Still from video showing Jarawa girls forced to dance for tourists along the illegal Andaman Trunk Road.

© Anon

Tour operators in India’s Andaman Islands are selling “human safaris” to the reserve of a recently-contacted tribe, despite government promises to ban the practice.

Tourists travel along a road through the Jarawa’s forest, treating tribespeople like animals in a safari park. In 2013, the Andaman government promised to open a sea route to the Islands’ most popular tourist destinations, which would stop tourists needing to drive through the Jarawa’s reserve. The sea route has recently become operational.

But despite the authorities’ commitment to ensuring all tourists would have to use the sea route, very few currently do, and the market in human safaris along the road is flourishing.

A tourist films a Jarawa man up close on the road. Campaigners have raised deep concerns about the dangerous, degrading and exploitative nature of tribal tourism.

© Survival

One tour company, Tropical Andamans, states that: “The Famous Jarawa creek is a lonely planet in itself. It is the dwelling place of the oldest tribes found in these islands. The tribes known as Jarawas, are aloof from the civilized world. They are the wonder of the modern world, for they feed on raw pigs, fruits, and vegetables. They don’t speak any language known to general public. Their pitch black skin and red eyes will leave you dazzled in case you happen to meet them.”

A tourist website, Flywidus, offers a glimpse of “primitive tribals” to tourists driving through the Jarawa reserve, and another, Holidify, describe the Jarawa as a “major attraction” and claims that the Jarawa “love the high of specific drugs, one of it being tobacco.”

In 2002 India’s Supreme Court ordered the road closed, but it has remained open continuously despite pressure from human rights campaigners.

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.

In a recent statement, the Andaman government said that the road: “…shall remain open for the use of both islanders and the tourists as no decision has been taken by this Administration for closing it down for the tourists. However, the tourists have been advised to avail boat service.”

Tourist vehicles queuing to enter the Jarawa tribal reserve.

© www.andamanchronicle.net /Survival

Background briefing

– The road brings a daily invasion of hundreds of tourists into the heart of the Jarawa reserve. The promotion by tour operators of sightings of the Jarawa is illegal in the islands, but this is not being enforced.
– The UN, India’s Minister for Tribal Affairs and members of the European Parliament have all condemned the practice.
– 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. They sparked global outcry in 2012 after footage emerged of a tourist forcing several Jarawa girls to dance.
– Tribal peoples’ land rights have been part of international law for generations. The key to their survival and prosperity is to ensure their land remains under their control.
– All uncontacted and recently contacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Survival International is leading the global fight to secure their land for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The new sea ferry was supposed to stop tour buses driving through Jarawa land, and so put an end to these dangerous and disgusting human safaris. But the government wants it to be optional which defeats the purpose entirely. Tourist companies are still selling the safaris and profiting from the exploitation of tribal people. Ethical tourists should boycott the islands until this is stopped."

Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet

© Survival

The UN’s top expert on indigenous peoples has highlighted the need for South American states “to redouble efforts to protect the territories” of uncontacted tribes.

Addressing a meeting of the Latin American Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention in New York earlier this month, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said that pressure on uncontacted tribes’ land has caused “a growing wave of contacts and interactions in the border regions between Peru and Brazil, some initiated by isolated indigenous peoples themselves as a result of the dire circumstances they live in due to incursions on their lands.”

She stressed the urgent need to address the threats to their land. The reported killing last month of a group of around 10 uncontacted Indians by illegal goldminers in Brazil’s Amazon made headlines round the world highlighting how vulnerable these people are when governments fail to protect their lands.

Drawing attention to the importance of guidelines which uphold uncontacted tribes’ right to remain uncontacted as “an expression of the right to self-determination”, she said their situation should be “part of the action plans and programmes of the highest-level political bodies of the United Nations and Organization of American States.”

There are more than a hundred uncontacted tribes around the world. They are a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity, but they face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Survival is doing everything it can to secure their land for them, and to let them live. Watch our new film.

Fires are threatening the lives and lands of tribal people in the Amazon.

© Survival International

Forest fires are raging in an indigenous territory on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon, threatening to wipe out uncontacted members of the Awá tribe.

Neighboring Guajajara Indians are attempting to contain the blaze and demanding greater support from government.

Campaigners are concerned that the current wave of fires could wipe out the uncontacted Awá and are calling for urgent action.

The Awá are already under great pressure as illegal loggers are devastating their territory, which is an island of green amid a sea of deforestation.

Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples the planet. Tribes like the Awá are being wiped out by violence from outsiders, and by diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance. Unless their land is protected, they face catastrophe.

Among those fighting the fires are indigenous fire-fighters of the Environment Ministry’s fire prevention scheme “Prevfogo,” and members of the “Guajajara Guardians,” who live in and frequently patrol the area in an attempt to crack down on illegal logging, and protect their uncontacted neighbors who are living on the run.

Indigenous firefighters in Arariboia Indigenous territory, Brazil.

© Guajajara

Kaw Guajajara, one of their leaders, said: “Our uncontacted relatives can’t survive without their forest… As long as we live we will fight for our forest and the uncontacted Indians.”

The Guardians’ role in protecting their forest highlights the vital role tribal peoples play in conservation, ahead of the COP23 conference in Bonn, Germany next month.

Tribal peoples like the Guajajara and Awá have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia. 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.

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, is lobbying the Brazilian government to ensure the Arariboia fires are extinguished as a matter of urgency, and that all invaders are evicted from the territory.

The Waiãpi have organized protests against projects on their land

© Survival

The Waiãpi tribe in Brazil have defied a hostile government to defend their land rights.

The tribe has circulated a powerful open letter in which they state: “We’re against mining because we want to defend our land and forest. We believe the land is a person”.

The letter was written in response to the Brazilian government’s attempt to open up the Amazon forest around the tribe’s land to large-scale mining. Following a global outcry by indigenous peoples and campaigners, the government backed down.

However, given the power of Brazil’s notorious agribusiness lobby, the Waiãpi are on the alert. In the letter they vow to defend their territory at all costs against mining interests.

The tribe say mining will not bring benefits to them. They are concerned about conflict and disease brought by an influx of outsiders, and the opening up of their land to destructive economic interests such as hydro-electric dams, ranching and gold mining.

This small Amazon tribe knows the devastating impacts of highways and mining. Sporadic contacts with outsiders hunting wild cats for their pelts and groups of gold prospectors in the latter part of last century introduced fatal diseases like measles to which the isolated Waiãpi had no resistance. Many died as a result.

In 1973 FUNAI, the government’s indigenous affairs department decided to contact the Waiãpi because the country’s military dictatorship wanted to build a highway through their land.

At the time of contact, the Waiãpi numbered a mere 150 individuals and seemed on the brink of extinction. However, they have proved extraordinarily resilient and today number over 1,200 people.

They have set up their own organizations, expelled the gold miners working illegally on their land, and trained their own health agents and teachers who work in the communities. 

Some members of the tribe have made innovative films documenting their campaign for land rights. Some toured abroad for international support, and their communities physically mapped out their land, which was finally recognized by the government in 1996. Since then, they have occupied all the regions within the territory to protect it from invasion.

The letter underlines their strong sense of cohesion: “We Wajãpi have a very strong culture, which we continue to value and transmit to our future generations”.

Important events in the natural calendar such as fish spawning and honey gathering are celebrated with ceremonies where all generations join in the dancing, accompanied by flute music and the consumption of caxiri, a drink made from fermented manioc. Like most tribal peoples, their botanical knowledge is immense – they cultivate over 15 types of wild manioc and 5 types of corn.

In 2008 UNESCO recognized the Waiãpi’s graphic art, which they call kusiwa, as the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”. It is based on the use of natural paints from plants, like the red anatto paste, which is used to paint intricate designs on the body and to decorate objects like baskets

However national and international pressure is fundamental to support the Waiãpi in their continuing struggle to assert their rights as they face increasing threats to their land, a hostile congress and a government intent on weakening indigenous rights in Brazil.

Their letter ends with a call to all who are concerned about the destruction of the Amazon to support them. Readers can take action by participating in Survival’s campaign here

The Guajajara Guardians are a group of Brazilian Indians who protect their forest in the Amazon, and the uncontacted people who live in it.

© Survival

Survival International is calling for greater recognition from world leaders for tribal peoples’ crucial role in protecting the environment, ahead of the COP 23 conference in Bonn, Germany.

The conference, which takes place between November 6 and November 17, is a follow up to the groundbreaking Paris climate talks in 2015, and brings together government representatives and activists from around the world, including some indigenous people, to discuss environmental issues.

Survival has been leading the global call for a conservation model that respects tribal peoples’ rights. This has been increasingly acknowledged by key international figures, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz.

Satellite images show that large areas of the Amazon are protected by indigenous territories.

© Google Earth

Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman known as the Dalai Lama of the rainforest, said: “The rains come late. The sun behaves in a strange way. The world is ill. The lungs of the sky are polluted. We know it is happening. You cannot go on destroying nature.” 

Evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation. Robust land protection measures and recognition of tribal land rights protect vast areas of forest, aiding biodiversity and reducing global CO2 levels.

But despite this, some of the big conservation organizations are partnering with industry and tourism and destroying the environment’s best allies. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have both partnered with logging companies in the Congo Basin, none of which is logging at sustainable rates, and both have contributed to gross violations of the rights of tribal peoples like the Baka and Bayaka.

Brazilian Indian leader Sonia Guajajara, who will be attending the Bonn climate conference.

© Survival International

Although some indigenous activists like Sonia Guajajara from Brazil will be present at the talks, tribal peoples’ voices will not be at the center of the conference. This is despite the fact that tribal peoples are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world, and should be at the forefront of the environmental movement.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “It’s dangerous to sideline tribal people in discussions on how best to protect our planet. They have far greater insight into how to look after the environment than anyone and we ignore their knowledge at our peril. For decades, industrialized society has ravaged the planet and destroyed indigenous peoples along the way. It’s time we started listening to them before it’s too late.”

Kafukuzi Valence in his cell in Kisoro, Uganda, in February 2017

© Alex Ahimbisibwe/Batwa Development Organisation

A Batwa “Pygmy” man has been released from prison, after spending over seven months behind bars for killing a small antelope inside a protected area from which his people were illegally evicted.

Kafukuzi Valence, who has no birth certificate but reports his age as 72, claims the animal strayed from Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park into a neighboring field.

“They imprisoned me because I caught an animal from the forest and ate it,” Mr Kafukuzi told Survival.

“I was so ill and helpless, and I had no medical care,” said Mr Kafukuzi, describing his time in prison. “I had such bad pain in my chest and my legs, and there were so many bedbugs biting me.”

“Even now I am very weak. I have nothing to eat, I just sit here. That is my life now.”

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

© Bagaragazagod

Mr Kafukuzi alleges that rangers from the Uganda Wildife Authority also stole possessions from his house at the time of his arrest.

Bwindi Impenetrable National 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 wildlife rangers announced in the region that everyone should leave the forest, but we stayed,” recounted Mr Kafukuzi. “They came to hunt us down and shoot at us.”

But targeting tribal hunters diverts action away from tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials. Last week it was reported that a Uganda Wildlife Authority ranger was caught trafficking hippo teeth.

Survival is campaigning to stop the violation of tribal peoples’ rights in the name of conservation.

Baiga woman evicted from Kanha. The Baiga have struggled to find land since their eviction and now face poverty and misery.

© Survival

Survival International has launched a worldwide tourist boycott of India’s tiger reserves until the rights of tribal peoples living within them are fully restored and respected.

Indian conservation authorities have banned the recognition of tribal rights in tiger reserves, a move that has provoked widespread condemnation.

Tens of thousands of Indian tribal people have been illegally evicted from villages inside tiger reserves, and forced into lives of poverty and misery on the fringes of mainstream society.

India’s Forest Rights Act guarantees tribal people the right to live on and protect their ancestral land.

Big conservation organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) support the evictions. For decades WCS has led the call for the “relocation” of tribal people from tiger reserves.

Hunting by the Raj elite endangered India’s tigers – but tribal people are paying the price of conservation efforts.

© Wikimedia

Many tribal peoples are not aware that they have the right to stay on their land, because forest authorities do not tell them.

Background briefing
- The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has 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.
- In the first tiger reserve where tribal people had their right to stay recognized, tiger numbers have increased at well above the national average.

A Chenchu woman from Pecheru village, which was evicted from Nagarjunsagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve. The Chenchu report that of the 750 families that used to live in the village, only 160 families survived after the eviction.

© Survival

Madegowda, a tribal rights activist from the Soliga tribe in southern India, condemned the ban, calling it a violation of “human rights and tribal rights in the name of tiger conservation. Tribal people, tigers and wildlife can live together, co-existence is possible because tribal peoples have a depth of knowledge on biodiversity and they know how to protect the forest and wildlife.”

Members of the Jenu Kuruba tribe, many of whom have been evicted from Nagarhole National Park, protested against the ban, threatening to block the road to the park if it wasn’t withdrawn. A Jenu Kuruba man said: "They evicted us on the pretext that we made noise, that we disturbed the forest, but now there are a lot of jeeps and tourism vehicles – isn’t that a disturbance for the animals?”

Conservationist Brajesh Dubey said: “We are going to see more people displaced because the government wants to show they care about tigers… But it has been proven that tribal communities help prevent poaching and also help in conservation efforts.”

The Soliga have an extraordinary knowledge of their environment, and a deep reverence for the tiger.

© Survival

Meanwhile, thousands of tourists enter tiger reserves each year, and industrial projects such as dam-building and uranium exploration have been approved inside them.

The boycott can be joined here

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “More and more tourists are aware that India’s tiger reserves hide a deep injustice – the illegal eviction of tribes in the name of conservation. Now the government has compounded this injustice by banning the recognition of tribal rights in the reserves for those who still remain. That’s why we’re calling for a boycott of all tiger reserves. The authorities need to realize that only by complying with the law and recognizing tribes’ rights can the tiger be saved – and that tourists won’t want to visit tiger reserves that have been emptied of their rightful owners.”

Jumma villagers flee from an attack, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh

© Anonymous

On the 20th anniversary of the peace accord between the Jumma tribal peoples and the Bangladesh government, campaigners have raised concerns that successive Bangladeshi administrations have failed to implement this vital agreement, or protect the Jumma.

The tribe continue to face endemic violence, land-grabbing and intimidation on their ancestral land in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Jumma women and girls are frequently subjected to rape and sexual assault.


The Bangladesh government has been moving Bengali settlers onto the lands of the Jumma tribal people for more than 60 years. The Jummas have gone from being practically the sole inhabitants of the Hill Tracts to now being outnumbered by settlers.

In June this year, at least 250 houses belonging to Jummas were burnt to the ground by Bengali settlers. An elderly woman, Guna Mala Chakma, was trapped in her home and burned to death.

Eyewitnesses report that army and police personnel stood by and did nothing as settlers set fire to Jumma houses and shops in three different villages.

On 2 December 1997 the government and the Jummas signed a peace accord that committed the government to removing military camps from the region and to ending the theft of Jumma land by settlers and the army.

The accord offered hope, but twenty years on military camps remain in the Hill Tracts and violence and land grabbing continue unabated.

This Jenu Keruba man was shot by forest guards. Tribes like the Jenu Keruba face routine harassment, and illegal eviction from their ancestral home.

© Survival

A host of famous faces have joined Survival International’s call for a global boycott of India’s tiger reserves, in protest at the ban on the recognition of tribal peoples’ rights in the reserves.

They include actor and activist Gillian Anderson OBE, actor Dominic West, Oscar-winner Sir Mark Rylance, and musician and photographer Julian Lennon. Celebrated Indian author and environmentalist Amitav Ghosh also expressed his support for tribal forest rights.

India’s Forest Rights Act guarantees tribal peoples the right to live on and protect their ancestral land. But the country’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has issued an illegal order to ban the recognition of forest rights in tiger reserves across the country.

After petitioning the Indian government on this urgent issue and receiving no reply, Survival is calling for a global tourist boycott of tiger reserves until the order is withdrawn.

Actor, activist and Survival ambassador Gillian Anderson OBE has joined the boycott of India’s tiger reserves.

© Gage Skidmore/ Wikimedia

Many tribal peoples face illegal eviction from their land, despite the fact that there is very little evidence connecting their largely sustainable ways of life to the decline in tiger numbers. Forest authorities routinely harass and coerce tribal people into “agreeing” to leave their forest homes, and do not inform them they have the legal right to stay.

After eviction, tribal people face lives of poverty and exclusion on the fringes of Indian society. Meanwhile, huge numbers of tourists are then invited into tiger reserves, disrupting tiger habitats and making tigers more vulnerable to poaching.

A man from the Jenu Keruba tribe, who was evicted from Nagarhole National Park, said: "They evicted us on the pretext that we made noise, that we disturbed the forest, but now there are a lot of jeeps and tourism vehicles – isn’t that a disturbance for the animals?”

Large numbers of tourists frequently visit Indian tiger reserves in jeeps.

© Brian Gratwicke

Tribal peoples have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia. They are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world. They should be at the forefront of the environmental movement.

In one tiger reserve in southern India where Soliga tribal people won the right to stay, tiger numbers have increased at above the national average.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “People are signing up to our boycott once they hear about the human misery behind India’s tiger reserves. The NTCA is pursuing an outdated “fortress conservation” model, and expelling the very owners of the forests who have guarded and maintained them for centuries. It’s not only causing untold suffering, it’s also not going to save the tiger. The NTCA should reverse its policy quickly, for the sake of the tiger, the tribespeople, and the country’s tourism industry.”

The Guarani continue fighting for their land rights despite continuous attacks.

© Fiona Watson/Survival

Ten years ago the Brazilian government signed a landmark agreement with the Guarani tribe, which obliged it to identify all their ancestral lands.

The core objective of the agreement, which was drawn up by the public prosecutors office, was to speed up the recognition of the Guarani’s land rights in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

However, one decade on, most surveys have not even been carried out and the authorities’ failure to recognize the Guarani’s land rights continues to have a terrible impact on the tribe’s health and well-being.

With no immediate hope of recovering their land and rebuilding their livelihoods, thousands of Guarani are trapped in overcrowded reservations where the prosecutors say there is so little land that “social economic and cultural life is impossible.”

Other Guarani communities live along busy highways or on fragments of their ancestral land, hemmed in by vast sugar cane and soya plantations. They cannot plant, fish or hunt and have no access to clean water.

A Guarani-Kaiowa couple sit outside their makeshift roadside settlement of the Apy Ka'y community, near Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

© Paul Patrick Borhaug/Survival

Health workers report that these communities are suffering from severe side effects of pesticides used by agribusiness. Some communities say their water resources and houses are deliberately sprayed by the ranchers.

A recent study estimated that 3% of the indigenous population in the state could be poisoned by pesticides, some of which are banned in the EU.

Malnutrition especially among babies and young children is common. According to Gilmar Guarani: “Children cry and cannot put up with this situation any more. They are really suffering and are very weak. They are practically eating earth. It’s desperate.”

Mato Grosso do Sul is home to the second largest indigenous population in Brazil, with 70,000 Indians belonging to seven tribes.

Much of their ancestral land has been stolen from them by cattle ranchers and agribusiness, and now they occupy a mere 0.2 % of the state.

John Nara Gomes says: “Today the life of a cow is worth more than that of an indigenous child… The cows are well fed and the children are starving. Before we were free to hunt, fish and gather fruits. Today we are shot by gunmen.”

The despair among the Guarani at the loss of their lands and self sufficient life is reflected in extremely high rates of suicide . In the period 2000-2015 there were 752 suicides. Statistics collected since 1996 reveal a rate that is 21 times greater than the national one. This is probably under-estimated as many suicides are not reported.

Damiana Cavanha, leader of the Apy Ka'y community, has seen the deaths of three of her children and her husband. She is determinedly planning a reoccupation of their ancestral land where they are buried.

© Paul Patrick Borhaug/Survival

The Guarani also face high levels of violence and are constantly targeted by ranchers’ gunmen whenever they attempt to take back parts of their ancestral land. Recent data shows that 60% of all the assassinations of indigenous people in Brazil occurred in Mato Grosso do Sul state.

With a government and congress dominated by the powerful agribusiness sector, the landowners in Mato Grosso do Sul will not cede an inch. Many have resorted to the courts as a delaying tactic, to challenge the identification of Guarani territories. One core Guarani territory has had 57 legal challenges.

Despite this bleak scenario many Guarani vow to fight on: “Brazil was always our land. The hope that feeds me is that our land will be recognized, for without it we cannot care for nature and feed ourselves. We shall fight and die for it” says Geniana Barbosa, a young Guarani woman.

This Baiga woman was evicted from Kanha tiger reserve.

© Survival

India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is coming under increasing pressure over its illegal order banning the recognition of tribal forest rights in tiger reserves. The order prompted Survival International to launch a global tourism boycott in November.

Information released to Survival has revealed that India’s tribal peoples’ Commission (officially called the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST)) has directly challenged the NTCA’s order in private meetings in Delhi. The Commission demanded that the NTCA suspend any planned evictions of tribal peoples, who have been dependent on and managed their forests for millennia.

After demanding to meet with the NTCA, the Commission argued that the order violates India’s Forest Rights Act – which guarantees tribal peoples’ rights to their forests. It was intended to address the “historical injustice” against tribes and other “traditional forest dwellers.”

In November, representatives of tribal communities met with many human rights and environment activists in Delhi, amidst mounting concern over the NTCA order.

A Baiga woman works for daily wages on Vedanta’s Bodai-Daldali bauxite mine, Chhattisgarh

© Sayantan Bera/Survival

J.K. Thimma, a Jenu Keruba man who lives in Nagarhole National Park, and was present at the meeting, said: “The NTCA order is an attack against our culture and our tradition. This is anti-Constitutional and the NTCA have no right to stop the implementation of an Act passed by the Parliament… This is denial for our existence. The order needs to be withdrawn as soon as possible, it is creating fear among all of us.”

Another tribal man, Shankar Barde from Tadoba Tiger Reserve, said: “After years of restrictions and hardships, finally we were told early this year by the district administration that our rights have been recognized. We were excited… but then we were told by the district administration that NTCA order does not allow our rights to be recognized. This is a complete injustice. Dozens of outsiders are earning large sums of money in our backyard while we struggle to even live with dignity.”

Indian law specifically states that the NTCA does not have the power to “interfere with or affect the rights of local people, particularly… tribes.” Tribal rights are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.

Despite this, conservation authorities have violated the rights of tribal peoples. Across India, tribal peoples endure harassment, coercion, and illegal eviction from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation.

Baiga children. Their village was notified with eviction. Achanakmar Tiger Reserve.

© Survival

After eviction, tribal people face lives of poverty and exclusion on the fringes of Indian society. Meanwhile, huge numbers of tourists are then invited into tiger reserves, disrupting tiger habitats and making tigers more vulnerable to poaching.

Survival International is leading the global fight against injustice and abuse in the name of protecting wildlife.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “This order is an attack on India’s tribal peoples – it’s also illegal. Polluting and destructive industries such as uranium mining and tourism are apparently welcome in tiger reserves, but conservationists in India remain determined to kick tribal people off their land. It’s time they partnered with the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world, and stopped persecuting them. Tribal peoples know their land and its animals better than the conservationists.”

A recent epidemic in the Republic of Congo is said to have been aggravated by the loss of indigenous peoples' resources due to conservation and logging projects.

© C. Fornellino Romero/Survival

A Congolese organization has recently raised concerns that conservation contributed to the deaths of several dozen children, mostly Bayaka “Pygmies,” during an epidemic in 2016 in the Republic of Congo – the latest in a long line of related reports.

The deaths have been attributed by a medical expert to malaria, pneumonia and dysentery, aggravated by severe malnutrition.

Conservation-related malnutrition among Bayaka children in this region has been reported since 2005 at least, as the Bayaka are prevented from hunting and gathering on their lands by wildlife guards through violence and intimidation.

These guards are funded and equipped by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), one of the world’s largest conservation organizations, and the logging company it has partnered with, CIB. Both organizations have failed to take effective action to prevent abuse.

“The wildlife guards abuse us. They don’t want us to go into the forest. How can we feed our children?” a Bayaka man from Mbandza, the site of the epidemic, told Survival in 2016.

These guards have been accused of abusing Bayaka and stealing their food for over 13 years. One such attack that took place in Mbandza in early 2016 left one man hospitalized.

The Baka and Bayaka’s consent is required by law for any major project on their lands, but this is ignored by WWF and WCS.

© Survival International

In this way, the Bayaka are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands by threat of violence. As one Bayaka woman explained: “If we go into the forest we eat well there compared to the village. We eat wild yams and honey. We want to go into the forest but they forbid us to. It frightens us. It frightens us.”

Critics have noted that the guards have also failed to protect the wildlife the Bayaka depend on for food, since they have difficulty tackling corruption and the creation of logging roads, the two main drivers of poaching.

Plummeting health has been reported among Bayaka living in the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas in the Central African Republic – one of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) flagship projects – since 2006. Conditions encountered among older women “would be considered a public health crisis by international health agencies," according to research published in 2016.

Increased malnutrition and mortality have been reported among Baka “Pygmies” in Cameroon, where WWF also operates, and among Batwa “Pygmies” in another of WCS’s project sites in east Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Now we are afraid of the anti-poaching squads. Before when a woman gave birth we took her to the forest to help her regain her strength and weight, now we can’t do this. We would take our children to the forest to avoid epidemics. Now we know illnesses we never knew before,” one Baka woman in Cameroon told Survival.

Watch Baka describe the abuse they face as a result of WWF’s conservation projects

Neither WCS nor WWF has attempted to secure the indigenous peoples’ consent, as basic due diligence and their own human rights policies require.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Land theft is a serious and deadly crime, as these reports show. Many associate conservation with reason and compassion but, for Baka and Bayaka, it often means mindless violence and plummeting health. When will WWF and WCS finally start complying with their own human rights policies? ”

Timeline

1996: The organization Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe finds that malnutrition and mortality has increased among Batwa “Pygmies” since they were evicted from Kahuzi-Biega, a national park in east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) funded by WCS.

1997: WWFobserves that the fact that the Bayaka are banned from hunting or gathering inside the Dzanga-Ndoki Park, the park in the Central African Republic (CAR) that WWF helped to create, “punishes [the Bayaka] severely” and is undermining their food security.

2000: A study finds that the Batwa in Kahuzi-Biega, DRC, are suffering from nutritional deficiencies, because they are no longer able to hunt in the forest, and soaring mortality rates. Malnutrition is particularly pronounced among women and children.

2004: A BBC investigation into CIB’s logging concessions in Congo hears from a Bayaka man: “We get so much suffering because of [wildlife] guards. We can’t go and find things in the forest as we used to. All we hear is hunger.”

2004: Bayaka from another community in Congo report to Greenpeace: “Then we met another white man (WCS) who came to tell us to stop hunting and that the wildlife guards would make sure we did. Now we are afraid to go far in the forest in case the wildlife guards catch us so we have to stay in the village. […] Now we are dying of hunger.”

2005: The Congolese Observatory on Human Rights, the organization that reported on the 2016 epidemic, documents three cases of violent abuse against Bayaka by wildlife guards, and warns that some Bayaka “are dying of hunger.”

2005: A news report recounts how Bayaka in one of CIB’s logging concessions describe being targeted by wildlife guards that mistreat and temporarily imprison them, and how this has led to more frequent malnutrition among children and vulnerable adults.

2006: WWF and its partners commission a report that finds that the Bayaka in Dzanga-Sangha, CAR, are struggling to feed themselves. The Bayaka interviewed for the report state that the conservation project has forced them out of some of their richest hunting and gathering grounds. They report that wildlife guards harass or attack them even when they try to use the reduced areas of land they have left, all the while accepting bribes from the real poachers who were emptying the forest of its wildlife. Some Bayaka women are finding it so hard to find food, the investigator hears, that they have been driven to sex work in the nearby town.

2006: An article in The Lancetcautions that “Pygmy peoples’ health risks are changing as the central African forests, which are the basis for their traditional social structure, culture, and hunter-gatherer economy, are being destroyed or expropriated by […] conservation projects:”

2008: UNICEFwarns that the Bayaka’s right to gather resources is being “flouted on the most basic level because indigenous people no longer have access to areas rich in game” due to protected areas in Congo.

2012: An anthropologist with 18 years’ experience working with Bayaka in Congo reports increasingly poor nutrition and increased mortality. He attributes this to the removal of forest resources by loggers and to “conservationists’ exclusionary and draconian management practices.”

2013: A researcher at the University of Oxford reports that the combined impact of conservation and logging have led to poorer health and higher levels of drug and alcohol addiction among the Bayaka. He argues that conservation efforts would benefit from gaining people’s consent

2014: A medical study finds that “punitive anti-poaching measures” and dwindling wildlife have caused health to plummet among Bayaka in Dzanga-Sangha, CAR, particularly among women. “It is disheartening to see health decline so closely tied […] to the conservation management policies of the last twenty-five years,” the study’s authors note.

2015: A doctor with extensive experience working in CIB’s logging concessions reports that: “Aside from wounds inflicted by gorillas, buffalo or other wild animals, my colleague and I also see [gun] wounds in people claiming to have been attacked – sometimes without warning – by the protectors of wildlife: the wildlife guards.”

2015: The same doctor tells Survival: “I find this [wildlife guard violence] a very serious problem and in my opinion most wildlife guards have other motives than protecting the animals to work as a wildlife guard.”

2016: A second doctor with extensive experience working in CIB’s logging concessions describes to Survival the seasonal malnutrition she encounters among Bayaka, which she attributes to repressive conservation policies.

“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 Sengwer tribespeople are being violently evicted from their land

© Yator Kiptum

A man from the Sengwer tribe was killed yesterday by guards working for the Kenya Forestry Service (KFS). Another man was wounded.

This brutal attack follows several recent violent operations to evict Sengwer tribespeople from their land.

Dozens of armed security officers burned people’s homes, food stores, and possessions, and killed livestock, to force them out of the Embobut Forest where they have lived for generations.

The attacks started at the end of December.

Milka Chepkorir, a Sengwer woman, says that the destruction of their homes in the attacks results in: “a loss of family ties as family members are scattered and scared, and sexual abuse and harassment and psychological torture is associated with the horrible acts of evictions.”

Despite the threats and violence, many Sengwer have vowed to resist. One woman declared: “We are going nowhere, even if the government decides to kill us here.”

The EU is funding a conservation project in the region, which aims to protect water sources in the hills. It condemned the killing and announced it is suspending its support for the project.

The Sengwer are calling on the government to uphold their right to live on their ancestral land, and to consult with them urgently on how best to work with them to conserve their forests.

Eviction of the Sengwer started under British colonial rule.

In 2014 the KFS and police evicted thousands of Sengwer from their forest homes, forcing many to live in caves or temporary structures.

Following more harassment in 2016, David Yator Kiptum, Executive Director of the Sengwer Indigenous Peoples Programme said: “Evicting members of the Sengwer community from our ancestral home is not a solution to conservation. Neither is it a solution to climate change.”
 

The Sengwer number about 33,000 people, of which about 13,500 live in the Embobut Forest. Here they hunt, gather honey, plant crops and rear small numbers of livestock.

Like many tribal peoples they have a deep knowledge of the ecology of their forests, which they have maintained for generations.

The evictions are in violation of international law, and are destroying the people who know best how to conserve the forest.

Three independent UN experts have raised their concerns about the attacks and evictions.

Tomas was contacted between 2001 to 2003 and now lives in the Amazon region where one of the deadliest roads has been proposed.

© David Hill/Survival

Peru has approved a law that could devastate several uncontacted Amazon tribes.

The law declares “in the national interest” the construction of roads in the remote Ucayali region that borders Peru and Brazil.

The area lies inside the Uncontacted Frontier, home of the highest concentration of uncontacted tribes on Earth.

Several illegal roads that cut through uncontacted Indians’ lands have already been opened up. Thousands of illegal gold miners operate in the region, and have polluted dozens of rivers with mercury.

Uncontacted tribes face catastrophe unless their land is protected. They have the right to their land under Peruvian and international law.

Road building in the Amazon almost always leads to a devastating influx of settlers, loggers and ranchers.

Pope Francis, speaking from the region just days before the road law was passed, said: “Never before has there been a greater threat to indigenous peoples’ lands.

“We must break with the historical paradigm that sees the Amazon as an inexhaustible resource for other countries, without taking into account its inhabitants.”

Survival is calling on the Peruvian government to scrap road building plans inside the Uncontacted Frontier.

The Marma, like other tribes of the CHT, have faced years of violence, land-grabbing and intimidation.

© Mark McEvoy/Survival

Two sisters from the Marma indigenous tribe of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh are being held against their will after being raped and sexually assaulted at gun point, allegedly by members of the Bangladesh security forces.

The Jummas, a collective name for the tribes living in the CHT, continue to face endemic violence, land-grabbing and intimidation on their ancestral land. Jumma women and girls are frequently subjected to rape and sexual assault at the hands of Bengali settlers and the armed forces.

The Marma girls, aged 19 and 14, describe men in army uniforms entering their house during a raid in the early hours of January 22. They report that the older sister was raped and the younger was sexually assaulted during an attempted rape.

The army and other security forces have denied the attacks took place, and the authorities are now not allowing the girls to be released from hospital. Their room is being guarded by police who are refusing to allow human rights activists or journalists to talk to the victims.

The sisters fear for their own, and their family’s, safety. Those who have been able to speak to the girls report that they are traumatised, not only by the initial brutal attacks but also by the numerous interrogations by male police officers and the entry of male security personnel into their hospital room throughout the day and night.

The girls speak only their tribal Marma language and have been refused access to familiar indigenous food brought to the hospital by well wishers.

Raja Devasish Roy, the Chakma king, Survival and other human rights activists have called for the girls to be released from the hospital and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

The Baka are better at looking after their environment than anyone else.

© Selcen Kucukustel/Atlas

Four Baka – two women and two men – were beaten up by eco-guards in the Republic of Congo last week. The Baka had just returned to their village, after spending the day in the forest, when a squad of eco-guards arrived and accused them of hunting elephants.

Survival has received reports that the two Baka men were arrested and are now in prison, even though the eco-guards found no evidence that they had been hunting.

A similar case of abuse was reported in a neighbouring community a week earlier, around 23 February: a group of Baka were coming out from the forest when eco-guards beat them up and arrested them.

Eco-guards are patrolling huge swathes of north-east Congo Republic, including regions which are not officially recognized as “protected” areas. They are funded and equipped by WWF and according to several sources, are spreading terror among Baka in the name of conservation.

A Baka man told Survival: “They always do that kind of abuse, especially to Baka. They need to beat people to show they are doing a good job”.

Eco-guards are also involved in other cases of abuse, harassment, torture and arrest of innocent Baka people. One case, in early 2017, was described as a “catastrophe”. The guards made Baka men, women and children strip to their waists, get to the ground and “crawl like snakes” while the guards kicked and whipped them with their belts.

Physical violence is just one part of the abuse that tribal people have to face in the name of conservation. Eco-guards regularly steal Baka food, burn their homes and destroy their tools.

“The eco-guards came here to abuse us for nothing. Every time it is beatings and whippings – and they break our radios, and pierce our cooking pots” says one Baka man.

Today the Baka say they do not feel free to move around and live in their ancestral land. The climate of fear is so strong that they feel unable to hunt, fish and gather plants to feed their families, with serious consequences for the Baka’s health and well being.

These abuses are not just illegal: they are harming conservation. Targeting tribal hunters diverts action away from tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials – and harms conservation.

Moreover, the big conservation organizations are partnering with industry and tourism and destroying the environment’s best allies. Like many tribal peoples, the Baka know better than anyone else how to take care of elephants and other wildlife in their forests.

Soliga have an extraordinary knowledge of every tree, leaf, mineral and animal that exists in the land they call home. They have been managing their environment successfully and sustainably for centuries.

© survival

The dramatic rise in forest fires in Karnataka, India, could have been prevented by indigenous forestry methods developed in part to prevent large-scale blazes, say members of the local Soliga tribe. These techniques halt the spread of the lantana plant, a highly flammable invasive species that has been cited by officials as a key element in the destructiveness of the fires.

The Soliga are forbidden by law from using their centuries-old practice of controlled litter fires, called Taragu benki, to manage lantana’s spread and help nurture the forest in their homelands in the BRT Tiger Reserve. The weed grows very easily and is very woody, meaning it is harder to put out the fire once the plant is ablaze. Since the Soliga have been banned from using Taragu benki, the noxious weed has spread rapidly.

Karnataka state officials have cited the lack of modern fire-fighting methods and are focusing on a tech-centred approach to fire safety. However, Madegowda C, a tribal rights activist from the Soliga people, says that the Soliga themselves are the best-placed to tackle the issue:

“The forest department should remove lantana from the forest. Only then can the forest fires be controlled… Soligas have the knowledge on fire control techniques and they are experts in forest fire control, so the forest department need to involve Soligas in fire protection.”

The Soliga’s position is backed by Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights. The organisation is championing a new approach to conservation that puts tribal peoples at its heart. It is campaigning for the rights of India’s tribal people to continue to live in, manage and protect their forest homes.

Many experts maintain that banning tribal practices such as Taragu benki harms conservation.

A Soliga man worships at a sacred site inside his land, which is now a tiger reserve.

© Atree/Survival

According to Survival’s Director Stephen Corry: “Like all tribal peoples, the Soliga are experts at looking after their environment, having built up vast botanical and zoological knowledge over hundreds of years.

“It’s no coincidence that after conservationists banned the Soliga from carrying out controlled burning, the invasive lantana weed spread throughout the tribe’s forests. The result? A devastating rise in forest fires.

“It’s yet more evidence that proves tribal peoples are better at looking after their environment than anyone else.”

Baiga women threatened with illegal eviction, Achanakmar Tiger Reserve. The villagers are determined to stay and say they don’t want to leave their forest home.

© Survival

Hundreds of Baiga people from the area that inspired Kipling’s The Jungle Book are rallying to oppose the authorities’ attempts to evict them from the forests that they have lived in and managed since time immemorial.

Baiga tribespeople are joining forces from over 70 different villages in an area of 1,500 square kilometres. The protests have been sparked by official efforts to evict two Baiga communities from a wildlife “corridor”. Dozens of neighboring Baiga communities are now terrified they will be next, as they face poverty, exploitation and misery if forced from their homes.

The fate that could await many Baiga threatened with illegal eviction: a Baiga woman works for a pittance in a bauxite mine.

© Sayantan Bera/Survival

The Baiga are particularly worried by the two upcoming evictions, as both state authorities and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) promised that evictions would not take place in the “corridor” areas, which run between the protected nature reserves.

By law, any resettlements of tribal people must be voluntary, even for those living in designated conservation areas. However Baiga people report threats, intimidation and violence until they have no choice but to leave their homes.

Baiga elder, Bhardan Singh told Survival International: “The forest guards beat me until I fell from the tree. I split my hip bone and couldn’t stand. I crawled to the edge of the park. The guards just left me and walked away.”

These Khadia tribespeople were evicted from a tiger reserve and forced to live for months under plastic sheets. Promises of “compensation” are rarely fulfilled.

© Survival

This weekend’s protest is a local flashpoint in an ongoing national issue. Tribal peoples living in tiger reserves across India are being forced to leave their ancestral homelands in the name of tiger conservation. However, tiger numbers have increased rapidly in the first reserve in India where a tribe won the right to stay on their land, showing people and tigers can flourish alongside one another.

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, launched a tourist boycott in November last year, urging visitors to India not to visit any of India’s tiger reserves until the Indian tiger authority respects tribal peoples’ rights to live in and protect their forests.

Survival Director Stephen Corry said: “These evictions, both inside and outside the tiger reserves, are totally unjustified, as well as illegal. Not only do they destroy the lives of the people forced from their homes, but they don’t help the tigers either. The authorities and WWF promised there would be no evictions – as so often in the past, such promises have proven worthless.”

Background briefing
- 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.”

The Mashco Piro have been increasingly entering into contact with outsiders. The new reserves are intended to ensure uncontacted groups’ lands remain undisturbed.

© Jean-Paul Van Belle

Peru is to create two Amazonian reserves for the protection of uncontacted tribes , covering more than 2.5 million hectares. At least seven distinct groups of uncontacted tribes, including Matsés Indians, are known to be living in the areas comprising the new Yavari Tapiche and Yavari Mirin reserves in Peru’s NE Amazon state of Loreto.

The remote region has been under intense pressure from oil exploration, logging and a proposed road that could wreak devastation on the tribes. Those wishing to exploit the area’s natural resources have long denied the existence of tribes living in these forests, whose presence would obstruct their plans.

However, the Peruvian government has not ruled out further oil exploration and has taken over two oil concessions inside the new Yavari Tapiche and Yavari Mirin Reserves. Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples, and the only organization fighting worldwide to stop the extermination of uncontacted tribes, has written to the government, along with thousands of supporters, calling for a total ban on all resource extraction in the reserves and for the two existing oil blocks to be canceled.

Communal houses of an uncontacted Indian community near the new Yavari-Tapiche reserve.

© Melissa Medina/ IBC/ ORPIO

The reserves are crucial to the future survival of the uncontacted tribes, who face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Whole populations are being wiped out by violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and by diseases like the flu and measles to which they have no resistance. Entire groups can be rapidly decimated.

A Matsés man told Survival International: “Life before contact was incredible. Our uncontacted brothers still live in the forest. They live like we did before. Because the uncontacted people are out there, we want the government to protect the land.”

Since contact, the Matsés have suffered from diseases, especially malaria, that their plant-based medicines cannot cure.

© Survival International

Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Though we welcome the creation of the Yavari Tapiche and Yavari Mirin Reserves, the Peruvian government’s refusal to ban all resource extraction is a serious concern. Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. They’re our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity.”

The creation of the two new protected areas in Peru follows years of intense campaigning by indigenous peoples and their supporters. However, three more proposed reserves are still awaiting formation. The longer the government delays the creation of protected areas, the greater the threat to the tribes who live there.

Background Information:
- Uncontacted tribes are tribal peoples who have no peaceful contact with anyone in the mainstream or dominant society. These could be entire peoples or smaller groups of already contacted tribes.
- Some may have been in touch with the colonist society in the past, and then retreated from the violence which that brought. Some may once have been part of larger tribal groups, and split off and moved away, fleeing contact.
- Uncontacted tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a remote past. They are contemporary societies and where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

By staining the streets red, the protestors are showing how much blood has been shed in the fight for the protection of indigenous lands

© Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil

Thousands of indigenous people gathered in Brazil’s capital this week, to protest against plans to destroy their lands and lives.

The Indians, from tribes across the country, painted the streets with “blood”, marched through the city, demonstrated at government buildings, and called for their rights to be respected.

Sonia Guajajara, an indigenous leader and candidate for the Vice-Presidency in Brazil’s upcoming general election, said: “We are denouncing the genocide of our people…This is the most suffering we’ve experienced since the dictatorship. By staining the streets red, we are showing how much blood has been shed in our fight for the protection of indigenous lands… The fight goes on!”

The protest marks Brazil’s “Indigenous April” and follows the annual “Day of the Indian,” 19 April, when the country’s President often announces some progress in the protection of indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands. This year, no such announcements were made. Instead, it was reported that the head of the government’s Indigenous Affairs Department would be replaced, as he was not fulfilling the demands of anti-indigenous politicians and ranchers.

Indigenous people from across the nation have gathered in Brazil's capital to call for their lands and rights to be respected

© Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil

Politicians linked to the powerful agribusiness lobby are pushing through a series of laws and proposals which would make it easier for outsiders to steal indigenous peoples’ lands and exploit their resources.

This would be disastrous for tribes across the country, including the Guarani, who suffer one of the highest suicide rates in the world, as most of their land has been stolen for cattle ranching and soya, corn and sugarcane plantations.

Adalto Guarani told Survival International of the politicians’ plan: “Please help us destroy this! It’s like a bomb waiting to explode, and if it explodes, it will put an end to our very existence. Please give us a chance to survive.”

And uncontacted tribes, the most vulnerable peoples on the planet, could be wiped out if their lands are opened up. Tribes like the uncontacted Kawahiva and Awá are on the brink of extinction as they live on the run, fleeing violence from outsiders. But if their land is protected, they can thrive.

Survival International and its supporters in over 100 countries are working in partnership with tribes across Brazil to prevent their annihilation and the extinction of their uncontacted relatives.