“Be the change you wish to see in the world” ~ Ghandi
Colin Firth and Survival International launched their campaign today -- appealing to viewers to save the Awá from illegal loggers in the Brazilian Amazon:
http://www.survivalinternational.org/awa#intro-film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aw%C3%A1-Guaj%C3%A1_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aw%C3%A1-Guaj%C3%A1_people
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| Photo: Survival International |
A heartbreaking story about an Amazon tribal girl burned alive by loggers earlier this year. Luis Carlos Guajajaras, a local leader from a separate tribe, told a Brazilian news website that they tied to her a tree and set her alight as a warning to other natives:
Wikipedia: "In 1982, the Brazilian government received a loan of 900 million USD from the World Bank and the European Union.
One condition of this loan was that the lands of certain indigenous
peoples (including the Awá) would be demarcated and protected. This was
particularly important for the Awá because their forests were
increasingly being invaded by outsiders. There were many cases of
tribespeople being killed by settlers, but perhaps more significantly,
the forest on which they depend was being destroyed by logging and land
clearance for farming. Without government intervention it seemed very
likely that the Awá and their ancient culture would become extinct. However, the Brazilian government was extraordinarily slow to act on
its commitment. It took twenty years of sustained pressure from
campaigning organisations such as Survival International and the Forest Peoples Programme before, in March 2003, the Awá's land was finally demarcated. During this time, encroachment on their land and a series of
massacres had reduced Awá numbers to about 300, of whom only about 60
were still living their traditional, isolated, hunter-gather way of life."
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