Authorities back threatened jungle tribe and ban loggers
An Awa tribesman stands in jungle devastated by illegal clearing for ranching. Brazil has started expelling illegal loggers and ranchers from one of the last pockets of pristine rainforest in the eastern Amazon, home to what is considered the world’s most threatened tribe, the Awa.
The tribe, which has shunned modern life for its tradition of hunter-gathering, has been appealing for years for the Government to drive out the invaders.
A global campaign has garnered support from celebrities such as Colin Firth and Dame Vivienne Westwood.
Almost 60,000 people wrote to the Brazilian Justice Ministry demanding action to protect the tribespeople, most of whom are scarcely aware their territory is located in a country called Brazil.
‘‘Over 40 years of campaigning for tribal people’s rights has shown us that public opinion is the only effective force which can bring real change,’’ said Stephen Corry, director of Survival In- ternational, which headed the campaign.
After a February 24 deadline set by the Government for the invaders to leave, Brazil’s indigenous affairs department said that a number of loggers and ranchers had already left the area, and that about 200 soldiers, police and agents were due to move in on March 9.
The unchecked invasion of loggers and ranchers – many of them poor, landless people, but some of them richer farmers – had threatened to wipe out the tribe as they ravaged the pristine forests the Awa people call home.
‘‘Everything has been scared away . . . there are loggers everywhere. They’re cutting down the trees and we can’t hunt,’’ an Awa tribesman called Pire’i told Survival International.
In 2011, a federal judge in the state of Maranhao described the onslaught on the Awa as a ‘‘real genocide’’.