Our last post was about the need to protect the world’s forests as a natural and cost-effective way to capture carbon dioxide, to protect biodiversity and the remaining indigenous people who dwell in them. As if to reinforce the point, Earthfirst published a harrowing piece of news about a Brazilian Indian tribe called Akuntsu, who was decimated by loggers and ranchers. The latter not only destroyed their forest but also thought fit to eliminate the members of the tribe in order to take over their land. All this in the late 20th century.
The story came out as the oldest member of the surviving group, a woman called Ururu, died recently so only five of them remain now. Ururu had witnessed the genocide of her people and the destruction of their rainforest home, as cattle ranchers and their gunmen moved on to indigenous lands in Rondônia state. Rondônia was opened up by government colonisation projects and the infamous BR 364 highway in the 1960s and 70s, says Survival International, a UK charity that works with tribal peoples across the globe.
Stories like this remind us of how complex environmentalism can be and that these tribes urgently need further official protection. True, this is a human rights issue, but environmentalism is a rights issue too: the right that everyone has to live in an inhabitable planet, humans and non humans alike.
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artist needs more in sight on the amazon natives people in which some had traveled from america to amazon, hundreds of years ago . photography thanks,