A new
international campaign hopes to save a group of people who have been dubbed
"the most threatened tribe in the world" — the Awá tribe of Brazil —
from encroaching outsiders who are gobbling up their land.
The Awá live in
the Brazilian state of Maranhão on lands set aside for their hunter-gatherer
lifestyle. But according to the tribal advocacy group Survival International, which
is leading the new campaign, the tribe is increasingly under threat by illegal
settlement and logging on their lands. One reserve set aside for the tribe, the
Awá Territory, is one-third deforested, its trees stripped by illegal logging
operations, some with sawmills operating only miles from Awá land.
"When the
forest is destroyed, they either flee or they simply die," said Survival's
field director Fiona Watson, who has worked with and interviewed many of the
360 surviving Awá who are in contact with society. On her last visit, she told
LiveScience, "They were saying to me, 'We're suffering from hunger
now.'"
Tribal
life under threat
The issue of
indigenous people's land rights is an international one. Survival International
estimates more than 150 million tribal people currently live in 60 countries
worldwide. The most voiceless of these are uncontacted tribes, people who live
without interaction with the outside world.
Uncontacted
tribespeople are often romanticized as "primitive" people who aren't
aware of the outside world, which is a myth, according to Survival. In fact,
many are purposefully avoiding society after deadly run-ins with civilization
in the past. Not only do clashes between native peoples and settlers sometimes
result in violence, uncontacted people lack immunity to common diseases and can
be felled by a simple flu virus.
Survival estimates
that there are about 100 uncontacted Awá in addition to the 360 or so who have
semi-settled in villages on their legally protected land. After first contact
with the Awá in 1973, the Brazilian government has opened up the region where
the tribe has long roamed. After iron ore was discovered in the area, the
European Community and the World Bank even helped fund a railway and other
developments in the region.
"This acts like a magnet for settlers to
pour in, and ranchers, so Awá land started to be invaded," Watson said.
Land
rights battle
The Awá's right to
their land was formally recognized in 2005, making mining and other activities
by outsiders illegal; but satellite photos of the forest reveal that these
rights are not being honored. Illegal logging has left the scar of
deforestation on the land. This is especially devastating to the Awá, who
depend on the forest for their survival, Watson said.
"When you
talk to the Awá, it's just so clear how much the forest means to them,"
she said. "They just get everything from it."
That includes food
— babaçu nuts and açaà berries as well as fresh meat — and medicines and
supplies, such as the resin of the maçaranduba tree, which is used to make
torches. [See Video of Awá Life]
As the forest
vanishes, the Awá are trapped in a legal battle to save it. In 2009, a federal
judge ruled that illegal settlers had to leave the Awá territories within 180
days. A legal appeal by one of the largest cattle ranchers in the region
delayed the ruling. In December 2011, a second federal judge ruled that
colonists and ranchers had to leave the land by December 2012. Survival fears
that continued legal wrangling will delay these departures, too. If the case
continues in the legal system, it could take 20 or 30 years for the Brazilian
Supreme Court to decide it. By that time, it will be too late for the Awá.
"Time is not
on their side," Watson said.
Violence and
protection
In addition,
reports from Awá tribe members and from the Brazilian Indian affairs office
FUNAI suggest that this land controversy can all-too-easily turn deadly. In
1988, for example, townspeople in west Bahia, Brazil, met a lone native man who
turned out to be of the Awá tribe. The man, Karapiru, had been living alone in
the forest since 1975, when ranchers killed his daughter and wounded him and
his son. The ranchers had taken his son, leaving Karapiru to believe him dead.
"It's a
violent part of the Amazon," Watson said. "You have bows and arrows
against guns."
Other tribes have
also been haunted by violent clashes. In August 2011, FUNAI officials were
alarmed to find evidence of a fight between drug traffickers and uncontacted
native people, who went missing after the violence.
Watson and her
colleagues are hoping that their new campaign will put pressure on Brazil to
honor the Awá's legal right to their land and provide the funding needed to
enforce the protected areas' borders.
"It's a very
simple, direct message to the Minister of Justice," Watson said. "The
land belongs to the Awá."
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