Guardians of the Amazon from the Guajajara tribe: “We patrol, we find the loggers, we destroy their equipment and we send them away. We’ve stopped many loggers. It’s working.”

© Guardians of the Amazon

Members of an Amazon tribe patrolling their rainforest reserve to protect uncontacted relatives from illegal loggers have seized a notorious logging gang, burned their truck, and expelled them from the jungle.

The Guardians of the Amazon are from the Guajajara tribe: “We patrol, we find the loggers, we destroy their equipment and we send them away. We’ve stopped many loggers. It’s working.”

The area they are defending, Arariboia, is in the most threatened region in the entire Amazon. It is home to an uncontacted group of Awá Indians, a tribe well known for their affinity with animals and understanding of the forest, who face total annihilation if they come into contact with the loggers.

The Guardians have recently found abandoned Awá shelters close to where the loggers operate.

An Awá man called Takwarentxia, who was contacted in 1992 with his wife Hakõa'ĩ, and their baby. The rest of his family were killed by gunmen working for ranchers clearing the land.

© Fiona Watson/Survival

Although the area should be protected under Brazilian law, the lack of enforcement by the Brazilian government and the extreme danger posed to the uncontacted Awá has forced the Guardians to take matters into their own hands.

They now fear violent retaliation. Three of the Guardians were murdered by loggers in 2016, and they have experienced arson attacks and regular death threats.

Burning Truck from Survival International on Vimeo.

The Guardians sent footage of the burning truck loaded with illegally cut timber to Survival International, along with the message: “Please show the world the reality we face. We know it’s risky and we have enemies but now’s no time for hiding. We want you to release this to the world so we can continue to protect our forest.”

Survival International has written urgently to the Brazilian government calling for the immediate and long term protection of both the Guardians themselves and of the area they fight to protect. Survival are also asking members of the public to send emails in support of the Guardians to government ministers via this page on their website.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation, and these Guardians are defending the last patch of green amid a sea of destruction. It’s further proof that tribal peoples are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world. The Guardians are virtually the only people standing between the loggers and the uncontacted Awá who still hold out in this forest. The Brazilian government’s inaction in the face of rampant illegal deforestation is shameful.”

Sônia Guajajara at a protest in Paris against Brazil’s plans for a series of mega-dams in the Amazon, March 2014.

© Survival International

Brazilian vice-Presidential candidate, Sônia Guajajara belongs to the same tribe as the Guardians and is the first indigenous woman ever to stand for the office of vice-President. She is campaigning on a platform of indigenous rights and environmental protection amid a political climate in Brazil which is more hostile to indigenous peoples than at any time since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985.

She said today: “The Guardians’ work is both extremely valuable and incredibly risky. We indigenous peoples will never accept the ransacking of our Mother Earth – we listen to her and understand the way she talks to us because our life depends on her.”

BACKGROUNDBRIEFING
The Guardians of the Amazon
- The “Guardians of the Amazon” are men from the Guajajara tribe in Brazil’s Maranhão state who have taken it upon themselves to protect what remains of this eastern edge of the Amazon rainforest.
- They want to save the land for the hundreds of Guajajara families who call it home, and their far less numerous neighbors: the uncontacted Awá Indians.
- The Guardians say of their work: “We patrol, we find the loggers, we destroy their equipment and we send them away. We’ve stopped many loggers. It’s working.”
- The Guardians recently released video and images of a rare encounter with the uncontacted Awá living in Arariboia. Watch the footage here
- You can see videos of several of the Guardians talking about their work on Survival’s Tribal Voice site.

Uncontacted tribes
- There are more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide. They have decided not to engage in regular contact with anyone from the outside world.
- They are not “lost” or trapped in a land that time forgot. They are aware of the outside world, and may engage sporadically with contacted tribes nearby.
- There’s irrefutable evidence that their tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation, particularly in the Amazon rainforest.
- Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Whole populations are 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.
- It is not uncommon for 90% of the population to be wiped out following initial contact.

Awá
- The Awá are a hunter-gatherer people living in the forests of the eastern Brazilian Amazon
- While some Awá are in contact with the outside world, others are uncontacted.
- The Awá were known as “the most threatened tribe in the world” during a successful campaign by Survival International for the Brazilian government to expel the illegal loggers from one of their territories.
- The tribe are known for their affinity with the animals of their forest, and some families have more pets than people, from raccoon-like coatis to wild pigs and king vultures.
- Monkeys are the Awá’s favorites and individuals are often seen with their pet monkey riding on their head. Awá will rescue orphaned baby monkeys and adopt them as a member of the family, even breastfeeding them.

Arariboia
- The Arariboia indigenous territory comprises a unique biome in the transition area between the savannah and the Amazon rainforest.
- There are species here not found elsewhere in the Amazon.
- The land inside the indigenous territory is under threat from illegal loggers
- Brutal cuts in government funding to its indigenous affairs department FUNAI and tribal land protection mean the dangers are now even greater, as the area is not properly monitored or defended by the authorities.
- A powerful and violent logging mafia operates in the region, supported by some local politicians.

The Yanomami are the largest relatively isolated indigenous people in the Amazon.

© Fiona Watson/Survival

A measles epidemic has hit an isolated Amazon tribe on the Brazil-Venezuela border which has very little immunity to the disease.

The devastating outbreak has the potential to kill hundreds of tribespeople unless emergency action is taken.

The Yanomami communities where the outbreak has occurred are some of the most isolated in the Amazon.

The Yanomami have previously been ravaged by outbreaks of deadly diseases following invasions of their territory by gold miners.

© Antonio Ribeiro/Survival

But thousands of gold miners have invaded the region, and they are a likely source of the epidemic. Despite repeated warnings, the authorities have taken little effective action to remove them.

In Brazil, at least 23 Indians have visited a hospital, but most of those affected are far from medical care.

Previous disease outbreaks killed 20% of the Yanomami in Brazil.

© Antonio Ribeiro/Survival

Survival International is calling for authorities in Venezuela to provide immediate medical assistance to these remote communities.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today: “When tribal people experience common diseases like measles or flu which they’ve never known before many of them die, and whole populations can be wiped out. These tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Urgent medical care is the only thing standing between these communities and utter devastation.”

The Venezuelan NGOWataniba has released further details on the outbreak (in Spanish).

The Last of his Tribe built a tiny hut in the garden he is cultivating in Tanaru territory, Rondônia state, Brazil. He is believed to be the only survivor of a tribe massacred by ranchers in the 1970s and 1980s. He lives on his own in a patch of forest, surrounded by cattle ranches and soya plantations. Very little is known about him.

© J. Pessoa

Extraordinary new footage of the last surviving member of an uncontacted tribe has been released by FUNAI, the governmental protection agency for tribal peoples in Brazil.

The Last of his Tribe from Survival International on Vimeo.

©FUNAI

The man, known as the Last of his Tribe, has made it clear he wishes to avoid contact with mainstream society. His avoidance of interaction means that no one knows his story, but it is likely his tribe were annihilated by gunmen hired by colonists and ranchers who invaded the land from the 1970s onwards.

From his abandoned campsites, we know he plants corn, manioc, papaya & bananas.  He hunts too, and digs holes about 2 metres deep with sharp staves in the bottom to catch animals to eat. He makes houses of straw and thatch, and digs a hole inside, presumably to protect himself if attacked.

The 'Last of his Tribe's' house and garden where he grows manioc and other vegetables. Very little is known about this uncontacted Indian. He lives on his own in a patch of forest, surrounded by cattle ranches and soya plantations in the Brazilian state of Rondônia.

© Survival

FUNAI became aware of his existence around 1990 after they found evidence of destroyed houses; the type of huts the man builds. Despite a targeted attack by gunmen in 2009, he has survived thanks to FUNAI’s enforcement of the legal order protecting his territory. This is now under threat.

The man digs deep holes to trap animals and to hide in. He is believed to be the only survivor of a tribe massacred by ranchers in the 1970s and 1980s.

© Survival

This region is one of the most violent in Brazil, an issue likely to increase in the run up to presidential elections in Brazil this October, and FUNAI’s budget has been severely slashed. Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples, has lobbied the government for years to protect his territory in the face of repeated attempts by surrounding ranchers to invade.

Resin torch and stake made by 'The last of his tribe', found by FUNAI in his house, Tanaru territory, Rondônia state, Brazil, 2005.

© Fiona Watson/Survival

Footage like this is vital in the ongoing struggle to protect uncontacted peoples, who are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. FUNAI must prove he is still alive to retain the restriction order protecting his land, otherwise the ranchers who surround the territory will move quickly and violently to grab the land.

Altair Algayer, head of the FUNAI (government) team monitoring the man’s territory, says: “This man, who none of us know, and who’s lost almost everything, including the rest of his people, proves it’s possible to survive, and resist contact. I think he’s better off as he is than if he’d made contact.”

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International says: “Uncontacted tribes aren’t primitive relics of a remote past. They live in the here and now. They are our contemporaries and a vital part of humankind’s diversity, but face catastrophe unless their land is protected.

“The terrible crimes that have been committed against this man and his people must never be repeated, but countless other uncontacted tribes face the real prospect of the same fate unless their lands are protected. Only a major groundswell of public opinion can even the odds in favour of their survival, against the powerful agribusiness interests who want nothing more than to steal uncontacted tribes’ land, at the expense of their lives.”

Survival International Research and Advocacy Director Fiona Watson has visited this territory during a government monitoring expedition. She has seen and photographed his huts and is available for interview on request. We can also provide additional images and the footage.

The Guardians of the Amazon recently destroyed a logging truck they discovered in their territory.

© Guardians of the Amazon

Warning: some people may find the details and image below disturbing

A leader of an Amazon tribe acclaimed for its environmental defenders has been killed, the latest in a series of deaths among the tribe.

The body of Jorginho Guajajara was found near a river in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. He was a leader of the Guajajara people, acclaimed internationally for their work as the ‘Guardians of the Amazon’ in the most threatened region in the entire Amazon.

It is not yet clear who killed him, but a powerful logging mafia has repeatedly targeted the tribe for its work protecting both its rainforest home, and the uncontacted members of a neighboring tribe, the Awá, who also live there, and face catastrophe unless their land is protected.

Confronted with official inaction, the tribe formed an environmental protection team named the Guardians of the Amazon to expel the loggers. Some estimates suggest up to 80 members of the tribe have been killed since 2000.

The murder of Jorginho Guajajara is further indication of the increasing volatility in this area. In May this year, a team from Ibama (Brazil’s environmental protection agency) and environmental military police were dispatched to the Guajajara’s Arariboia reserve, a rare move from the authorities.

The Guajajara say: “Our uncontacted Awá relatives cannot survive if their forest is destroyed. As long as we live, we will fight for the uncontacted Indians, for all of us, and for nature.”

Survival International has protested to the Brazilian authorities about the wave of violence against the Guajajara, which has gone almost entirely unpunished.

Survival International Director Stephen Corry said today: “The Guardians of the Amazon face an urgent humanitarian crisis, and are fighting for their very survival. This small tribe of Amazon Indians are confronting an aggressive, powerful and armed logging mafia with close ties to local and national politicians. And they’re paying with their lives for standing up to them. They urgently need public support to make sure they survive.”

Senior Survival staff have visited the tribe, and are available for interview.

Note to Editors: Guajajara people who found the body report to Survival that the neck was broken and almost detached from the body, in a location where the bodies of other Guajajara people killed in a similar way by loggers have been dumped. The Guajajara have reported the murder to the authorities and demanded an inquest.

The Guardians of the Amazon
- The “Guardians of the Amazon” are men from the Guajajara tribe in Brazil’s Maranhão state who have taken it upon themselves to protect what remains of this eastern edge of the Amazon rainforest.

- They want to save the land for the hundreds of Guajajara families who call it home, and their far less numerous neighbors: the uncontacted Awá Indians.

- The Guardians say of their work: “We patrol, we find the loggers, we destroy their equipment and we send them away. We’ve stopped many loggers. It’s working.”

- The Guardians recently released video and images of a rare encounter with the uncontacted Awá living in Arariboia. Watch the footage here

- You can see videos of several of the Guardians talking about their work on Survival’s Tribal Voice site.

Arariboia
- The Arariboia indigenous territory comprises a unique biome in the transition area between the savannah and the Amazon rainforest.

- There are species here not found elsewhere in the Amazon.

- The land inside the indigenous territory is under threat from illegal loggers

- Brutal cuts in government funding to its indigenous affairs department FUNAI and tribal land protection mean the dangers are now even greater, as the area is not properly monitored or defended by the authorities.

- A powerful and violent logging mafia operates in the region, supported by some local politicians.

The Yanomami are the largest relatively isolated indigenous people in the Amazon.

© Fiona Watson/Survival

A measles epidemic has hit an isolated Amazon tribe on the Brazil-Venezuela border which has very little immunity to the disease.

The devastating outbreak has the potential to kill hundreds of tribespeople unless emergency action is taken.

The Yanomami communities where the outbreak has occurred are some of the most isolated in the Amazon.

The Yanomami have previously been ravaged by outbreaks of deadly diseases following invasions of their territory by gold miners.

© Antonio Ribeiro/Survival

But thousands of gold miners have invaded the region, and they are a likely source of the epidemic. Despite repeated warnings, the authorities have taken little effective action to remove them.

In Brazil, at least 23 Indians have visited a hospital, but most of those affected are far from medical care.

Previous disease outbreaks killed 20% of the Yanomami in Brazil.

© Antonio Ribeiro/Survival

Survival International is calling for authorities in Venezuela to provide immediate medical assistance to these remote communities.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today: “When tribal people experience common diseases like measles or flu which they’ve never known before many of them die, and whole populations can be wiped out. These tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Urgent medical care is the only thing standing between these communities and utter devastation.”

The Venezuelan NGOWataniba has released further details on the outbreak (in Spanish).

Claudia Andujar, photographer and activist, with Davi Kopenawa, a shaman and key spokesperson for the Yanomami, 2010.

© © Fiona Watson/Survival

A woman who fled Nazi persecution as a child and later spearheaded a campaign to save an Amazon tribe is being awarded Germany’s top cultural honor, the Goethe Medal.

Claudia Andujar will receive the prestigious award at a ceremony in Weimar on August 28th. Previous winners include the musician Daniel Barenboim, the novelist John le Carré, and the architect Daniel Libeskind.

Claudia is being honored for her groundbreaking work with the Yanomami tribe, which led to the establishment of the largest forested area under indigenous control anywhere in the world. Experts say the Yanomami people would not have survived without Claudia’s activism. Survival International projected the campaign globally.

A Yanomami shaman, one of the many thousands of photographs of the Yanomami that Claudia has taken during her lifetime's work with the tribe.

© Claudia Andujar/Survival

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples, will introduce Claudia at the award ceremony, recognizing her vital part in the survival of the Yanomami people. Also attending will be the eminent Yanomami shaman, Davi Yanomami, known as “the Dalai Lama of the Rainforest”.

Claudia Andujar initially traveled to the Yanomami territory in the 1970s as a photographer, and returned many times to visit, and live with, the tribe. She witnessed bulldozers razing Yanomami villages to build the transcontinental highway, as well as waves of disease brought in by the construction crews, and later illegal gold miners, which decimated the Yanomami population.

Claudia told the Goethe Institute: “In concentration camps, the prisoners were marked with numbers tattooed on their arms. For me, they were the ones marked for death. What I later tried to do with the Yanomami was to mark them for life, for survival.”

In 1992, after 14 years of campaigning, Brazil finally recognized the Yanomami territory. However, the tribe continue to face many grave threats as the Brazilian authorities fail to adequately secure the area. The territory remains overrun by illegal goldminers bringing violence and disease, and a measles outbreak is currently threatening the tribe along the Venezuela-Brazil border.

Notes for editors:

Survival staff have visited the Yanomami and are available for interview. Please contact press@survivalinternational.org
For interviews with Claudia Andujar, please contact the Goethe Institute.

Biography of Claudia Andujar

- Claudia was born in Neuchâtel in Switzerland, and brought up in a town (now called Oradea, then called Nagyvárad) on the Romanian-Hungarian border during the 1930s.
- Her town was occupied by the Nazis and her Jewish father was arrested. He died in a concentration camp.
- Claudia and her mother fled first to Austria, then Switzerland and finally the USA, where she went on to study humanities at Hunter College, New York.
- In 1956 she moved to Brazil, where she began her photography career.
- In 1971 she went to photograph the Yanomami people for an article for Realidade magazine.
- In 1978 she helped found (and for many years was director of) the Pro-Yanomami Commission (CCPY), which advocated for Yanomami rights.
- The striking black and white images she took of the tribe remain famous worldwide, and were instrumental in the campaign leading to the creation of the Yanomami park, in which Claudia played a leading role.

The Yanomami

- The Yanomami indigenous reserve in northern Brazil is home to over 22,000 Yanomami people. The total Yanomami population, including those in Venezuela, is around 35,000.
- They live in large communal houses called yanos or shabonos. They believe strongly in equality among people and do not recognize ‘chiefs’.
- The Yanomami way of life is communitarian. No hunter ever eats the meat that he has killed and instead he shares it out among friends and family. In return, he will be given meat by another hunter.
- They have a sophisticated relationship with the environment and vast botanical knowledge. In daily life they use about 500 plants for food, medicine, house building and other artefacts.
- At least three groups of Yanomami remain uncontacted; they intentionally avoid interaction with mainstream society.
- The Yanomami reserve is monitored by a single FUNAI (Indigenous Affairs Department) ground team which urgently needs government support to protect the tribe, yet is facing severe budget cuts.
- Illegal goldminers continue to invade the territory. As well as bringing violence and disease, they expose the tribe to dangerous mercury pollution.

Militarized conservation has resulted in many local people being shot on sight around the world. In Kaziranga National Park in India, for example, dozens have been shot by ecoguards.

© Survival

A widely reported story that 90 elephants have been slaughtered in Botswana recently has been denounced as fake by the authorities.

A government statement slammed the report, attributed to Elephants without Borders, as “false and misleading”, saying “at no point in the last months or recently were 87 or 90 elephants killed in one incident in any place in Botswana.”

Botswana’s government, and Survival International, believe the story is linked to measures by the authorities there to disarm anti-poaching units.

Many conservationists are promoting the militarisation of conservation – the arming of wildlife officers, and shoot on sight policies towards anyone labelled a “poacher”. Many innocent tribal people have been caught in the crossfire.

A conference on the illegal wildlife trade will be held in London next month. Princes William and Harry are expected to attend.

Survival is championing a new approach to conservation that puts tribal peoples at its heart, as a mounting body of evidence proves they manage their environment and its wildlife better than anyone else.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today: “False information is frequently broadcast in the name of conservation: For example, the fiction that al Shabab terrorists were funded by ivory poaching. That still endures, in spite of Interpol pointing out that it was false.

“Is the Botswana elephant story another pushback from militarized conservation against the “rights-based” model which the U.N., human rights experts, and many African environmentalists are now demanding? Is this just to create a clamour for rearming ecoguards in Botswana?

“Elephants Without Borders,” an NGO in the USA and Botswana, is certainly getting massive publicity, and presumably donations, as a result.

“Elephants Without Borders has been funded by a tourist company, Wilderness Safaris, which operates luxury camps on Bushman land – without their agreement, needless to say – and is (or was) also part-owned by former president Ian Khama, who has sat on the board of Conservation International. And militarized “fortress conservation” is strongly promoted by conservation NGOs, whose declared policies nowadays about “consulting” local people are largely empty sham.”

The scientists find no scientific basis for the dramatic assertion that 87 elephants have been poached in Botswana.

© CC0 Creative Commons

Three leading conservation scientists in Botswana have released a statement saying they “find no scientific basis for the dramatic assertions made in the recent BBC report” of the deaths of 87 elephants in Botswana, allegedly by poaching. This follows a statement from the Botswana government last week which also claimed the BBC report was inaccurate.

The scientists released the statement in response to the article ‘Dozens of elephants killed near Botswana wildlife sanctuary’, written by BBC Africa Correspondent Alastair Leithead, and published on the BBC News website on September 3rd, 2018. Leithead’s report is based on data and interviews given by Dr Mike Chase of conservation NGO Elephants Without Borders (EWB).

The authors are three scientists working on conservation in Botswana, Dr Kathleen Alexander, Dr J.W. McNutt, and Dr Mark Vandewalle. Dr Alexander and Dr Vandewalle are Co-Founders of the Centre for Conservation of African Resources (CARACAL), and Dr McNutt is Director of the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust. They analyse the same research used in the BBC report to demonstrate that the “dramatic assertions” made in the piece cannot be justified by the data.

In the BBC article, Dr Chase claims that the current scale of poaching in Botswana is now greater than anywhere else in Africa, and that this represents elephant poaching on a scale never before seen on the continent. The three scientists say that these statements are “difficult to reconcile” with the data that Dr Chase has himself collected and previously published. They conclude that:

“The current EWB report of 87 fresh carcasses in Botswana in the 2018 survey (to date) cannot be characterised as an extreme loss of elephants compared to other range countries nor to numbers reported for Botswana in past surveys… using Chase’s numbers directly, we find no scientific basis for the dramatic assertions made in the recent BBC report and question why such a report was disseminated to the media prior to completion of the current survey and data analysis.”

The statement emphasises an important factual inaccuracy in Leithead’s reporting. In the opening of the BBC article, Leithead writes that “the scale of poaching deaths is the largest seen in Africa. The spike coincides with Botswana’s anti-poaching unit being disarmed.” In fact Botswana’s wildlife guards do still carry guns: “the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks is still armed with high-caliber weapons, but no longer carry automatic assault rifles.”

Nevertheless, a flurry of petitions calling for wildlife guards in Botswana to be “re”-armed have sprung up in response to the news, including one set up by PETA and three separate petitions on Change.org, and are circulating widely on social media.

The public outcry, symbolised by the rash of petitions, shows the vested interests behind such reporting, according to Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry. Corry claimed last week in an article widely shared on Twitter that such stories are fuelled by conservation NGOs who aim to drive public support for militarised “fortress” conservation.

Corry said today: “With the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference being held in London in less than a month, we should expect to see more stories appearing in the media stirring up panic over the increasing threat of poaching. They will be suggesting that the solution to this is more guns in the hands of guards. These guards are often trained and supported by big Western conservation groups like WWF and WCS, the parent company of the Bronx Zoo. These large conservation organisations claim that they are the experts, that they know better than the local people how to manage local wildlife, and they are behind the carving up of huge areas of indigenous peoples’ lands without their consent.

“This is simply colonialism in the guise of conservation. Fortress conservation with its heavily armed eco-guards leads to human rights abuses, it does not stop poaching, and it will destroy conservation if it doesn’t change, as it leads to evictions, and alienates the very people who live near protected areas and know best how to manage them.”

Lake Turkana and the River Omo, a lifeline to many tribal peoples, are drying up due to mega dam

© Nicola Bailey/ Survival, 2015

UNESCO added Kenya’s Lake Turkana to its World Heritage Site Endangered List in June, a sign it believes the iconic lake’s survival is at risk.

Experts believe it is drying up largely because of the Gibe III dam , which lies upstream in Ethiopia and was completed in 2016.

For the eight different tribes of Ethiopia’s Omo valley region, the Gibe III dam and related sugar plantations project have already proved devastating. The dam has enabled local authorities to syphon off water from the Omo river to irrigate vast sugar plantations.

Forcibly evicted from their land, many of the country’s tribespeople have lost not only their homes but an entire way of life. The dam has ended the natural flood they depended on for flood retreat agriculture as well as depriving them of access to the river for fishing and for growing their crops.

Survival has received disturbing reports that tribal peoples are suffering from hunger and continue to suffer abuse and harassment if they speak out about the situation. Many communities are under pressure to relocate to government villages, a policy that most oppose.

The dam is also causing problems for the thousands of tribal peoples in northern Kenya who live around Lake Turkana and who fish its waters for their livelihood.

According to Ikal Ang’elei, director of the NGO Friends of Lake Turkana which has campaigned for years against the Gibe III dam: “The lives of local communities now hang in the balance given that their main sources of livelihood are facing extinction. This decision by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee should serve as a notice to Ethiopia to cancel any further dams planned on the Omo River.”

As early as 2010, one such expert predicted that the dam would reduce the lake’s inflow by some 50% and would cause the lake’s depth to drop to a mere 10 meters. “The result could be another Aral Sea disaster in the making,” he warned.

The World Heritage Centre Committee now recognises that the dam has led to “overall rapid decline in water levels” and has meant that seasonal fluctuations have been “heavily disrupted”. As a result, the Committee agrees that “the disruption of the natural flooding regime is likely to have a negative impact on the fish population in Lake Turkana, which may in turn affect the balance of the ecosystem, the livelihoods of the local fishing communities and the floodplains, which support herbivore species.”

UNESCO’s decision follows several years of lobbying by indigenous and international organizations.

The Omo Valley tribes did not give their free, prior and informed consent to the Gibe III dam project, a fact that Survival International highlighted in its submission to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Despite the mounting evidence of the serious impacts of Gibe III on tribal peoples in Ethiopia and Kenya, the Ethiopian government is currently building another dam on the Omo river called Koysha, or Gibe 4.

Survival International first cast doubt on the story two weeks ago.

© Creative Commons

An investigation by Botswana authorities has established conclusively that the widely circulated report of a “poaching massacre” of 87 elephants is false.

On the ground inspections have shown:

- some of the elephants reported killed for their ivory had their tusks intact

- only 19 elephant carcasses were found in Chobe National Park, supposedly the centre of the “massacre”, with just 6 found to be poaching victims

- some of the animals reported killed recently in fact died many months ago

- the number of elephant deaths this year is similar to previous years, and most have died of natural causes.

Churchill Colyer, deputy director of Botswana’s wildlife department, said: “It’s just normal, like any other year, we haven’t recorded any mass killing.”

Survival International first cast doubt on the story two weeks ago.

Survival International’s Director, Stephen Corry, said today: “It’s now proven beyond doubt that the “elephant massacre” didn’t happen. It’s been invented and pushed by those advocating greater militarization of conservation. This is the same failed approach that is alienating hundreds of thousands of local and tribal people around the world – the very people who should be in the driving seat of conservation.

“This false narrative was clearly pushed to coincide with the buildup to next month’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London. It’s the worst of colonial conservation in action, and if it isn’t challenged, “it will destroy conservation itself.”":https://survivalinternational.org/articles/3518-colonial-conservation-contains-the-seeds-of-its-own-destruction

Mindima elders, New Guinea, 2008. One in every six languages on Earth comes from New Guinea. Tribal societies are a vital part of humankind's diversity

© Brent Stirton / www.brentstirton.com

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples, is releasing a special edition of its annual calendar to mark its 50th anniversary in 2019.

Next year’s “We, The People” calendar features stunning portraits of indigenous people by some of the world’s leading photographers, including Timothy Allen, Steve McCurry, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, George Rodger and many others.

Australian Aboriginals, Australia. Survival Calendar 2019

© Wayne Quilliam / www.aboriginal.photography

And each one also comes with a free desk calendar with a beautiful image by legendary photographer Sebastião Salgado.

The images give an insight into tribal people’s largely self-sufficient and extraordinarily diverse ways of life.

Bajau boy, Malaysia. Survival Calendar 2019.

© James Morgan / www.jamesmorgan.co.uk

Among the images are Mindima men from New Guinea wearing ceremonial feathers and animal pelts; an underwater shot of a boy from one of Malaysia’s “sea gypsy” tribes; and the now world-famous aerial shot of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon.

Survival International was founded in 1969 by a group of people appalled by the genocide of Amazon Indians detailed in a Sunday Times exposé, which featured powerful images from the acclaimed photographer Don McCullin.

Bayaka man, Central African Republic, 2016. Survival Calendar 2019.

© Timothy Allen / humanplanet.com/timothyallen

It exists to prevent the annihilation of tribal peoples and to give them a platform to speak to the world so they can bear witness to the genocidal violence, slavery and racism they face on a daily basis.

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival, said today: “Powerful images have always been at the heart of our fight for tribal peoples’ survival. We are delighted to have gathered so many beautiful images to reflect the past 50 years of Survival’s vital work, and I hope that they will energize people to get behind our cause.”

Calendars are £13.99 and available from Survival’s shop

Notes to Editors:

1. These images can only be used in connection with the promotion of Survival International’s 50th Anniversary Calendar. The copyright remains with the respective photographers and all images must be credited as listed. The images cannot be cropped or reused.  Failure to include the correct credits or any misuse of the images will result in the individual photographers charging their editorial rates for usage. 

The following text must be included as a condition of use: Survival’s 50th Anniversary calendar is available from shop.survivalinternational.org price £13.99 

2. The photographers featured in the calendar are:

Steve McCurry
Livia Monami 
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
James Morgan
Timothy Allen
Wayne Quilliam
George Rodger
Claudia Andujar 
Jane Baldwin
Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher 
Brent Stirton
Gleison Miranda/FUNAI
Bryan & Cherry Alexander
Sebastião Salgado

West Papuans arrested for peacefully supporting Vanuatu’s statement at the UN.

© Voice West Papuan

Eighty nine indigenous Papuans were arrested last week, taking the total number of arbitrary arrests in West Papua to 221 in one month alone.

Last week’s arrests, during which many people were also beaten, were for peacefully demonstrating support for the Republic of Vanuatu’s denunciation of human rights abuses in Papua at the UN General Assembly in New York. Vanuatu also raised the issue of Papuans’ right to a legitimate self-determination process.

Indonesia, which has occupied West Papua since 1963, has a long history of human rights violations against the Papuans. Killings, arbitrary arrests and torture at the hands of the security services remain rife.

Mass arrests are a common method of silencing dissent and restricting freedom of expression in West Papua. In 2016 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) delivered two early warnings to Indonesia when more than 5,000 people were unlawfully arrested in just one year.

In response to Vanuatu’s statement at the UN, Indonesia claimed that there are not “frequent and systematic human rights violations” in West Papua. However, the arbitrary arrest of 221 Papuans; the torture of five Papuans by Indonesia’s security forces; and the death of one Papuan in police custody in just one month dramatically contradict Indonesia’s statement.

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples joins TAPOL and the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network in condemning the recent arrests and calls on the government of Indonesia to: end human rights violations in Indonesia; stop the culture of impunity afforded to those responsible; and to fulfil its promise to allow UN human rights investigators and journalists to visit West Papua.

Prince Harry, Prince William, and Prince Charles. Conservation groups supported by the three royals fund ecoguards accused of multiple abuses against indigenous people.

© Survival

Charles Nsonkali has written to Princes William and Harry calling for urgent action to stop horrific atrocities committed by the conservation industry against the Baka people of Cameroon. Charles is Program Supervisor at Okani, a community-based indigenous organization located in the East Region of Cameroon.

Charles Jones Nsonkali works for the Baka organization Okani. He has been fighting for Baka rights for 30 years.

© Survival

Charles writes that eco-guards patrolling the protected conservation zones in central Africa “torture Baka people here and make their lives hell. They strip Baka naked and beat them, they humiliate them, forcing them to crawl on all fours and destroy their camps and possessions.”

The guards are funded, trained and supported by western conservation organizations including the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Baka people from south-eastern Cameroon tell Survival International about their horrific experiences with eco-guards.

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples, has released the letter to coincide with the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference (IWT), which the princes will be attending, taking place in London 11th-12th October.

Princes William and Harry are Ambassadors for United for Wildlife, a partnership of conservation organizations including both WWF and WCS. Their father, Prince Charles, is President of WWF UK.

A poster from Survival International's campaign to highlight the atrocities committed by ecoguards against the Baka and other indigenous peoples.

© Survival International

As well as the violence suffered by Baka communities, the letter highlights the deliberate yet counter-productive exclusion of indigenous peoples from conservation efforts, despite the fact that they understand their environment and its wildlife better than anyone else. Charles writes:

“Conservationists seem to think that outsiders are the only people who want to look after nature and can do it effectively but this makes no sense to me….Who wants to look after nature more than the people who call it home and depend on it for their survival? Who understands how to care for nature more than someone who has walked through the forest every day of their lives and knows every plant, every tree, every creature? Work with them, not against them!”

Survival International has been campaigning against the abuses committed by conservation against indigenous people for more than thirty years. Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today:

“There is a worrying sense that some conservationists consider the lives of indigenous people a price worth paying to protect wildlife. However, we trust that their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex are as outraged by these atrocities as we are, and we hope they will speak out against the violence being committed in conservation’s name. If the conservation industry persists in robbing indigenous people of their land and persecuting them, it will not survive.”

Prince William's video has been accused of perpetuating "white saviour" stereotypes.

© Kensington Palace

A video about Prince William’s recent conservation trip to Africa has been criticised for only including non-Africans’ perspectives on conservation and promoting a “white saviour” stereotype.

Dr. Mordecai Ogada, Kenyan ecologist & author of The Big Conservation Lie, said today:

“This is a diagram of the new British Colonial paradigm. The kingdom of “conservation”. This is the only arena where the heir to the Throne can go around touring the colonies, and telling his subjects how they should be taking care of their own resources.

“HRH Prince William should not pontificate to us about wildlife trade while the UK is the world’s number one trader in ivory. Kenya banned ivory trade a full forty years before the UK. The Duke is most welcome to come visit as a tourist, but he should kindly let us conserve what is ours in the way that suits us best.”

The video was released on Twitter on October 11, 2018 by Kensington Palace.

How did William got to be in charge of our African wildlife? All our conservancies should be left to locals who are original owners of the Lands to manage.

— John Kamau (@Johnn_Kamau) October 11, 2018

Only one black person is shown speaking to camera in the film. While all the other contributors share their expertise on conservation, her contribution in the video relates only to the Prince’s leadership abilities.

The people interviewed in the video are:

Charlie Mayhew, CEO of Tusk, who comments on tackling the illegal wildlife trade and later also on Tusk’s work in Africa.

Dr Naomi Doak, Head of Conservation Programmes at The Royal Foundation, who discusses engaging the private sector in conservation efforts and later on how important the Prince’s contribution is to the people he met on his visit.

Dr Antony Lynam, Regional Training Director at SMART for the Wildlife Conservation Society, who talks about the Prince’s support for the use of SMART technology for conservation.

Finally, Patricia Kayaga, the only black interviewee featured in the video, is a student at the College of African Wildlife Management, which the Prince visited on his tour.

The sea of white faces in Prince William’s “financial task force for United for Wildlife” has also been criticized.

© Kensington Palace

Charles Nsonkali, a representative of a Baka indigenous community organization in Cameroon, earlier released an open letter to Prince William and Prince Harry which said: “Conservationists seem to think that outsiders are the only people who want to look after nature and can do it effectively but this makes no sense to me.”

Survival International has been highlighting the covert racism endemic in big conservation in an intensive social media campaign over several weeks in the run up to the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference, taking place 11th-12th October in London. Its video comparing conservation to colonialism was released this week.

Survival International Director Stephen Corry said today:

“It’s hard to think of a more extreme example of the “white saviour” mentality than this video. It amounts to racist propaganda in its promotion of white people as the saviours of Africa. Non-Africans are presented in the film as the real experts on conservation, while the locals are not seen as having anything worthwhile to contribute other than their grateful thanks. The attitudes behind it are chronically outdated, and will destroy conservation if they don’t change; it is the local people who understand their environment and its wildlife better than anybody else and the conservation movement should not only listen to them, but take its lead from them.”

Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry today issued a statement over reports in the Indian media that the BBC has admitted its Kaziranga shoot on sight exposé was wrong.

The head of the BBC’s Natural History Unit, Dr Julian Hector, earlier wrote to the Indian National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) expressing regret for the ‘impact’ of the BBC News report, which exposed dozens of extrajudicial killings in Kaziranga National Park.

Mr Corry said today: "Contrary to reports in the Indian media, Dr Hector has not cast any doubt whatsoever on the accuracy or truthfulness of the original 2017 BBC investigation.

“That report exposed the atrocities going on in Kaziranga National Park, where dozens of people have been murdered by rangers. Now its Natural History Unit is trying to row back and apologize just so it can start filming in tiger reserves again. By doing so it’s putting in the firing line the local people who bravely helped it expose the incredibly high number of unlawful killings in Kaziranga. But it has not said any of the report was wrong.”

The letter from Dr Julian Hector, Head of the the BBC Natural History Unit, expressing "regret for any adverse impacts caused by the BBC News documentary Killing for Conservation" © Survival

BBC Asia correspondent Justin Rowlatt’s 2017 report revealed that rangers in Kaziranga had shot dead 106 people in 20 years, and wounded many others, including a 7-year old boy who was maimed for life. It featured an interview with a park guard who said: “Whenever you see the poachers or any people during night time we are ordered to shoot them.”

The report caused a storm of controversy in India. The government retaliated by banning the BBC’s Natural History Unit from filming in all the country’s national parks and tiger reserves

However, since the report was broadcast the number of killings in Kaziranga has dropped dramatically.

The NTCA complained that the report should have been submitted for “obligatory previewing” at India’s Ministry of External Affairs, “in order to remove any deviations.”

The letter from Dr. Hector has caused consternation inside the BBC, and dismay in India. One activist who helped BBC News expose the extrajudicial executions, Pranab Doley, said today: "The government was already falsely accusing us of misleading the BBC in its original report, which brought the shoot on sight policy to light. Now this letter could put our lives at risk, as people are using it to wrongly accuse us of defaming India’s reputation, which could even lead to charges of sedition.

“It was a cowardly act by the Indian government and its agency NTCA but by giving into the dictats of the NTCA, the Natural History Unit of the BBC has not only taken an anti-people stand but also failed to uphold the basic values of human rights and media ethics of righteous journalism.

“This stance by the BBC has not only betrayed the trust of the violated communities but also given the opportunity to the conspiring agencies to blame the indigenous activists of misleading the BBC.”

An American man, reportedly a missionary, has been killed by members of the Sentinelese tribe in the Andaman Islands, India. Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry said today:

“This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen. The Indian authorities should have been enforcing the protection of the Sentinelese and their island for the safety of both the tribe, and outsiders.

“Instead, a few months ago the authorities lifted one of the restrictions that had been protecting the Sentinelese tribe’s island from foreign tourists, which sent exactly the wrong message, and may have contributed to this terrible event.

“It’s not impossible that the Sentinelese have just been infected by deadly pathogens to which they have no immunity, with the potential to wipe out the entire tribe.

" The Sentinelese have shown again and again that they want to be left alone, and their wishes should be respected. The British colonial occupation of the Andaman Islands decimated the tribes living there, wiping out thousands of tribespeople, and only a fraction of the original population now survive. So the Sentinelese fear of outsiders is very understandable.

" Uncontacted tribes must have their lands properly protected. They’re the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. 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.

“Tribes like the Sentinelese face catastrophe unless their land is protected. I hope this tragedy acts as a wake up call to the Indian authorities to avert another disaster and properly protect the lands of both the Sentinelese, and the other Andaman tribes, from further invaders.”

Survival’s senior researcher Sophie Grig has worked on indigenous issues in the Andaman Islands for two decades and is available for interview. Please contact press@survivalinternational.org

Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry today issued the following statement:

“We urge the Indian authorities to abandon efforts to recover John Allen Chau’s body. Any such attempt is incredibly dangerous, both for the Indian officials, but also for the Sentinelese, who face being wiped out if any outside diseases are introduced.

“The risk of a deadly epidemic of flu, measles or other outside disease is very real, and increases with every such contact. Such efforts in similar cases in the past have ended with the Sentinelese attempting to defend their island by force.

“Mr Chau’s body should be left alone, as should the Sentinelese. The weakening of the restrictions on visiting the islands must be revoked, and the exclusion zone around the island properly enforced.”

Mary Ho, the head of the missionary agency which supported John Chau, is now claiming that he was not a risk to the Sentinelese tribe. She says, “We are talking about a different time here, we’re talking about a time right now when there is modern medicine, when there is antibiotics.”

Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry said today:

“This displays an extraordinary level of ignorance which highlights why it’s so dangerous for such people to be anywhere near uncontacted tribes. It’s taken them nearly two weeks to prepare their answer, but let’s look at what they’re actually claiming.

“They say he was medically trained. In fact, he had a degree in health and sports medicine and apparently some training in emergency medicine. He was not qualified as a medical doctor. When the Brazilian Indian Agency (FUNAI) were conducting ‘first contact’ expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s, they had specialist doctors with them. Even they could not prevent widespread death from disease, and the expeditions were abandoned.

“Their leader, Sydney Possuelo, said, “I believed it’d be possible to make contact with no pain or deaths, I organized one of the best equipped fronts that FUNAI ever had. I prepared everything… I set up a system with doctors and nurses. I stocked with medicines to combat the epidemics which always follow. I had vehicles, a helicopter, radios and experienced personnel. ‘I won’t let a single Indian die,’ I thought. And the contact came, the diseases arrived, the Indians died.”

“The missionaries say Chau, “attempted to get 13 types of immunization” (our emphasis). We have no idea what this means. In any case, there is no immunization available against the common cold, which has been one of the main problems with uncontacted peoples. The initial viral infection (against which antibiotics are useless) commonly leads to secondary infections which prove deadly.

“They say he, “quarantined himself for many many days.” We don’t know what “many” refers to. Presumably nor do they, or they would have given a number. Over a week’s quarantine, prior to a contact expedition, is needed, even in an emergency. It’s the minimum. In any event, Chau had contact with the boatmen who took him to the island anyway, thus nullifying the benefits of any prior, self-imposed quarantine.

“John Chau was likely killed on 16 Nov. If any pathogens he was carrying have affected Sentinelese, they would likely have manifested by now. Of course, we don’t know how they would react if they were ill. Would they come to the beach and ask for help, in which case the Indian authorities should have specialist teams waiting offshore but on standby, or would they simply retreat to the interior – probably more likely – in which case they will be out of reach? We don’t know, we have to wait.

“The idea that widespread deaths amongst newly contacted tribes is a matter of past history is easy to disprove. There are many cases in the last few decades where this has been recorded, especially in Brazil and Peru. For example, the Nahua, Peru, suffered over 50% of deaths in the 1980s following contact.”

Survival International has called for an urgent increase in police protection for one of the world’s most vulnerable uncontacted tribes, after moves to protect their territory stalled.

The Kawahiva tribe live in one of the most violent areas in Brazil, where rates of illegal deforestation have been the highest in the country. Many members of the tribe have been killed in recent decades.

Violence from illegal loggers and ranchers means FUNAI, Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs department, has been prevented from properly carrying out its work in the area, leaving the tribe exposed and at risk of annihilation.

The FUNAI team responsible for protecting the Kawahiva’s land requires police accompaniment for their safety and for their expeditions to monitor for illegal logging and evict invaders.

In April 2016, Brazil’s Minister of Justice signed a decree to create a protected indigenous territory on the tribe’s land to keep intruders out. This was a big step forward for the Kawahiva’s lands and lives, and followed pressure from Survival’s supporters around the world.

But efforts to map out and protect the territory, known as Rio Pardo, have stalled, and vital steps in the demarcation process have not been completed. Survival has been lobbying for this process to be accelerated and for police support for FUNAI’s work in the area.

Survival has launched an emergency action, “4 weeks for the Kawahiva”, to encourage Brazil’s government to map out their land and prevent their genocide before Jair Bolsonaro becomes President on 1 January.

The Kawahiva’s territory lies within the municipality of Colniza, where around 90% of income is from illegal logging. The Kawahiva are nomadic hunter-gatherers, but are now living on the run. They flee the illegal invasions of their forest, which put them at risk of being wiped out by violence from outsiders looking to steal their land and resources, and from diseases like the flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

Jair Candor, the Coordinator of FUNAI’s Kawahiva team, said: “The only way to ensure their survival is to map out the land and put in place a permanent land protection team. Otherwise, they will be relegated to the history books, just like so many other tribal peoples of this region."

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International, said today: “In the wake of John Allen Chau’s tragic attempt to contact the Sentinelese people, there has been a great increase in public support for uncontacted tribes to be left in peace. They are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet, but where their land is protected, they thrive.

“The work of FUNAI and environmental protection agents is crucial for preventing the genocide of the Kawahiva, and the destruction of their territory, which is an incredibly diverse part of the Amazon. We urge people to write to the Brazilian authorities in support of their right to survive.”

The BBC’s Director General Tony Hall has confirmed that the organization stands by its exposé of extrajudicial killings by rangers in Kaziranga National Park.

Some reports in the Indian media have alleged the BBC had admitted its exposé was wrong, but in a letter to Survival International Mr Hall said: “‘Killing for conservation’ was an important piece of BBC original journalism, and we do not accept that any ‘mistake’ has been made, as has been reported.”

BBC Asia correspondent Justin Rowlatt’s 2017 report revealed that rangers in Kaziranga had shot dead 106 people in 20 years, and wounded many others, including a 7-year old boy who was maimed for life It featured an interview with a park guard who said: “Whenever you see the poachers or any people during night time we are ordered to shoot them.”

The report caused a storm of controversy in India. The government retaliated by banning the BBC from filming in all the country’s national parks and tiger reserves.

The head of the BBC’s Natural History Unit recently wrote to India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority expressing his “regrets” for the report’s “adverse impacts,” in a clear attempt to be allowed back in to India to film. But Mr Hall confirms that the letter “in no way constitutes an apology for our journalism.”

Mr Hall also acknowledged the vital contribution of local people who helped the BBC reveal the killings, and expressed his gratitude to them “for their role in helping to bring this important story to light.”

Survival International Director Stephen Corry said today: “The BBC exposé revealed a really shocking level of killings by rangers in Kaziranga. Many people who support conservation were appalled that this was being done in conservation’s name. It highlighted just how brutal conservation has become, and how tribal people are too often its victims, rather than its senior partners.”

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