Online campaigns and petitions have permeated the internet, and with questions being asked by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and front-page stories on the plight of the Awá appearing in Brazil's bestselling newspaper, the government has come under increasing pressure to act. An urgent appeal was sent to Brazil’s government to evict invaders from their forest, and Brazil soccer fans lent their support for the tribe. In April 2012, Survival International launched a world-wide campaign, backed by Colin Firth, Vivienne Westwood, Sebastião Salgado and other celebrities, to protect the Awa-Guajá people. They need, in short, a better life, like all of us." But what is the better life that Abreu speaks of? Many of Brazil’s displaced indigenous people end up with no home, no job, no land and no opportunities once they are dragged from their forest home into overpopulated cities.īut the plight of the Awá hasn’t gone unnoticed. Paulo he said the Awá “don't need more physical space, but sanitation, education and an efficient health system. In a recent opinion article for the newspaper Folha de S. Katia Abreu, president of Brazil’s National Agriculture and Livestock Federation, is one who ascribes to such a view. It's fundamentally racist, and the evidence points, glaringly, and to our shame, in exactly the opposite direction. Although people have been saying it for generations, it isn't true: tribes are destroyed by labelling them backward, and pretending they stand to benefit from "civilisation". When the railway was first put in, development from outsiders exposed the Awá to disease and violence and their population was decimated.īut apart from the loggers and their guns, one of their biggest problems is the fallacy that Amazon Indians must inevitably conform to "modernity". About 180 illegal sawmills have sprung up around the Awa's land and a rail line carves through the forest, allowing trains to shuttle tonnes of iron ore from the heart of the Amazon to Atlantic Ocean ports, with much of it headed for Chinese steel mills. Over 30% of one of the Awá’s territories has already been deforested and loggers are rapidly closing in on their communities and have already been marking trees for deforestation as little as 2 miles away. However, years of illegal logging and land grabs have brought their people to the brink of extinction.
AWA TRIBE PETS PATCH
It is called Operation Awa and it is on an impressive scale.įor generations, the Awá lived far from the rest of humanity, picking fruit, hunting, and following the seasons' rhythms in their patch of the lush Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Now, a new operation by the army, air force and military police is designed to save the endangered population of the Awá, according to a BBC report. There are approximately 350 members left and 100 of them have no contact with the outside world. The Awá (or Guajá) are an indigenous group of people living in the eastern Amazon forests of Brazil. These are the desperate words of Piraí, a member of the Awá tribe, named by Survival International as the world’s most threatened tribe. We don’t want anything… but to live as we live and be who we are. We have much courage, but we need you close to us.
We won’t give up until we all have a world where the Awá – and all tribal peoples – are respected and their human rights protected, said Stephen Corry.We are Awá.
The Awá deserve the right to live as they choose, on their own land, without the threat of violence or encroachment from the outside world.
Survival is now urging the Brazilian authorities to put in place a long-term solution to stop the invaders from returning, and to guarantee the safety of the tribe. The operation was completed in April 2014, whereby the Awá were presented with an ‘Evictions Completion Document’. Hundreds of soldiers, police and government agents flooded the Awá’s territory, locating and destroying sawmills and logging camps and expelling invaders, who had been given 40 days’ notice to leave and had been offered compensation. In an unprecedented success the campaign incited the eviction of all non-Indian invaders from the Awá’s land by the Brazilian government. Articles appeared in the media on both sides of the Atlantic and dozens of celebrities pledged their support, including fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and actor Colin Firth.Ī host of 57, 000 messages, from 38 countries, showered down upon the new Brazilian Minister of Justice and campaigners also wrote to Congress, their MPs and their MEPs. ‘Save the Awá’ was spelled in snow in Amsterdam and on the wall of a shopping mall in western Australia. The multi-media campaign gave rise to thousands of voices speaking out for the Awá. For two years Survival International has fervently campaigned for the Brazilian government to remove all non-Indian invaders from the Awá’s territory and to protect the Awá and their lands.
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