News from Survival International

Iawí, one of the last survivors of the Avá Canoeiro tribe, pictured in 2000

Iawí, one of the last members of the dwindling Avá Canoeiro tribe, has died from cancer aged about 56 years. His death means just eight Avá Canoeiro remain in his small family group.

Iawí, his wife Tuia, her mother Matcha, and her aunt Naquatcha, were contacted by FUNAI, Brazil’s Indian affairs department, in 1983 as a huge hydroelectric dam was set to drown the Indians’ hilly refuge, the Serra de Mesa.

The government eventually designated a territory for the Avá Canoeiro in 1996.

The tiny group had survived a massacre in 1962 and for two decades sought refuge in caves hidden high up in the mountains.

Incredibly, this group of Avá Canoeiro live only five hours’ drive from Brazil’s capital, Brasília

At night they would come down to raid settlers’ gardens for food. Otherwise they survived by catching small mammals like rats and bats. This precarious existence meant the women had no children during this time.

Since contact, Iawí and Tuia had a son and daughter, Trumak and Putdjawa.

Putdjawa married a Tapirape Indian and the couple have three young children.

Iawí’s death last month will be an enormous blow to the group as he was noted for his humor, his courage in defying contact for so long, and for helping his family to survive many massacres.

The Avá Caneiro are the last remnants of a proud and strong tribe which has been on the run since 1780. For decades they fiercely resisted the white colonists who systematically hunted them down as more and more Indian land was stolen.

Another small group of Avá Canoeiro were contacted in 1973. They now live in a neighbouring state and share a territory with other tribes.

Survival protested for tribal peoples' rights at the Indian embassy in Berlin

Survival International campaigners have projected the face of an Indian tribal woman who was illegally evicted from her ancestral land onto the Indian embassy in Berlin. This is to send a message to the Indian government about the eviction of tribal peoples from tiger reserves in the name of conservation.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to arrive in Germany today, ahead of the G20 summit this week. Protestors are highlighting the plight of tens of thousands of Indian tribal people, who have been illegally evicted from villages inside tiger reserves, and forced into lives of poverty and misery on the fringes of mainstream society.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has recently issued an order stating that tribal peoples’ rights should not be recognized in critical tiger habitats. The NTCA has no legal authority to issue this order, which is a gross violation of the Forest Rights Act.

The NTCA has ordered that tribal peoples’ rights should not be recognized in critical tiger habitats, a move which could be devastating for tribal peoples.

The Act guarantees tribal people the right to live on their ancestral land.

The woman whose face has been projected onto the embassy is from the Baiga people in central India. Thousands of Baiga have been illegally evicted from their forests.

In the past, some were moved into inadequate government resettlement sites, but more recently those evicted received no land or help in establishing their lives outside. Many families report that they have received only a fraction of the compensation they were promised.

Thousands of Indian tribal peoples face eviction from their ancestral lands, which are being turned into tourist-friendly tiger reserves

Many more communities are facing similar evictions across the country. While tribal people are being evicted, fee-paying tourists are welcomed in. In one tiger reserve, uranium exploration has just been approved.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Modi’s government has continued the inhumane and illegal practice of evicting tribal people from tiger reserves. It’s now planning to ignore tribal peoples’ rights and push ahead with mining and other so-called “development” projects on lands that tribal peoples have been looking after for generations. It’s a con. It’s time the Indian government stopped attacking its own citizens and started abiding by its own laws.”

The Zo’é are a very isolated tribe, who were forcibly contacted in the 1980s. Many of them died of diseases to which they had no resistance.

29 indigenous organizations from across South America have come together in Brazil to slam governments for failing to protect the lives and lands of uncontacted tribes– a situation they say is tantamount to genocide.

Representatives from tribes in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, and Venezuela, attended the large conference hosted by the Brazilian organization CTI in June 2017.

The conference condemned the “exponential increase” in violence against indigenous people across the continent and described failures to properly protect the territory of uncontacted tribal peoples as genocide.

Gold miners devastated the Yanomami between the 1980s and 1990s, and still present a genocidal threat to uncontacted members of the tribe.

Brazil has recently been under fire for cuts to its indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI. These cuts, especially those affecting teams of agents who protect uncontacted tribal territories, leave uncontacted peoples dangerously exposed to violence from outsiders, and diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

The country is unusual in having had two genocide convictions in its courts: both for crimes against indigenous peoples. The UN genocide convention was signed 69 years ago in December 1948.

FUNAI agents on a patrol. Teams like this are vital to protecting indigenous territories, but their funding is being cut by the Brazilian government.

A Brazilan senator is proposing a new bill in Brazil’s congress which would designate all unauthorized entry into uncontacted tribes’ lands as a breach of the country’s “genocide law” – aimed at protecting uncontacted peoples. However, campaigners fear that the current government’s close ties to the corrupt agribusiness lobby could hinder efforts to create more robust protections.

The senator, Jorge Viana, is from Acre state, which is home to many uncontacted tribes, and also people like the Sapanawa, who were forced to make first contact in 2014.

All uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Survival International is committed to securing their land for them, and giving them the chance to determine their own futures.

Major indigenous protests in Brasilia against government’s attempts to weaken indigenous rights, May 2017

The Brazilian President Michel Temer has accepted a controversial legal opinion which denies indigenous people the right to their land, and made it official policy.

The opinion states that indigenous peoples do not have the right to their land if they were not occupying it when the current constitution came into effect in October 1988.

The opinion contradicts the constitution, which clearly states that indigenous peoples have the right to exclusively occupy and use the lands which they have inhabited since long before European colonization of the country.

Brazil’s federal prosecutor’s office and eminent jurists say that this is only an opinion, and has no legal status as well as being unconstitutional.

Joenia Wapixana, Brazil’s first female indigenous lawyer said: “Our original rights are imprescriptible, so the time frame is unconstitutional.”

Luiz Henrique Eloy, a Terena Indian lawyer working at APIB, the Network of Indigenous NGOs in Brazil said: “Using this time frame is totally anti-constitutional; the constitution recognizes indigenous rights as original rights which precede any other. This [opinion] is the position of some ministers, it’s not consolidated.”

Congress is due to vote next month on whether to approve charges of corruption against President Temer. In the lead up to this vote, analysts report that the President is trying to consolidate his support among legislators, many of whom are linked to or represent Brazil’s powerful agri-business sector which is vehemently anti-Indian.

Many in the agri-business sector, particularly in the south and central states, are occupying and profiting from indigenous territories after the indigenous owners were evicted decades ago.

Campaigners fear that President Temer is prepared to seriously undermine indigenous rights for the sake of shoring up his own support.

Deputy Luis Carlos Heinze, a prominent member of the Chamber of Deputies’ Agriculture Commission, who was consulted about the opinion before it was made public said: “[Now, with this opinion], more than 90% of the [more than 700] cases [of demarcation of indigenous territories in progress] in Brazil are illegal and will be shelved."

Survival gave him its Racist of the Year Award for offensive remarks about indigenous peoples.

Indigenous organizations and NGOs in Brazil published a strongly worded press release yesterday condemning the opinion and calling for the public prosecutors’ office to suspend it.

Survival International has been campaigning alongside indigenous peoples and NGOs in Brazil against the undermining of indigenous rights, and condemns this illegal action against Brazil’s first peoples.

In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, this member of the Sentinelese tribe was photographed firing arrows at a helicopter.

A man has been arrested for the ninth time for poaching sea turtles and illegally entering a tribal reserve in India’s Andaman Islands. The islands are home to uncontacted and recently contacted tribes, who could be wiped out if the authorities fail to protect them.

The man, named by Andaman police as Narayan Roy, and an accomplice, were found with a bag containing a dead sea turtle. Local press has reported that he had previously been released on bail nine times for “entering the Jarawa Tribal Reserve, poaching and exploitation of the tribe.”

The reserve is home to the Jarawa, who have only had contact with the settlers who have lived near their reserve since 1998. They are extremely vulnerable to violence and sexual exploitation from outsiders, diseases to which they have no resistance, and the loss of animals which they hunt to feed their families.

Although poaching in the reserve carries the penalty of mandatory imprisonment and a fine, Mr. Roy has been repeatedly released. Campaigners are concerned that this shows that the Andaman authorities lack the political will to provide the protection which the Jarawa need.

Survival International, which has been campaigning for the rights of the tribes in the Andamans for decades, has written to the Andaman authorities urging them to implement their own policies and clamp down on poaching in the tribal reserves.

As well as the Jarawa, the Andaman Islands are home to the uncontacted Sentinelese tribe, the most isolated tribe in the world. If poaching is allowed to continue similarly unchecked in other parts of the Andamans the very survival of the Sentinelese is also at risk.

Sea turtles remain a major target for poachers in the Andaman Islands, who pose a threat to tribes like the Jarawa and Sentinelese.

The arrest follows alarming reports suggesting that poachers and illegal fishermen have been getting extremely close to the Sentinelese, who live on nearby North Sentinel Island.

Officially, India has a “hands-off, eyes-on” policy – protecting the Sentinelese from forced contact but monitoring them, from a distance, to check for problems. However, recent comments from the tribal affairs ministry in New Delhi have raised concerns that a more active approach might be adopted.

Minister Jural Oram reportedly said: “Today it is not yet clear how many of them are alive. We need to do something otherwise they will become extinct one day… making contact with the Sentinelese still remains a challenge.”

Uncontacted tribes like the Sentinelese are the most vulnerable people on the planet. They are at risk of being wiped out by violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

Although the Jarawa have had limited contact with settlers living near their forest for almost twenty years, they remain extremely vulnerable. In 1999 and 2006, the tribe suffered from outbreaks of measles, a disease which has wiped out many tribes worldwide following contact with outsiders.

The Jarawa have lived by fishing and foraging in the Andaman Islands for millennia. But encroachments from British and then Indian settlers have made life increasingly difficult for them.

There is concern that unless more is done to protect the boundaries of the Jarawa reserve and the seas around North Sentinel Island, and to prosecute those who steal their food, the tribes could face further disasters. These tribes rely entirely on the foods they can hunt and gather from the sea and the forest in order to continue their self-sufficient ways of life.

Survival is leading the global fight for uncontacted tribes’ rights. The organization launched a film in May 2017 starring actors Sir Mark Rylance and Gillian Anderson, with the aim of spreading the message that uncontacted tribes face catastrophe unless their land is protected.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The Indian government is responsible for ensuring that the Jarawa, Sentinelese and other Andaman tribes can determine their own futures, unmolested by outsiders. They should learn from the dreadful experiences of forced contact that took place under British colonial rule, when whole tribes were wiped out. The Jarawa and Sentinelese must have their land protected, or they face annihilation.”

Wife of a man killed in the forest after being called to work by the Forest Department. Kaziranga Tiger Reserve.

A forest guard in India’s notorious “shoot on sight” Kaziranga National Park has been arrested, after an incident that local people say proves their longstanding claim that many people shot as “poachers” are innocent local people.

Three villagers, one from the local Mising tribe, have been tortured and beaten by Kaziranga forest officials after selling cattle at a market. They report that officials took their money, beat them, and threatened to shoot them and claim they were poachers caught in the act.

One of the villagers managed to escape and get help. Subal Bawri, a tribal man, tried to intervene and was also badly beaten. The victims believe that had other villagers not arrived they would have been killed.

The men have made a formal police complaint against their treatment, and protests have been held by local people. They claim that this is an abuse of the legal immunity guards have been granted, supposedly to help them protect wildlife. One forest guard has been arrested.

Guards in Kaziranga National Park are armed, and have effective immunity from prosecution.

Subal Bawri said: “I saw the beat officer [forest guard] and two battalion men [from the Assam Forest Protection Force]. The battalion men were holding both the hands of Arshad Ali and the beat officer had a stack of money in one of his hands and a broken bottle in the other and I very distinctly heard him say, “ I will murder you with this bottle, take you by the river and shoot you.” Hearing this I got very angry and asked them if they are Gundas [villains]. I also said that the government is giving you this uniform and also spending so much money for you to do your duty in Kaziranaga, have you come here to murder? So this is how you have been framing innocent people as poachers and you are protecting the real ones.” He was subsequently grabbed by the throat and beaten by two officers.

Witnesses report hearing the guards specifically threaten to shoot two of the men and claim they were poachers.

Kaziranga guards have effective immunity from prosecution and are instructed to shoot poaching suspects on sight. 106 people were reportedly killed there in a twenty year period, including a severely disabled tribal man who had wandered over the park’s unmarked boundaries.

Tribal people testify to beating at the hands of forest gaurds, Kaziranga

The park was the subject of a BBC report, “Killing for conservation,” after Survival International led a global outcry over the “shoot on sight” policy, and over the shooting of a seven-year-old tribal boy in July 2016. The boy, Akash Orang, is now maimed for life.

Several Kaziranga park officials have been arrested for involvement in the illegal wildlife trade, despite being employed to protect the endangered one-horned rhinos and tigers which live in the park.

Survival International is leading the global campaign against abuses in the name of conservation, and in favor of a conservation model that respects tribal peoples’ rights.

Many people in and around Kaziranga were moved there by the British to work on tea plantations. They face eviction, displacement, and frequent harassment by forest guards.

Tribal peoples have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia. They are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world. In one tiger reserve in southern India where tribal people won the right to stay, tiger numbers have increased at dramatically above the Indian national average.

Despite this, tribal people face arrest and beating, torture and even death, in the name of conservation.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Incidents like this show the true face of conservation as practiced in places like Kaziranga: horrendous violence and corruption among officials, with tribal people then blamed for harming the environment. It’s a con. And it’s harming conservation. When will people wake up to the fact that the current conservation model is killing tribal peoples? This sort of horror is not going to protect the rhino or the tiger.”

Brazil has seen frequent indigenous protests this year, against the anti-Indian policies of President Temer.

Brazil’s Supreme Court will next week deliver a historic judgement on tribal territories which could strike the greatest blow to indigenous land rights since the country’s military dictatorship.

The judgement will be delivered on Wednesday, August 16. Large-scale indigenous protests are anticipated, as the judges decide whether to incorporate a proposal on indigenous land rights drafted by the attorney-general’s office.

The proposal states that indigenous peoples who were not occupying their ancestral lands on or before October 5, 1988, when the country’s current constitution came into force, would no longer have the right to live there.

If the judges accept it, this would set indigenous rights in the country back decades, and risk destroying hundreds of self-sufficient tribes, who depend on their land for autonomy and survival.

Brazil’s pan-indigenous organization APIB: is organizing several events and protests in the capital Brasilia and across the country in the lead up to the ruling, with the slogan: “Our history didn’t start in 1988. No to the time limit.”

President Temer's proposed legal opinion has sparked major indigenous protests in Brasilia

Activists have speculated that the proposal is being pushed by President Temer to secure his political position. His period in office has seen single digit approval ratings, instability, and widespread protest, after the government he leads was installed in April 2016 following the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff.

If it becomes policy, this measure would be beneficial to Brazil’s ruralista agribusiness lobby, who regard land protections for indigenous peoples as an unnecessary barrier to profit.

Further details on the judgement here

The Guarani Kaiowá people in southwestern Brazil are just one of the many tribes who would be affected. They will never recover most of their land if this measure is approved.

"Our history didn't start in 1988" – major APIB campaign against the ruling.

Eliseu Guarani, a spokesman for the tribe, said: “This is very hard for us… there will be no more legal recognition of indigenous territories… there is violence, we all face it, attacks by paramilitaries, criminalization, racism.”

Survival International is actively campaigning against the measure, which is illegal under international law, and has urged its supporters to take action.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Land theft is the biggest problem that tribal people face, and this proposal is little more than a land grabber’s manifesto. It’s a blatant shredding of tribal land rights, selling them out to ranchers, loggers, soy barons and other vested interests.”

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit Botswana from the 17th August.

The Bushmen of Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) have written a moving appeal to the Dalai Lama, who is scheduled to visit Botswana this month, criticizing their country’s government for its brutal policies and urging him to speak out.

In the letter, Bushman spokesman Jumanda Gakelebone said: “We still cannot live on our lands freely. The government makes it so that children must apply for permits to visit their parents when they become adults. We worry what the government will do when those parents pass away.

“The government still forbids us from hunting and has introduced a shoot-on-sight policy against poachers. Last year a group of Bushmen out hunting were shot at from a police helicopter. Some of them were stripped naked and beaten.

“People praise President Khama [Botswana’s President] as a conservation hero when he ignores our struggle and our country’s own courts. Yet his government is happy for mining to take place on our ancestral land.

Hundreds of Bushmen were moved out of the Kalahari and into government eviction camps.

“We are the first people of the Kalahari. We are the ones who have protected this land and the animals that live there. Why has “conservation” brought us so much suffering?”

Hundreds of Bushmen families were illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation and moved into government eviction camps between 1997 and 2002, following the discovery of diamonds in the Kalahari.

Although the Bushmen won the right to return to the reserve in a historic court case in 2006, the country still has not respected its own high court’s ruling. Most Bushmen are denied access to their land by a brutal permit scheme.

They are also accused of “poaching” because they hunt to feed their families, facing arrest and beatings, torture and death under a nationwide hunting ban.

Survival International led the global campaign for Bushmen rights and is urging the Botswana government to allow them to determine their own futures.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Botswana’s President has been violating his country’s High Court ruling and trampling on Bushmen rights for over a decade now. No independent observer believes the Bushmen pose any kind of risk to the country’s wildlife, but they’re still prevented from hunting, and still being forced to get permits just to see their relatives. It’s a terrible stain on the country’s reputation that won’t be erased until they’re treated humanely, and with respect.”

Brazilian Indians have been protesting in Brasilia against the government's anti-indigenous proposals.

Indigenous activists and human rights campaigners around the world yesterday celebrated Brazil’s Supreme Court ruling unanimously in favor of indigenous land rights.

In two land rights cases, all eight of the judges present voted for indigenous land rights and against the government of Mato Grosso state, in the Amazon, which was demanding compensation for lands mapped out as indigenous territories decades ago.

Although ruling on one further case was postponed, this outcome has been seen as a significant victory for indigenous land rights in the country.

An international campaign was launched earlier this month after President Temer attempted to have a controversial legal opinion on tribal land recognition adopted as policy.

The proposal stated that indigenous peoples who were not occupying their ancestral lands on October 5, 1988, when the country’s current constitution came into force, would no longer have the right to live there. This new proposal was referred to as the “marco temporal” or “time frame” by activists and legal experts.

If the judges had accepted this, it would have set indigenous rights in the country back decades, and risked destroying dozens of tribes. The theft of tribal land destroys self-sufficient peoples and their diverse ways of life. It causes disease, destitution and suicide.

The new policy would have massively undermined the Guarani’s attempts to regain their ancestral land, most of which has been taken over by agribusiness.

In response to the ruling, Luiz Henrique Eloy, a Terena Indian lawyer, said: “This is an important victory for the indigenous peoples of these territories. The Supreme Court recognised their original [land] rights and this has national repercussions, because the Supreme Court indicated that it was against the concept of the time frame.”

APIB, Brazil’s pan-indigenous organization, led a protest movement, under the slogan “our history didn’t start in 1988.”

The measure is being opposed by Indians across Brazil. Eliseu Guarani from the Guarani Kaiowá people in the southwest of the country said: “If the time frame is enforced, there will be no more legal recognition of indigenous territories… there is violence, we all face it, attacks by paramilitaries, criminalization, racism.”

Survival International led an international outcry against the proposal, calling on supporters around the globe to petition Brazil’s leaders and high court to reject the opinion. Over 4,000 emails were sent directly to senior judicial figures and other key targets.

While the ruling does not end the possibility of further attacks on tribal land rights in Brazil, it is a significant victory against the country’s notorious agribusiness lobby, who have very close ties to the Temer government.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “If the judges had accepted this proposal it would have set back indigenous rights in the country by decades. Brazil’s indigenous peoples are already battling a comprehensive assault on their lands and identity – a continuation of the invasion and genocide which characterized the European colonization of the Americas. We’re hugely grateful for the energy and enthusiasm of our supporters in helping the Indians fight back against this disastrous proposal.”

There have been confrontations between the Ayoreo and the Paraguayan authorities in recent years, as the tribe have protested against the theft and destruction of their land.

Landmark talks between the Paraguayan government and a recently contacted tribe have yet to reach an agreement, allowing rampant deforestation to continue. Some members of the tribe are uncontacted, and live in a rapidly shrinking island of forest.

The talks began six months ago after a petition from the Ayoreo tribe to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an influential body which holds governments in the Americas to account on human rights issues. The Ayoreo have been claiming the right to their ancestral land since 1993.

Halfway through the year-long process, however, and little concrete action has been taken, leading to fears for the tribe’s long-term survival. A technical study is due to be carried out to assess the feasibility of securing the land.

The government has also failed to stop the rapid logging of land owned by the Ayoreo, despite a 2016 emergency order from the Inter-American Commission to protect the uncontacted Indians and halt deforestation.

Aerial photograph showing the devastation that logging has brought to Ayoreo land.

Background briefing

– The Ayoreo live in the Chaco, which is the largest forest in South America outside the Amazon and has recently been recorded as having the highest rate of deforestation in the world. Experts estimate that the forest lost almost 10 million trees in January 2017.
– This poses a deadly threat to the Ayoreo, who face catastrophe unless their land is protected.
– Many members of the Ayoreo tribe were forcibly contacted by missionaries between 1969 and 1986. Continual land invasions forced them to abandon their homes. Many have since suffered from disease, including a TB-like illness, poverty, and exploitation on the fringes of mainstream Paraguayan society.
– Recently contacted members of the tribe spent years fleeing from bulldozers, which they called “beasts with metal skin.” The machines are used by loggers to clear paths for cutting trees.
– The petition which finally brought the Paraguayan government to the negotiating table is called Petition 850-15. It features a claim for the restitution of Ayoreo land.
- In February 2016, the Inter-American Commission issued an emergency order (MC 54-13) calling for the protection of uncontacted Ayoreo and their forests. Although this was in response to a separate petition submitted by the Ayoreo, the orders are to also be discussed during the talks.
– The local support group GAT, and indigenous organization OPIT, have played an important role in lobbying the government, and after months of warning, finally pressed them to investigate the logging in July 2017. It remains to be seen whether the deforestation will be stopped and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Most of the Ayoreo have been forced out of the forest. They have since been fighting for their land rights.

Survival International is calling for a complete halt to logging on Ayoreo land, and for the return of all lands which have been titled to ranching companies.

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.

They are the best guardians of their environment. And evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The Ayoreo have already been waiting more than twenty years for their lands to be protected. All this time they’ve seen their forests destroyed about them. They hoped the Inter-American Commission’s intervention would finally push the government to act, but that hope too has proved an illusion. Tragically, it seems that Paraguay’s government is so firmly tied to the ranchers and landowners who control the levers of power that nothing short of massive public pressure will move them to act.”

Waiãpi Indians are firmly against President Temer's decision to abolish a reserve in the Amazon

In another blow to indigenous rights and the environment, Brazil’s President Temer has abolished a protected area in the Amazon known as the Renca reserve.

Renca lies within a mosaic of protected areas in northern Amazonia which includes two indigenous territories. It is believed that a group of uncontacted Indians also lives in the region.

With the reserve abolished, an area of rainforest the size of Denmark could be opened up to large-scale mining by multinationals. It is likely too that wildcat miners will invade the area, polluting the rivers with mercury, as the Yanomami have witnessed to devastating effect.

Should this happen, the consequences will be catastrophic for the vulnerable uncontacted Indians who will be exposed to deadly diseases in encounters with outsiders, and will see their lands invaded and stolen.

In response to an outcry in Brazil and abroad, the government has just announced that it will publish a decree outlining how it will protect indigenous territories and conservation areas in the area.

The Brazilian authorities have not consulted with indigenous peoples about their plans.

The Waiãpi Indians, who live to the east of Renca, were only contacted in 1973 and are also likely to suffer from the impacts of mining. They depend entirely on the forest and rivers for their livelihood, and like all tribal peoples they have a deep spiritual connection to their land.

Jawaruwa, a Waiãpi spokesman said: “This won’t bring development for us. It will only bring catastrophe for the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.”

There is ample evidence of the serious negative impacts of large-scale mining on indigenous peoples south of this region, where the massive Carajás mine and related projects operate.

The mine, its roads and railways introduced thousands of colonists and loggers, who have had a devastating impact on uncontacted Awá Indians.

Survival is protesting to the Brazilian authorities against the abolition of the reserve, highlighting in particular the danger to the area’s uncontacted Indians.

Guajajara Guardians protest for the protection of their land

A group of Brazilian Indians hailed as heroes for patrolling the Amazon and evicting illegal loggers have occupied government offices, to demand protection for their lands.

It is the first protest of its kind by the Indians, known as the Guajajara Guardians. Their people face an emergency, as much of their forest has been razed to the ground.

The Guardians work to protect their forest in the north-eastern Brazilian Amazon. They share the area, known as the Arariboia indigenous territory, with uncontacted Awá Indians.

The Indians’ forest is an island of green amid a sea of deforestation. Heavily armed illegal loggers are now penetrating this last refuge, and the government is doing little to stop them.

Tainaky Guajajara, one of the Guardians’ leaders, said at the protest in the city of Imperatriz: “We’re occupying FUNAI [government indigenous affairs department] to demand our rights to the land, and protection for the environment. We need help, urgently. Our land is being invaded as we speak. The Brazilian government has forgotten us – it’s as if we don’t exist. So we’ve reached the limit. We will no longer put up with the way they treat us.”

Arariboia indigenous territory is an island of green surrounded by deforestation

The Guajajara Guardians have taken matters into their own hands to save their land from destruction, and to prevent the genocide of the Awá. They patrol the forest, detect logging hotspots and crack down on invasions.

Kaw Guajajara, the Guardians’ Coordinator, said: “The uncontacted Awá can’t live without their forest. Our work has stopped many of the invaders… As long as we live, we will fight for the uncontacted Indians, for all of us, and for nature.”

Their work is dangerous – the Guardians constantly receive death threats from the powerful logging mafia, and three Guardians were killed in 2016. But they continue courageously and they know that the Awá, like all uncontacted peoples, face catastrophe unless their land is protected.

The Guajajara Guardians protect their forest in the Brazilian Amazon

Their operations have succeeded in drastically reducing the logging, but they urgently need help from the Brazilian authorities: Resources and equipment for their expeditions, and support from government agents who can arrest the loggers and keep them out.

The Guardians are also demanding that the government implement an agreement drawn up by FUNAI, the military police force and the State’s security forces to build base camps to protect the territory, and to carry out joint operations to police the area.

Survival International’s Director, Stephen Corry, said: “The Guardians are protecting one of the last patches of Amazon rainforest in the region. Their determination to keep their forest intact is more important than ever as President Temer’s administration is trying to slash indigenous land protection throughout Brazil. The Guajajara Guardians are unique and an inspiration to all who care for human rights and the environment. The government’s constitutional duty is to help them protect the forest. Its destruction could wipe out the uncontacted Awá. This is another humanitarian crisis in Brazil’s treatment of its tribal peoples.”

This Baka woman and her husband are among many tribal people in Cameroon who have been beaten by WWF-funded wildlife guards. They were attacked and had their belongings taken from them while they were collecting wild mangoes.

The landmark mediation talks between Survival and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) over breaches of OECD guidelines for multinational corporations have broken down over the issue of tribal peoples’ consent.

Survival had asked WWF to agree to secure the Baka“Pygmies’” consent for how the conservation zones on their lands in Cameroon were managed in the future, in line with the organization’s own indigenous peoples policy.

WWF refused, at which point Survival decided there was no purpose continuing the talks.

Survival lodged the complaint in 2016, citing the creation of conservation zones on Baka land without their consent, and WWF’s repeated failure to take action over serious human rights abuses by wildlife guards it trains and equips.

It is the first time a conservation organization has been the subject of a complaint under the OECD guidelines. The resulting mediation was held in Switzerland, where WWF is headquartered.

WWF has been instrumental in the creation of several national parks and other protected areas in Cameroon on the land of the Baka and other rainforest tribes. Its own policy states that any such projects must have the free, prior and informed consent of those affected.

A 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.”

Another man said: “They told me to carry my father on my back. I walked, they beat me, they beat my father. For three hours. Every time I cried they would beat me, until I fainted and fell to the ground.”

Conservation has been used as a justification for forcibly denying Baka access to their land, but the destruction of the rainforest by logging companies – some of whom are WWF partners – has continued.

Background briefing
- Survival first raised its concerns about WWF’s projects on Baka land in 1991. Since then, Baka and other local people have repeatedly testified to arrest and beatings, torture and even death at the hands of WWF-funded wildlife guards.
- The OECD is the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. It publishes guidelines on corporate responsibility for multinationals, and provides a complaint mechanism where the guidelines have been violated.
- The complaint was lodged with the Swiss national contact point for the OECD, as WWF has its international headquarters in Switzerland. Talks took place in the Swiss capital, Bern, between representatives of WWF and Survival.
- The principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is the bedrock of international law on indigenous peoples’ rights. It has significant implications for big conservation organizations, which often operate on tribal peoples’ land without having secured their consent.

Tribes like the Baka have lived by hunting and gathering in the rainforests of central Africa for generations, but their lives are under threat.

Tribal peoples like the Baka have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia. Contrary to popular belief, their lands are not wilderness. Evidence proves that tribal peoples are better at looking after their environment than anyone else. Despite this, WWF has alienated them from its conservation efforts in the Congo Basin.

The Baka, like many tribal peoples across Africa, are accused of “poaching” because they hunt to feed their families. They are denied access to large parts of their ancestral land for hunting, gathering, and sacred rituals. Many are forced to live in makeshift encampments on roadsides where health standards are very poor and alcoholism is rife.

Meanwhile, WWF has partnered with logging corporations such as Rougier, although these companies do not have the Baka’s consent to log the forest, and the logging is unsustainable.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The outcome of these talks is dismaying but not really surprising. Conservation organizations are supposed to ensure that the ‘free, prior and informed consent’ of those whose lands they want to control has been obtained. It’s been WWF’s official policy for the last twenty years.

“But such consent is never obtained in practice, and WWF would not commit to securing it for their work in the future.

“It’s now clear that WWF has no intention of seeking, leave alone securing, the proper consent of those whose lands it colludes with governments in stealing. We’ll have to try other ways to get WWF to abide by the law, and its own policy.”

Watch: Baka father speaks out against horrific abuse

“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.

Evidence of an attack? Burnt communal houses of uncontacted Indians, seen in December 2016, could be signs of another massacre in the Uncontacted Frontier.

Public prosecutors in Brazil have opened an investigation after reports that illegal goldminers in a remote Amazon river have massacred “more than ten" members of an uncontacted tribe. If confirmed, this means up to a fifth of the entire tribe have been wiped out.

Two goldminers have been arrested.

The killings allegedly took place last month along the River Jandiatuba in western Brazil, but the news only emerged after the goldminers started boasting about the killings, and showing off “trophies” in the nearest town.

Agents from Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, confirmed details of the attack to Survival International. Women and children are believed to be among the dead. FUNAI and the public prosecutor’s office are currently investigating.

The area is known as the Uncontacted Frontier, as it contains more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else on Earth.

Several government teams who had been protecting uncontacted indigenous territories have recently had their funding slashed by the Brazilian government, and have had to close down.

Uncontacted Indians in the Brazilian Amazon, filmed from the air in 2010.

President Temer’s government is fiercely anti-Indian, and has close ties to the country’s powerful and anti-indigenous agribusiness lobby.

The territories of two other vulnerable uncontacted tribes – the Kawahiva and Piripkura – have also reportedly been invaded. Both are surrounded by hundreds of ranchers and land invaders.

Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. However, when their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

All uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Survival International is doing everything it can to secure their land for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “If these reports are confirmed, President Temer and his government bear a heavy responsibility for this genocidal attack. The slashing of FUNAI’s funds has left dozens of uncontacted tribes defenseless against thousands of invaders – goldminers, ranchers and loggers – who are desperate to steal and ransack their lands. All these tribes should have had their lands properly recognized and protected years ago – the government’s open support for those who want to open up indigenous territories is utterly shameful, and is setting indigenous rights in Brazil back decades."

A still from aerial footage from 2011 of an uncontacted Amazon tribe in Brazil near the Peruvian border.

Brazilian Indians have appealed for global assistance to prevent further killings after the reported massacre of uncontacted tribespeople, and have denounced the government cuts that left their territories unprotected.

Paulo Marubo, a Marubo indigenous leader from western Brazil, said: “More attacks and killings are likely to happen. The cuts to FUNAI’s funding are harming the lives of indigenous people, especially uncontacted tribes, who are the most vulnerable.” (FUNAI is Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency).

Mr. Marubo is the leader of Univaja, an indigenous organization defending tribal rights in the Uncontacted Frontier, the area with the highest concentration of uncontacted tribes in the world.

Paulo Marubo, leader of a Javari Valley indigenous organization from the Uncontacted Frontier.

COIAB, the organization representing Indians across the Brazilian Amazon, denounced the massive cutbacks to FUNAI’s budget that has left many tribal territories unprotected:

“We vehemently condemn these brutal and violent attacks against these uncontacted Indians. This massacre shows just how much the rights of indigenous peoples in this country have been set back [in recent years].

“The cuts and dismantling of FUNAI are being carried out to further the interests of powerful politicians who want to continue ransacking our resources, and open up our territories for mining.”

Unconfirmed reports first emerged from the Amazon last week that up to 10 uncontacted tribal people had been killed by gold miners, and their bodies mutilated and dumped in a river.

The miners are reported to have bragged about the atrocity, whose victims included women and children, in a bar in a nearby town. The local prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.

These Sapanawa Indians made contact in 2014. They reported their community had been attacked, and so many members of the village killed that they could not bury the dead.

The alleged massacre was just the latest in a long line of previous killings of isolated Indians in the Amazon, including the infamous Haximu massacre in 1993, in which 16 Yanomami Indians were killed by a group of gold miners.

More recently, a group of Sapanawa Indians emerged in the Uncontacted Frontier, reporting that their houses had been attacked and burnt to the ground by outsiders, who had killed so many members of the community that they had not been able to bury all the bodies.

All uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Survival International is campaigning to secure their land for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The decision by the Brazilian government to slash funding for the teams that protect uncontacted Indians’ territories was not an innocent mistake. It was done to appease the powerful interests who want to open up indigenous lands to exploit – for mining, logging and ranching. These are the people the Indians are up against, and the deaths of uncontacted tribes won’t put them off. Only a global outcry can even the odds in the Indians’ favor, and prevent more such atrocities. We know public pressure works – many Survival campaigns have succeeded in the face of similar odds.”

The human safaris have risked exposing the Jarawa to diseases to which they have no immunity.

Notorious “human safaris” in India’s Andaman Islands may soon stop, after the authorities announced that a new sea route around the islands will soon open.

The new route will keep tourists off the infamous Andaman Trunk Road, which was built illegally through the forests of the isolated Jarawa tribe.

The road brings a daily invasion of hundreds of tourists into the heart of the Jarawa reserve, who treat the Jarawa like animals in a safari park.

One tourist described his trip: “The journey through tribal reserve was like a safari ride as we were going amidst dense tropical rainforest and looking for wild animals, Jarawa tribals to be specific."

The Jarawa, like all recently contacted peoples, face catastrophe unless their land is protected.

The human safaris are also dangerous – one Jarawa boy lost his arm after tourists threw food at him from a moving vehicle.

In 2002 India’s Supreme Court ordered the road closed, but it has remained open.

Survival International led a global campaign against the human safaris, calling for a boycott of the Andaman tourist industry until they came to an end. Nearly 17,000 people from around the world pledged not to holiday in the islands in protest.

The boycott will be called off as soon as the Andaman government agrees to ensure that tourists are no longer able to use the road.

A tourist poses with a group of Jarawa.

Background briefing

- In 2012, shocking footage emerged of Jarawa girls being made to dance at the side of the road, during a human safari. This led to a global outcry against the dehumanizing use of tribal people as tourist exhibits.
- The Jarawa are one of the tribes indigenous to the Andaman islands. They live as hunter gatherers, and chose to reject contact with mainstream Indian society until 1998. Several other Andamanese tribes were wiped out following British colonization of the islands in the 19th century.
- In 1999 and 2006, the Jarawa suffered outbreaks of measles – a disease which has devastated many recently contacted tribes. and which is often a consequence of forced contact.
-Tourism is a major industry in the Andaman islands. The new sea route will be used to access the north of the islands and attractions like the limestone caves and mud volcano at Baratang without tourists intruding into the land of the Jarawa.
- The Islands’ Lieutenant-Governor, Professor Mukhi, announced recently that the sea route will be quicker and more comfortable than the current journey by road.

Still from video showing Jarawa girls forced to dance during a human safari.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Treating the Jarawa as a tourist spectacle was a disgusting practice – it also put their lives in danger. It’s more than time for the human safaris to end. If this sea route can do that, then we welcome it. If not, we’ll carry on campaigning until the Jarawa’s right to determine their own futures and stop being harassed by tourists is secure.”

The winning photo of a Samburu man in Kenya by Timo Heiny.

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, is delighted to announce the twelve winning entries of its annual photo competition. The winning photograph is of a Samburu tribesman in Kenya by Timo Heiny, and appears on the cover of Survival’s 2018 “We, the People” Calendar.

The winning entries give an insight into tribal peoples’ largely self-sufficient and extraordinarily diverse ways of life. The photographs feature tribal peoples from around the world - including many who Survival work with.

The eleven runners-up, whose pictures also appear in Survival’s 2018 Calendar are:

Alice Kohler – Araweté, Brazil,
Sabine Hammes – Bayaka, Central African Republic
Renato Soares – Kalapalo, Brazil
Mattia Passarini – Kinnaura, India
Segundo Chuquipiondo Chota – Ashaninka, Peru
Percy Ramírez Medina – Quechua, Peru
Gabriel Uchida – Uru Eu Wau Wau, Brazil
Phillippe Geslin – Inuit, Greenland
Renato Soares – Kayapo, Brazil
Geffroy Yannick – Kham, Tibet
Giordano Cipriani – Hamar, Ethiopia

Another of the runners-up, an Araweté woman in Brazil by Alice Kohler.

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival said: “Powerful images have always been at the heart of our fight for tribal peoples’ rights. We are delighted to have had so many strong entries this year, and hope that they will help energize people to get behind our mission.”

Survival International was founded in 1969 following an article by Norman Lewis in the UK’s Sunday Times Magazine about the genocide of Brazilian Indians, which featured powerful images from the acclaimed photographer Don McCullin.

Calendars are £13.99 and available from Survival’s shop.

WWF has been working in the Congo Basin for decades – supporting squads who have committed violent abuse against tribal people.

A new Survival International report details widespread and systematic human rights abuses in the Congo Basin, by wildlife guards funded by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other big conservation organizations.

The report documents serious instances of abuse between 1989 and the present day in Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic (CAR) by guards funded and equipped by WWF and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the parent organization of New York’s Bronx zoo.

It lists more than 200 instances of abuse since 1989, including pouring hot wax onto exposed skin, beating, and maiming with red-hot machetes. These incidents are likely just a tiny fraction of the full picture of systematic and ongoing violence, beatings, torture and even death.

As well as these especially cruel incidents, the report also documents the forms of harassment that have become part of everyday life for many people, including threats, and the destruction of food, tools and personal belongings.

Read the full report here.

WWF funded guards in Gabon.

As well as Survival, over the past three decades, numerous independent experts and NGOs have raised concerns about these abuses. These have included NGOs like Greenpeace, Oxfam, UNICEF, Global Witness, Forest Peoples Programme, and research specialists from University College London, the University of Oxford, Durham University, and Kent University.

WWF and WCS have even partnered with several logging companies, despite evidence that their activities are unsustainable, and have not had the consent of tribal peoples as required by international law and their own stated policies.

One Bayaka man said: “A wildlife guard asked me to kneel down. I said: “Never, I could never do that.” He said: “If you don’t get down on your knees I’m going to beat you.”

A Baka woman said: “They took me to the middle of the road and tied my hands with rubber cord. They forced my hands behind my back and cut me with their machete.”

Survival has documented hundreds of instances of abuse, and collected testimonies from many “Pygmy” people.

A Bayaka woman said: “They started kicking me all over my body… I had my baby with me. The child had just been born three days before.”

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.

But big conservation organizations like WWF are partnering with industry and tourism and destroying the environment’s best allies. Now tribal people are accused of “poaching” because they hunt to feed their families. And they face arrest and beatings, torture and death, while big game trophy hunters are encouraged.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “This shocking report lays out, in detail, the abuse and persecution that “conservation” has brought the indigenous and tribal peoples of the Congo Basin. These are just the cases that have been documented, it’s impossible to imagine there aren’t a lot more which remain hidden.

“The big conservation organizations should admit that their activities in the region have been catastrophic, both for the environment and for the tribal peoples who guarded these forests for so long.

“WWF and WCS supporters might ask these organizations how they could have let this situation carry on for so long – and what they’re going to do now to make sure it stops.”

Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa, who signed the open letter warning of an unfolding genocide.

Three of Brazil’s most prominent Indian leaders have denounced their government’s concerted attack on indigenous rights as “genocidal.”

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a shaman and leader from the Yanomami people of the northern Amazon, Raoni Metuktire, leader of the Kayapó people, and Sonia Bone Guajajara, a Guajajara leader and activist, have released an open letter.

It was released to mark International Indigenous Peoples’ Day/ Columbus Day.

In the letter they say: “A genocide is unfolding in our country, Brazil…

“Our government is destroying us indigenous peoples, our country’s first people. In the name of profit and power, our land is being stolen, our forests burned, our rivers polluted and our communities devastated. Our uncontacted relatives, who live deep in the forest, are being attacked and killed.

“But we won’t be silenced. We do not want the riches of our land to be stolen and sold. For as long as we can remember, we have looked after our lands. We protect our forest, as it gives us life.

“We indigenous brothers and sisters of more than 200 different tribes are coming together in protest. From the heart of the Amazon rainforest, we are crying out to you. At this time of emergency, we need you. Please tell our government that our land is not for stealing.”

Raoni Metuktire, renowned Kayapó leader and activist, who has campaigned for indigenous rights and against the infamous Belo Monte dam in the Amazon.

The letter was written in response to growing concerns about the close ties between the Temer government, installed after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff last year, and the country’s powerful and notoriously anti-indigenous agribusiness lobby.

Campaigners have described the current administration’s attitude towards tribal peoples as “the worst for two generations.” Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet, but where their land rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

FUNAI, the country’s indigenous affairs department, whose agents patrol and protect tribal territories, has had its budget significantly cut. This has left many tribes fatally exposed to violence from outsiders and diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

There has also been a serious spike in anti-indigenous violence by people trying to steal tribal lands and resources. In August, around 10 uncontacted Indians were reportedly massacred in the Javari Valley. Earlier this year, ranchers attacked a group of Gamela Indians with machetes, horrifically mutilating several of them.

Sonia Guajajara, a prominent indigenous activist, at a protest in Paris in 2014.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Brazil’s government is determined to undermine indigenous rights throughout the country. It’s deliberately leaving uncontacted tribes’ territories open to invasion in the full knowledge of the deaths and suffering which will inevitably result. What’s happening in Brazil is an urgent and horrific humanitarian crisis, and the international community should throw its weight behind indigenous leaders and others in Brazil calling for an end to the persecution.”

Mr Nakulire in hospital.

A Batwa “Pygmy” man has issued a desperate plea to the organization which runs New York’s Bronx zoo, after his 17-year-old son was shot dead by a park guard.

The boy was gathering medicinal plants with his father, Mobutu Nakulire Munganga, in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on August 26. An anti-poaching squad opened fire on them.

Mr Nakulire was wounded but managed to escape, while his son, Mbone Christian, was killed at the scene. Mr. Nakulire has spent weeks in the regional hospital recovering.

The guards receive logistical support, funding and training from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a big conservation body which is the parent organization of New York’s Bronx zoo. WCS was co-founded by notorious eugenicist Madison Grant.

WCS has been funding the management of Kahuzi-Biega for over 20 years. According to international law and WCS’s own human rights policy, indigenous peoples’ consent is required for conservation projects on their land.

Between the 1960s and 1980s, authorities violently and illegally evicted up to 6,000 Batwa from the park. “The Batwa of today are not healthy like our grandparents were,” writes Mr Nakulire, who was himself evicted as a child, in his complaint. “We struggle to find enough to eat and are forced to cope with new diseases and the loss of many forest medicines…

Mbone Christian Nakulire was just 17 years old when he was killed.

“Yet no one has ever come to seek our consent for the Kahuzi-Biega National Park,” the complaint reads. “Why then does WCS continue to fund and support it?

“Nothing will ever make up for the loss of my son, but I am making this complaint so that you can help me and my people find justice and return to our land,” ends Mr Nakulire. “WCS must honor its human rights policy and help end our suffering.”

In September Survival released a detailed report on how WCS and other big conservation organizations are funding grave human rights abuses in the Congo Basin, including the Republic of Congo which borders the DRC.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “This tragedy is the latest chapter in a long and shameful story. First Mr Nakulire’s people were violently and illegally evicted, now they face death if they try to return. WCS must keep its promises about respecting the Batwa’s rights. If they don’t have the Batwa’s consent for what they’re doing, they simply shouldn’t be there.”

Background briefing
- Mr Nakulire’s complaint can be read here.
- The World Wildlife Fund has also funded and equipped park guards in Kahuzi-Biega.
- Tribal peoples like the Batwa have been dependent on and managed their environments for centuries. 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.
- Survival International is leading the global fight against abuse in the name of conservation.

_ "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._

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Survival announces winners of annual photographic competition

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