother.”

Park guards have effective immunity from prosecution and are encouraged to shoot suspects on sight– without arrest or trial, or any evidence that they might have been involved in poaching. One guard admitted that they are: “Fully ordered to shoot them, whenever you see the poachers or any people during night-time we are ordered to shoot them.”

Several Kaziranga park guards and officials have been accused of involvement in poaching and the illegal wildlife trade in recent years.

© BBC

WWF has provided equipment – including what the BBC calls “night vision goggles” – which have been used in night-time operations and “combat and ambush” training. When asked by the BBC how donors might feel about their money being used to enforce this brutal treatment, WWF India’s spokesman said that: “What is needed is on-ground protection… We want to reduce poaching and the idea is to reduce it with involving other partners.”

Survival International is leading the global fight against these abuses and first brought the park’s high death toll and serious instances of corruption among Kaziranga officials– including involvement in the illegal wildlife trade they are employed to stop – to global attention in 2016.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Conservation organizations, including WWF, are supporting a model of conservation which is resulting in gross human rights abuses. They have failed to condemn policies that are leading to widespread extrajudicial executions. For too long, conservation has relied on its positive public image to hide its horrific and sustained attacks on indigenous and tribal peoples’ rights. We’re working to stop this. It’s time for conservationists to work with tribal people, the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world. It’s time for conservation organisations to call for an end to shoot on sight policies.”

Last year’s overall winner, a Dani man in West Papua by Magda Zelewska.

© Survival

Survival International – the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights – is proud to announce its fourth worldwide photography competition.

The competition aims to celebrate photography as a powerful medium for raising awareness of tribal peoples, their unique ways of life and the threats to their existence.

Both amateur and professional photographers are encouraged to enter.

The theme this year is tribal conservationists. We’re looking for images that show tribal peoples in their natural environment, as the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world to support Survival’s “Stop the Con!” campaign.  

One of last year’s winning entries, a Yanomami boy in Brazil by Luigi Repetto.

© Luigi Repetto / Survival International

The judging panel includes Survival’s Director Stephen Corry, Survival Italy Coordinator Francesca Casella, The Little Black Gallery Co-Founder Ghislain Pascal, Max Houghton, Senior Lecturer in Photography at the London College of Communication and award-winning photographer Edmund Clark.

The twelve winning entries will be published in Survival’s 2018 calendar, with the overall winner’s image featuring on the cover.

All submitted photographs must have been taken in the last 10 years.

The closing date for entries is April 30, 2017.

All entry details at www.survivalinternational.org/photography

Raoni Kayapó and other indigenous leaders parade and protest at Rio Carnival

© Rodrigo Gorosito/G1

Brazilian Indians paraded and protested at the renowned Rio Carnival, to raise global awareness of their land struggle and the serious threats they face.

17 indigenous leaders, including Kayapó leader Raoni Metuktire, paraded with the Imperatriz Leopoldinense samba school in its ensemble which focussed on the destruction of tribal territories in the Amazon rainforest.

The lyrics of the school’s songs expose the destruction Indians have faced since the colonization of Brazil, and criticize the ongoing theft of tribes’ land for the Belo Monte mega-dam and other projects.

The music has provoked outrage and anger among anti-indigenous politicians, and has led to racist comments by a TV presenter who said that Indians will “have to die of malaria.”

Brazilian Indians from the Xingu support the samba school's ensemble, Carnival 2017

© Imperatriz Leopoldinense

Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara said at Carnival: “Thanks to the samba school for giving us another tool in our struggle, as we face powerful economic and political interests. Carnival can strengthen our fight.”

Attacks on indigenous peoples in Brazil are intensifying: Violence against their communities has increased, and Congress is debating several proposals which would drastically weaken indigenous peoples’ control of their lands. Tribal people and their allies, including Survival supporters around the world, are fighting the proposals.

Babau Tupinambá, an indigenous leader, said: “Indigenous peoples will not stop fighting for our rights. We will not stop fighting to exist.”

Around the world, industrialized societies subject tribal peoples to genocidal violence, slavery and racism so they can steal their lands, resources and labor in the name of “progress” and “civilization.” The theft of tribal land destroys self-sufficient peoples and their diverse ways of life. It causes disease, destitution and suicide. The evidence is indisputable.

The BBC's Justin Rowlatt, reporting from Kaziranga's unmarked boundaries for his report on conservation in the park. A tribal man was shot for crossing this line to retrieve stray cattle.

© BBC

The Indian government has reportedly banned the BBC from filming in any tiger reserve nationwide for five years, after its South Asia correspondent investigated “shoot on sight” conservation in the country.

Justin Rowlatt investigated the impact of deadly conservation tactics on tribal communities living around Kaziranga National Park for a report which aired in February 2017. The report documented instances of beatings, torture and death in the national park, where 106 people are estimated to have been killed without trial in the last 20 years, including a severely disabled tribal man.

Rowlatt has also been threatened with having his visa revoked by India’s conservation authorities.

A seven-year-old tribal boy was shot and maimed for life in the park in July. Guards are “fully ordered” to shoot any intruders, according to a guard interviewed in the film, and are given effective immunity from prosecution if they kill or injure suspects.

Akash Orang, a tribal boy, was shot by a park guard in Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India.

© JEEPAL

Despite interviews with park guards and tribal people affected by the policy, citation of a report from the park’s own director, documentary footage of violent evictions, and a refusal to condemn shoot on sight by a senior WWF-India official, conservation authorities have tried to claim that the report was “grossly erroneous.”

India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has complained that the report should have been submitted for “obligatory previewing” at India’s Ministry of External Affairs, “in order to remove any deviations.”

They have also asserted that the film-makers should not have been “filming after sunset” and “deviated” from the original synopsis submitted to the Ministry of Environment.

Two non-tribal settlers were killed during violent evictions on the edge of Kaziranga in late 2016.

© The Wire

The park is currently being expanded, which could lead to tribal and other local communities being illegally evicted.

Survival International was interviewed for the BBC film, and is leading the global fight against abuses in the name of conservation. Survival is calling for a conservation model which respects tribal peoples as the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world, and for an end to dangerous policies like shoot on sight.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Censorship of the press is a hallmark of oppressive government regimes. This time it’s conservationists who want to clamp down on press freedom. It’s not surprising – they have a lot to hide. As Mr Rowlatt’s investigations exposed, India’s conservation authorities are responsible for gross human rights violations. Shoot on sight is illegal, immoral, and harming conservation efforts. It’s time the big conservation organizations condemned this madness.”

Akash Orang is maimed for life after being shot by Kaziranga park guards while he was walking near his home in 2016.

© JEEPAL

Survival International has launched a boycott of Kaziranga National Park in India – notorious for its “shoot on sight” conservation tactics – beginning this World Wildlife Day (March 3). The boycott will last until the park stops shooting people on sight.

Survival has written to 131 tour companies in 10 countries urging them to join the boycott. Two French operators – Hote Antic Travel and Evaneos – have already signed up.

Survival ambassadors actress Gillian Anderson, illustrator Sir Quentin BlakeCBE and Oscar-winning actor Sir Mark Rylance have joined the boycott, as well as musician and photographer Julian Lennon, and actor Dominic West.

106 people have reportedly been killed in the park in the last 20 years. A seven-year-old tribal boy was shot there in July 2016 and maimed for life. In a separate incident, a severely disabled tribal man was killed while trying to retrieve a stray cow.

A recent BBC investigation uncovered torture by park guards, who are also instructed to shoot intruders on sight, regardless of evidence and without arrest, trial, or any opportunity for questioning. One guard admitted that they were “fully ordered to shoot” anyone who had wandered over the park’s unmarked boundary.

One local man who had been beaten by the park’s officials told a Survival campaigner: “The forest department tortured me, beat me, put electric shocks in my elbows, knees and private parts.”

Kaziranga is home to a large population of one-horned rhinos.

© Wikimedia Commons

A 2014 report by the park’s director discussed the issue in great detail. It revealed training mantras for guards include “must obey or get killed” and “kill the unwanted.”

The park is home to several endangered species, including the one-horned rhino and Bengal tiger. It receives over 170,000 tourist visitors a year, despite extrajudicial executions and serious human rights violations committed in the name of conservation.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has provided training and equipment to park guards, including “combat and ambush” training and what the BBC called “night-vision googles.” The organization also advertises tours of the park on its site.

Some conservationists, including Save the Rhino, have been critical of the shoot on sight policy. However, big conservation organizations have ignored Survival’s demand that they condemn the practice, including WWF, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, among others.

Dozens of people have been shot on sight by park guards in Kaziranga.

© Survival

Shoot on sight has been criticized not only for its human rights implications but also for being ineffective conservation. Rory Young, anti-poaching expert and co-founder of anti-poaching NGO Wildlife said: "Shoot on sight is stupid. If we had been shooting on sight during this latest sting operation we would have shot a handful of poachers and that would have been the end of it. Every single poacher is an opportunity for information to get more poachers and work your way up the chain to the ringleaders.”

Survival International is leading the fight against abuses committed in the name of conservation. Shoot on sight fails to tackle the real poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials. Tribal people face arrest and beatings, torture and death in parks like Kaziranga, while many forest officials are accused of involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Kaziranga conservationists are pretending there’s no shoot on sight in the reserve. It’s simply not true. Park guards are ordered to shoot intruders on sight and children like 7-year-old Akash can be on the receiving end. Shoot on sight is the same as extrajudicial killing. It’s a gross human rights violation that would be publicly condemned if it were operated by any other industry. The big conservation organizations fail to condemn it and even support it.”

The Matsés have denounced oil exploration in the proposed Yavarí Tapiche reserve, which is part of their ancestral lands.

© Survival International

In an open letter to the Peruvian authorities, Survival International, Rainforest Foundation Norway and Peruvian indigenous organization ORPIO have denounced the Peruvian government’s failure to protect uncontacted tribes.

The organizations are calling for the government to create an indigenous reserve, known as Yavari-Tapiche, for uncontacted tribes along the Peru-Brazil border, and to put a stop to outsiders entering the territory.

In the letter the three organizations state: “Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. They have made the decision to be isolated and this must be respected…

“The Yavarí Tapiche region is home to uncontacted peoples. Despite knowing of their existence and enormous vulnerability, the government has failed to guarantee their protection…

“These tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Only by creating the proposed Yavarí Tapiche indigenous reserve and implementing effective protection mechanisms that prevent the entry of outsiders, will the indigenous people be given the chance to determine their own futures…

“We are also concerned about the government’s refusal to exclude oil exploration within the proposed reserve…. No exploration or exploitation of oil should ever be carried out on territories inhabited by uncontacted Indians…

“We believe that the oil company Pacific Stratus is poised to begin operations this year in areas where there are uncontacted tribes…

“By failing to both create the reserve and to rule out oil exploration, Peru is violating both domestic and international law…

“If the government does not act urgently to protect the uncontacted peoples of Yavarí Tapiche, we fear that they will not survive. Another tribe will disappear from the face of the earth, before the eyes of the world.”

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “We’ve repeatedly called for the Yavarí-Tapiche indigenous reserve to be created and for oil exploration to be ruled out, but the government has dragged its feet. The lives of uncontacted Indians are on the line but once again, economic interests take priority.”

Background Briefing

- The Yavarí Tapiche region is part of the Amazon Uncontacted Frontier. This area straddles the borders of Peru and Brazil and is home to more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else in the world.
- Pacific Stratus, part of Canadian oil company Pacific E&P, began its first phase of oil exploration in 2012, despite protests from indigenous organizations and Survival International. It is believed that the company will begin its second phase soon.
- Oil exploration is devastating for uncontacted tribes. Over 50% of the Nahua tribe died as a result of exploration in the 80s.
- The indigenous organization ORPIOis suing the government over the threat of oil exploration.
- National indigenous organization AIDESEP has been calling for the creation of the reserve for over 14 years.