Home to the vast Amazon, Brazil has reduced its deforestation rate by more than 70 percent since 2003, but Latin America’s largest country is still losing the equivalent of two football fields of rainforest every minute.
The country aims to reduce net new deforestation to zero by 2030.
Key tools in the fight are new satellite monitoring technologies, rural titling schemes to encourage small-scale farmers to stop cutting down trees and action against illegal loggers, according to officials from Brazil’s environment enforcement agency (IBAMA).
“Every act of deforestation has an economic cause,” IBAMA official Jair Schmitt informed.
“We are creating strategies to convince people not to do it (illegal logging) in the first place.”
Here are some facts about Brazil’s battle against deforestation:
* About 90 percent of deforestation is caused by illegal logging, according to IBAMA.
* Four satellites monitoring the Amazon from Brazil, the United States, China and India detect more than 100,000 points of illegal logging every year.
* The rate of deforestation peeked in 2004 at about 27,700 square kilometers of forest lost, an area larger than Israel.
* Promoting secure land tenure, especially for indigenous people, is key to protecting forests, according to Brazil’s environment agency.
* Last year Brazil lost more than 6,200 square km (2,394 sq miles) of rainforest, an area larger than Brunei.
* In 2015, environment enforcement officials made more than 4,000 arrests and seized 91 trucks, 115 chainsaws and the equivalent of 2,000 truckloads of illegally harvested wood.
* More than 70 percent of land affected by illegal deforestation is used for cattle ranching, according to IBAMA.
* Deforestation in the Amazon is responsible for 30 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil, according to campaign group Greenpeace.
This article and information were collected by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking and climate change.
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Two uncontacted Indians from the Amazon have completed an extraordinary journey back to their forest home, having been helicoptered to a large city on the brink of death.
Jakarewyj and Amakaria, uncontacted hunter-gatherer nomads from the Awá people, were forced to make contact with settled Awá in 2014, as they were surrounded by loggers and had contracted flu and tuberculosis to which they had no resistance.
The sisters, together with Jakarewyj’s son Irahoa, had been on the run for years, chased from their land and hiding from the loggers whose “screaming” chainsaws terrified them. “We were scared… We were trapped,” Irahoa revealed. The rest of their group had been wiped out.
The Awá’s allies in Brazil, and Survival (the international human rights organization) supporters around the globe, demanded action and Brazil sent a team of medical experts to intervene. Jakarewyj and Amakaria were emergency air-lifted to the state capital where they eventually recovered.
Now both women have decided to return to their uncontacted lives in the forest, despite the ongoing threat of loggers. Contacted Awá have said that the sisters did not like food or medicines they were not used to, or the heat of the village, and that they always spoke fondly of their forest.
It is understood that they covered their tracks after going back so they could not be followed.
Rosana Diniz from the Brazilian indigenous rights organization CIMI said: “We must respect their choice to return to their forest as that is what they want. Although it’s dangerous, it’s the place they know and love.”
Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Whole populations are being wiped out by genocidal violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and by diseases to which they have no resistance. However, where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.
Many contacted Awá have said that they preferred life before contact. Wamaxua, a recently contacted Awá man said: “When I lived in the forest I had a good life. Now if I meet one of the uncontacted Awá in the forest I’ll say, don’t leave! Stay in the forest… There’s nothing on the outside for you.”
Despite this some outsiders, such as American anthropologists Kim Hill and Robert Walker, continue to advocate “controlled contact” expeditions to forcibly contact tribal peoples and integrate them into the mainstream of society.
However, others have interpreted the women’s decision as a clear indication that many not only prefer life in the forest as it was before contact, but also reject many of the so-called benefits of “progress” and “civilization.”
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “We’re very pleased that Jakarewyj and Amakaria have recovered and been able to make their own decision about how they wish to live. Initiating contact must be uncontacted peoples’ choice alone.
“Those who enter uncontacted tribes’ territories deny them that choice. The sisters’ journey and determination leaves no place for doubt: Uncontacted tribes are fighting ceaselessly to live on their land, and it’s up to governments and all humanity to ensure they can do so.”
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As the Rio Olympics get underway, Brazil has blocked the construction of a controversial dam in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
The São Luiz dam, planned for the Tapajós river, threatened to flood the Munduruku Indians’ forest and force many off their land.
The Munduruku, like all indigenous peoples, depend on their land for their survival, but industrialized society is trying to steal it and plunder its resources in the name of ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’, says Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights.
The Munduruku have been firmly opposing the São Luiz dam, and dozens of others planned for the region.
The dam’s environmental licence was shelved last week following the Munduruku’s resistance, pressure from public prosecutors and experts on the ground, and reports by Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs Department and Environment Ministry.
Alongside their struggle to stop the dams, the Munduruku have embarked on a landmark mission to map out their ancestral territory and protect it from illegal miners and loggers. The Brazilian government has failed to uphold its constitutional duty to do this, leaving the land open to destruction.
Munduruku leader Suberanino Saw said, “Our struggle is dangerous, but we know we will win.” Tribal peoples are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world, says Survival International.
Together with tribes across Brazil, the Munduruku are also protesting plans to change the law and drastically weaken indigenous peoples’ land rights.
One of these plans, known as PEC 215, would give anti-Indian landowners and others the chance to block the recognition of new indigenous territories – and it might even enable them to break up existing ones.
Survival’s Stop Brazil’s Genocide campaign, launched in April 2016 for the run-up to the Olympics, is galvanizing global support for the Indians’ resistance against PEC 215, and calling for the protection of the land of uncontacted tribes, the most vulnerable peoples on the planet.
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The Brazilian government’s Indigenous Affairs Department (FUNAI) has severely criticized the authors of a controversial editorial in Science magazine who called for forced contact with uncontacted tribes. In an open letter criticizing controversial anthropologists Kim Hill and Robert Walker, uncontacted tribes experts at FUNAI stress the threats facing uncontacted peoples.
These include violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.
They reject what Hill and Walker call “controlled contact” as “a severe violation of these peoples’ right to determine their own lives.”
They added: “We feel compelled to express our disagreement with the ideas of some anthropologists… that ‘controlled contact’ is the only possible strategy for protecting these peoples.
“There is never absolute control in contact situations, even in cases when the teams have all the resources they need to operate efficiently.”
In the editorial Hill and Walker acknowledged the devastating impact first contact can have, but claimed that “controlled contact” is “a better option than a no-contact policy” and should be initiated after “conceiving a well-organized plan.”
FUNAI has joined the international call, led by tribal peoples, to protect uncontacted tribes’ land rights and to give them the chance to determine their own futures. Several Brazilian NGOs, including CIMI, ISA and CTI, as well as human rights organization Survival International, are campaigning for this right to be upheld.
Speaking as part of Survival’s Tribal Voice project, Olimpio Guajajara, an indigenous man from the eastern Amazon, rejected forced contact, saying: “We are aware that some anthropologists have been calling for ‘controlled contact’ with the uncontacted Indians… We will not allow this to happen because it will be another genocide of a people… of an indigenous group which doesn’t want contact.”
Earlier this year, Survival’s global campaign for the Kawahiva, an uncontacted tribe in Mato Grosso state, helped secure a protected territory for the tribe. Campaigners are now hoping that this statement from FUNAI will keep pressure on the interim Brazilian government to effectively protect uncontacted peoples.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Claiming that missions to forcibly contact uncontacted tribes, even when “well-planned”, can save lives is naive, and flies in the face of history: first contacts across South America have almost always resulted in death, disease or destruction for the tribe involved.
“Why should it be any different in the future? The short answer is that it won’t be. Let’s be clear, forced contact is likely to be a death sentence for uncontacted tribes. Uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected and we’re doing everything we can to secure it for them.”
Indians Evicted
A video showing a tribal community’s homes being bulldozed, condemning families to live by the side of a major highway, has caused outrage in Brazil.
Almost 100 heavily-armed police officers evicted the Apy Ka’y Guarani community, whose ancestral lands have been destroyed for industrial-scale farming.
The Indians had been forced to live by the side of a highway for ten years, during which eight people were run over and killed, and another died from pesticide poisoning.
In 2013 the community re-occupied a small patch of their ancestral land. They have now been evicted from it again, after a judge granted the landowner’s request for an eviction order, despite having received appeals from the Guarani, from their allies in Brazil, and from thousands of Survival supporters around the world.
The Guarani of Apy Ka’y are now back on the side of the highway.
Another video shows armed police overseeing the eviction of the nine Guarani Kaiowá families. Tribal leader Damiana Cavanha is shown denouncing the eviction, insisting on her people’s right to defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.
She said: “We do not accept this. I will stay here, this is my right. We have our rights. It’s not only the white people that have rights, the Guarani Kaiowá and the indigenous peoples also have rights. So many of us have died, so many people have been killed by the gunmen… Let us stay here, we have our Tekoha [ancestral land] and I will return to my Tekoha.”
In June 2016, ranchers’ gunmen attacked another Guarani community at Tey’i Jusu. One man was killed and several others, including a twelve year old boy, severely injured.
Most of the Guarani’s land has been stolen from them. Brazil’s agribusiness industry has been trying to keep tribal people away from their territories for decades. They subject them to genocidal violence and racism so they can steal their lands, resources and labor in the name of “progress” and “civilization.”
The situation facing the Guarani is one of the most urgent and horrific humanitarian crises of our time. In April 2016, Survival International launched its “Stop Brazil’s Genocide” campaign to draw the crisis to global attention in the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “This is terrible news, and it is tragically all too typical of the appalling situation facing the Guarani in Brazil. We cannot sit idly by and watch the destruction of an entire people. If the Guarani’s legal right to live on their land is not respected and upheld, they will be destroyed.”
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Greenpeace has joined forces with an Indigenous Amazonian community in an unofficial demarcation of their land, deep in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon.
The demarcation is the latest effort in a global campaign to protect the Tapajós River from the construction of a massive dam, the São Luiz do Tapajós (SLT), which would lead to devastating rainforest destruction.
The Munduruku Indigenous Peoples, who have been fighting against the dam and for the formal recognition of their land for many years, have sparked a global movement for the protection of the Tapajós and are calling on global companies to distance themselves from the controversial project.
In July, a group of New Zealanders will arrive at Sawré Muybu Indigenous village to assist the Munduruku.
Greenpeace NZ’s Annette Cotter is one of the team currently working to save the Tapajós River.
She says it’s important that New Zealanders follow the story of the fight.
“The Amazon might seem far away, but saving the rainforest is critical for us all. Not only does the Amazon help regulate global weather patterns but its protection is essential if we are to limit dangerous climate change,” she says.
“The Munduruku are asking for global help to protect their land from this huge threat – help that we can all give, no matter where we live.”
Last week, a global petition was launched to “save the heart of the Amazon”. Signatures will form a virtual human chain around the Munduruku territory in an effort to pressure the Brazilian Government to protect it.
Juarez, the chief (cacique) of Munduruku Sawré Muybu Indigenous land, says the movement has relevance across the globe.
“This an important battle not just for the Munduruku people, but for everyone around the world since we are talking about one of the biggest forests that still exist in the planet,” he says.
On the ground, the land demarcation involves marking the land with fifty signs, similar to those used by the Brazilian government, to indicate the territory is Munduruku land.
The demarcation process would normally be executed by the Brazilian Government as the next step in a formal Indigenous Land recognition process.
Placing the signs is just one of a range of activities planned at the Sawré Muybu Indigenous village – another will include installing solar panels in the community.
If approved, the SLT dam would be the first of five planned in the Tapajós River. It would have a reservoir of 729 square kilometers (almost the size of New York City), which would flood part of the Munduruku land, and it would drive an estimated 2,200 km2 of indirect deforestation as a result of roads and other infrastructure related to the construction and migration to the area.
Greenpeace is calling on international companies like Siemens to confirm they will not get involved in the project by supplying components like the generators. Although their company profile is focused on green solutions, Siemens were involved in the controversial Belo Monte dam, the most recent destructive dam to be built in the Amazon.
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Members of Brazil’s Awá tribe have blockaded a railroad owned by Vale mining company in the eastern Amazon. The company has moved to expand the railroad, but the Awá say the expansion will increase the number and size of trains which transport iron ore from the Carajás mine to the port of São Luis – and that this will make it harder for them to hunt for food.
Carajás is the world’s largest open pit iron ore mine. To transport the iron ore, trains that are over three kilometers in length regularly hurtle through close to Awá territory.
The tribe is calling for a meeting with the company and FUNAI, the Brazilian government’s indigenous affairs department, so that their wishes can be heard and their rights respected.
On Saturday a large group of Awá families occupied a section of the railroad which runs alongside their land.
Following a meeting with Vale representatives, the Awá agreed to suspend the blockade on condition that the company upholds its agreement to mitigate the impacts on the Indians’ forest.
This is the first time that the Awá have blockaded the railroad on their own initiative and reflects their determination to hold Vale to account.
In April 2014, a campaign by human rights organization Survival’s international succeeded in pushing the Brazilian government to evict illegal loggers and settlers who had destroyed over 30% of their central territory.
However, the Awá are still one of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Around 100 remain uncontacted and are very vulnerable to diseases brought in by outsiders, to which they have no resistance.
Last year fires, possibly started by loggers, ravaged one Awá territory, home to the largest group of uncontacted members of the tribe.
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More than 30 countries set the first-ever deadline on Tuesday to end deforestation by 2030, but the feasibility of such a goal was eroded when a key player, Brazil, said it would not join.
The United States, Canada and the entire European Union signed on to a declaration to halve forest loss by 2020 and eliminate deforestation entirely by 2030.
“This is the family photo we have been looking for decades,” said Charles McNeill, a senior environmental policy adviser for the U.N. Development Program. “The forest issue is where everyone comes together.”
But, like in any family, there were signs of dysfunction before the agreement was formally unveiled Tuesday. Brazil said it would not endorse the pledge, complaining it was not included in the preparation process.
Brazil’s position also highlighted the divisions between countries as they prepare to continue formal negotiations later this year in Peru in the hopes of meeting a late 2015 deadline for a new international treaty.
“Unfortunately, we were not consulted. But I think that it’s impossible to think that you can have a global forest initiative without Brazil on board. It doesn’t make sense,” Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said Monday.
If the goal is met, the United Nations says it would be the equivalent of taking every car in the world off the road. The group also pledged to restore more than 1 million square miles of forest worldwide by 2030.
Norway pledged to spend 350 million dollars to protect forests in Peru and another 100 million in Liberia. Dozens of companies, environmental groups and indigenous groups signed on.
However without Brazil, a halt to deforestation would nearly be impossible.
“A deforestation agreement without Brazil is like a carbon reduction plan without the United States,” said Paul Wapner, professor of international environmental policy at American University.
Marina Blasts Rousseff
Environmentalist and presidential opposition candidate Marina Silva blasted Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff for not supporting an initiative to put a deadline on deforestation supported by 32 countries this Tuesday during the Climate summit in New York.
“Brazil is one of the countries with major forests, we have 60% of our territory covered with forests and woods and Dilma did not sign in support of protecting those forests, which is regrettable and disappointing,” said Silva during a political rally ahead of the first ballot scheduled for October 5.
Under the terms of the statement supported by 32 countries the commitment is to reduce the loss of forests by 2020 and definitively end with deforestation by 2030. It also includes a pledge to recover 350 million hectares of deforested land to help combat climate change.
However at the climate summit Rousseff in her speech said that “Brazil does not announce promises, but rather results” and went on to describe some of the achievements in reducing deforestation in the Amazon region.
Rousseff said that in the last ten years deforestation in Brazil was cut down by 79% following the implementation of a plan in 2003 for the prevention and control of deforestation in the Amazon.
The plan was the initiative and implemented precisely by Marina Silva, who at the time was Environment minister (20023/2008), under the administration of president Lula da Silva,
But despite these efforts mentioned by Rousseff before the climate summit, deforestation in Brazil actually increased in the last year and reached 5.891 square kilometers between August 2012 and July 2013, according to official data from the Brazilian government.
Opinion polls are showing that Rousseff and Silva are virtually tied in the two round presidential election scheduled for October 5 and the run off on October 26.
Mercopress
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Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, announced the 12 winning entries of its first-ever photographic competition, held to mark the organization’s 45th anniversary. The winning photograph by Giordano Cipriani is a stunning portrait of an Asurini do Tocantins man in the Brazilian Amazon.
The winning entries give an insight into the incredible diversity and unique ways of life of tribal and indigenous peoples around the world. The photographs feature, among others, the long-distance running Tarahumara in Mexico, the bull-jumping Hamer in Ethiopia, and the mountain-dwelling Igorot in the Philippines.
The eleven runners-up are:
– Fabien Astre (photo of Mentawai, Indonesia);
– Diego Barrero (photo of Surma, Omo Valley Ethiopia);
– Arman E Barbuco (photo of Igorot, Philippines);
– Christian Declerq (photo of Willoq community, Peru);
– David Ducoin (photo of Tarahumara, Mexico);
– Nicolas Marino Arch (photo of Tibetan, Tibet);
– Andrew Newey (photo of Adi, India);
– Partha Pratim (photo of Santhal, India);
– Johann Rousselot (photo of Kondh, India);
– Sarah Sandring (photo of Innu, Canada);
– Salvatore Valente (photo of Hamer, Omo Valley Ethiopia).
The twelve winning photographs will feature in Survival’s annual calendar and will be exhibited at The Little Black Gallery in London from December 2-16, 2014, and in other countries where Survival has offices.
Open to amateurs and professionals alike, the competition called for entries in the categories of lands, human diversity and ways of life, and aimed to celebrate photography as a powerful medium for raising awareness of tribal peoples.
The judging panel included Survival’s Director Stephen Corry, actor and Survival Ambassador Gillian Anderson, the BBC’s Human Planet photographer Tim Allen, The Little Black Gallery’s co-founder Ghislain Pascal, Survival’s Editorial consultant Joanna Eede, and Survival Italy Coordinator Francesca Casella.
The overall winner received an Olympus camera E-PM2, donated by Olympus.
Stephen Corry said: “An important criteria when selecting the winning images was that they convey a fair and accurate picture, and do not falsify the appearance or behavior of their subjects. The range of high-quality entries from around the globe shows that it is possible to take stunning photographs of contemporary tribal peoples without resorting to portraying them as either ‘brutal’ or ‘noble savages’.”
Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, celebrates its 45th anniversary this year. It was founded in 1969 following an article by Norman Lewis in the UK’s Sunday Times Magazine about the genocide of Brazilian Indians, which featured powerful images from the acclaimed photographer Don McCullin.
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A highly vulnerable uncontacted tribe in the Amazon has been contacted by a missionary, raising fears that the Indians have contracted fatal diseases which could wipe them out.
According to local reports, an Adventist missionary from a local indigenous community arrived on a boat – owned by tour company Expediciones Vilca – and left clothes and food for the uncontacted Mashco-Piro Indians on the border with the Manu National Park.
Images of the encounter last Saturday, September 6, have surfaced, which show the Mashco-Piro taking the clothes and food brought by the tour boat.
Only two weeks ago, Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, and local Amazon Indian organization FENAMAD, warned of the dangers of “human safaris” and increasing encounters between outsiders and the uncontacted Indians.
But the Peruvian government has failed to take action, and an emergency meeting between FENAMAD and Peru’s Ministry of Culture about this issue was canceled last week by Vice minister Patricia Balbuena.
Tourist boats regularly pass along the Madre de Dios river where the Mashco-Piro have been spotted. Clothes, food, and even fizzy drinks and beer have been left for the Indians.
Uncontacted tribal peoples like the Mashco-Piro are the most vulnerable societies on the planet. Peru’s approximately 15 uncontacted tribes are threatened by violence from outsiders who steal their resources and bring diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.
Last month, a group of uncontacted Indians thought to have fled from Peru made headlines when they made contact with a settled indigenous community in Brazil. The Indians immediately contracted an acute respiratory infection for which they were treated.
Survival and FENAMAD are calling on the Peruvian authorities to stop tourists and outsiders from entering this area; to implement an emergency health program to prevent the outbreak of a fatal epidemic among the Mashco-Piro; and to enlarge their protected territory as a matter of urgency.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today: “Missionaries insisting on clothing ‘naked savages’ is the most enduring metaphor for the colonial destruction of tribal peoples. Clothes can not only carry disease, they can make illness worse for people with no tradition of wearing them.
“Indians too sick to hunt risk sitting around in perpetually damp and unwashed clothes which can exacerbate the infections which have already killed millions of Indians in the Americas. That this is still happening today is a crime which must be stopped.
“If Peru doesn’t ban tourists and people like this missionary from going anywhere near the uncontacted Indians, its government risks complicity in the annihilation of yet another Indian people.”
Over 12,000 people have sent an urgent email to authorities in Peru and Brazil urging them to protect the land of uncontacted tribes.
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Activists from the Friends of the Manatee Association (Ampa) have placed a 12-meter-tall inflatable dolphin dummy outside the National Congress. The act was staged as part of a campaign entitled Red Alert, which aims to urge the Ministry of Environment to take action and bring into effect earlier the ban on the fishing of piracatinga (Calophysus macropterus) in the Amazon Rainforest – an activity that entails the use of the dolphin as bait.
They have also handed to a representative from the ministry a petition pleading for the protection of aquatic mammals in the Amazon region, especially the Amazon river dolphin, also known as pink river dolphin, or boto-cor-de-rosa in Portuguese.
The fishing of piracatinga has been forbidden since July, but the measure will only be brought into effect in January 2015. Although environmentalists hail the ban as a remarkable achievement, they say a large number of dolphins may fall victim of this practice until then.
Studies on the species, carried out by the National Research Institute of Amazônia (Inpa) at the Sustainable Development Reserve of Mamirauá, reveal that the population of Amazon river dolphins has been falling at a pace of 10 percent per annum.
“This amounts to over 4 thousand animals killed every year,” warns researcher Vera da Silva, head of the Dolphin Project (Projeto Boto). Her work has focused on these animals for over three decades.
She further mentions that the dolphin has been protected by law since 1967, and argues that “alternative solutions [should be found] to the fishing of piracatinga – solutions which do not require the use of the dolphin as bait.”
ABr
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