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Indigenous People
Logging ban protects Brazil tribe
Jun 23rd
BBC NEWS | Americas | Logging ban protects Brazil tribe.
Logging ban protects Brazil tribe A Brazilian judge has reinstated an order banning loggers from land inhabited by a remote Amazonian tribe. The ruling covers a 166,000 hectare (410,000-acre) area of rainforest in the north-eastern Rio Pardo region. Campaigners had warned that the "uncontacted" group of Indians faced being wiped out if nothing was done to protect them. Indian rights groups are now urging the government to enforce the ruling, fearing a violent backlash by loggers. ‘Act quickly’ Federal Judge Luiz Fux had lifted the order in March following an application from a consortium of logging companies, which convinced him the ruling would damage their business. But he reversed the judgement after an appeal from Brazil’s federal Indian bureau (Funai) and state prosecutors. The original protection order has been lifted and reinstated on several occasions since it was made in 2001. It was obtained to protect the Rio Pardo Indians, a group so isolated that their existence has been hard to confirm.
Little known Indian tribe spotted in Brazil
Jun 20th
Reuters AlertNet – Little known Indian tribe spotted in Brazil.
Little known Indian tribe spotted in Brazil 25 May 2005 17:18:41 GMT Source: Reuters By Terry Wade PORTO VELHO, Brazil, May 25 (Reuters) – A Brazilian Indian tribe armed with bows and arrows and unseen for years has been spotted in a remote Amazon region where clashes with illegal loggers are threatening its existence. The tiny Jururei tribe numbers only 8 or 10, and is the second "uncontacted" group to be threatened by loggers this month, after a judge approved cutting in an area of the jungle called Rio Pardo.
Accelerating rainforest destruction threatens the tribes. Deforestation in 2003-04 totaled 10,088 square miles (26,130 sq km), the most in nearly a decade, official figures show. "The Indians have had conflict with loggers, who are cutting toward them from two different directions," Rogerio Vargas Motta, director of the Pacaas Novos national park, told Reuters. He photographed Jururei huts on a recent helicopter flyover of the remote park to catch land grabbers. One Jururei shot three arrows at the helicopter as it flew overhead, Vargas Motta said. The tribe’s wood huts have roofs of black plastic tarps found in abandoned logging camps. Indian rights activists are alarmed. "Unless Brazil acts now to protect uncontacted tribes, they will disappear off the face of the earth forever. The annihilation of a tribe, however small, is genocide," said Fiona Watson, Campaigns Coordinator of Survival International in London.
They blame a lack of political will and a powerful lobby of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers for fueling deforestation and threatening Brazil’s 700,000 Indians.
"There’s been a grave lack of funding for conservation on the part of the government," said Samuel Vieira Cruz, director of Kaninde, a nonprofit group that works to protect two Indian tribes in the area.
Forest Dwellers Face Annihilation
Jun 16th
Forest Dwellers Face Annihilation.
Campaigners in the Brazilian Amazon fear a group of as yet uncontacted indigenous peoples in a remote corner of the rainforest face "annihilation" after a court overturned state efforts to protect them from logging firms. The supreme court ruled that the company can continue logging in the densely forested area at the Pardo river in north-west Mato Grosso state, which borders Bolivia.
In his ruling, Judge Luiz Fux said that the company Sulmap Sul Amazonia would suffer "irreversible damage" if logging was banned. The group of hunter-gatherers, known by a neighbouring group as the "little people" was first sighted in the 1980s, but workers of the government’s indigenous peoples protection agency, known as Funai, only found signs of a hurried departure in their abandoned villages when sent to contact them. Arrows, hammocks, baskets of nuts and footprints have been found, but no direct contact has been made, as the group flees into the forest.
Funai won a court order in 2001 banning entry to an area bigger than Greater London around the villages to allow time for friendly contact. But armed loggers were seen inside the area in 2002, and a Funai camp was later burned down. Clandestine roads were built as the loggers defied the ban, claiming that there were no longer indigenous peoples living in the area. "These Indians will be annihilated if we don’t act now," said Sidney Possuelo, head of a special unit established by Funai to contact and protect such groups from the aggressive advance of loggers, ranchers and settlers.
There are thought to be more than 40 such groups of isolated indigenous peoples across the Amazon region. Another group of nine or 10 people, living in four huts, was spotted recently in Rondonia state, also on the Bolivia border, during a government helicopter flight.
The rights group Survival International, which is campaigning to save the Rio Pardo peoples from loggers, has called on the government to fulfil its constitutional duty to protect them, saying the "the annihilation of a tribe, however small, is genocide."
Logging firms, both domestic and foreign, are spearheading the advance of other business interests deeper into the undisturbed forest. Deforestation is running at record levels as a result. Official figures put last year’s total deforestation at 10,000 square miles, larger than Wales. Some government analysts believe that even this is an underestimate.
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