TEN YEARS AGO Thursday June 6, 2013
Nixiwaka Yawanawa became the first Amazon Indian to climb Ben Nevis when he scaled Britain’s highest mountain at the weekend to highlight the plight of earth’s most threatened tribe.
The 26-year-old from Brazil climbed the 4,406 foot Ben on Saturday with 15 other supporters of tribal rights organisation Survival International to raise awareness about the Awa tribe, one of the last remaining nomadic hunter gatherer tribes in Brazil.
However, they are finding it increasingly difficult to hunt as illegal loggers, ranchers and settlers destroy the forest and chase away game.
The situation is particularly critical for the 100 unconnected Awa who are facing extinction as a result of the illegal invasion of their forest home.
Such tribes entirely depend on the forest for their survival and are also vulnerable to diseases brought in by outsiders so that a common cold could kill them. Indians communities in western Brazil also face serious threats as illegal loggers are destroying the forest on the Peruvian side of the border.
Nixiwaka Yawanawa and his climbing companions reached the snow-covered summit of Ben Nevis in five hours, battling through blizzard-like conditions at one stage of the ascent. Despite arriving to the coldest temperature he had experienced in his life, Nixiwaka Yawanawa described the challenge as exciting.
‘It is a great way for me to highlight the problems that my brothers the Awa are facing,’ he said.
Nixiwaka Yawanawa came to London to learn English and to speak out for the rights of indigenous people of the Amazon.
A spokesman said: “Nixiwaka Yawanawa’s awareness raising ascent of Ben Nevis went extremely well. Everyone was supportive as we went up the mountain.”
Isle of Eigg residents are celebrating they can now go to the pub rather than have the pub come to them.
For their bid for dry land drinks premises at the Eigg Tea Room was approved on Monday by Lochaber Area Licensing Board.
The opening of the pub marks the first anniversary of the community’s buy-out of the island.
Up until now, the population of Eigg, 68, has had to rely on the arrival at the jetty of MV Shearwater, the passenger ferry from Arisaig, 10 miles away. The vessel has a below-deck bar, with seating and tables for a dozen people to enjoy a drink while the vessel is tied up for half an hour prior to the return trip.
Now islanders can go down to the pub for the first time - without the pub leaving them at closing time.
Jacqueline McDonald, Isle of Eigg project officer, who was present to hear the licensing board deliberations on Monday, said: “Everyone on the island is happy that now they have a focal point where they can go for a drink with a meal or a snack, especially in winter.’
Licensing board members had welcomed the application by Eigg Trading Ltd, saying such a base was needed, in line with the current promotion of the island itself.
An application for an off-sale licence for the Isle of Eigg shop, in the same Pier Centre building, also got the go-ahead.
Bunkhouse on the right track
The century-old railway station buildings at Tulloch, on the West Highland Line, have been officially reopened as a high class bunkhouse.
Walkers, climbers, cyclists and canoeists are already booking into the new Station Lodge, which has been designed to provide good-qual