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Amazon Guardian Paulo Guajajara Was My Friend; 5 Years After His Killing, I Want Justice
Guajajara was the sixth Guardian killed by loggers in the Arariboia forest. News of his death went round the world. Despite that, none of the killers have been caught or tried.
Nov 01, 2024
Paulo Paulino Guajajara looks down and off to one side, the Amazon forest lush and dense behind him.
His voice thickens; he clears his throat. “My mother, she’s unwell. She told me to stop doing this work,” he says, and presses the heel of his hand against his eye to stop a tear.
He looks into the camera, “I told her I’m not scared, that she should let me fight. Because I have a son. And he will need the forest.”
Lobo once said, “Even if they kill me, I won’t stop fighting.”
Paulo, an Indigenous Amazon Guardian, was shot dead five years ago today (November 1, 2019) in the forest he loved—the Arariboia Indigenous Territory, in the Amazon’s northeast.
I was on the other side of the camera when he spoke of his mother’s fears. He wanted the world to know his people, his land, were under threat. He knew illegal loggers were paying gunmen to kill Guardians like him, but he continued to track them, leaving his infant son, wife, and his mother at home.
The Guardians are Guajajara people who protect Indigenous land. They confront illegal loggers, force them to leave, then destroy their camps. They do it to protect their families and for the Awá people, their neighbours who share the territory and some of whom shun all outside contact. Paulo admired the Awá. They are completely self-sufficient in their forest, but cannot survive without it.
Paulo and I met in 2017 when we recorded his video. In 2019 I went on a Guardian patrol as a researcher with Survival International, the global movement for Indigenous and tribal peoples’ rights. It was on that journey, deep in the rainforest, that Paulo and I became friends—and he asked me to call him by his Guardian name, Lobo (‘Wolf’ in English). The group assigns a name that reflects a Guardian’s personality and his place. It binds them together, protects their anonymity.
The Guardians gathered in a clearing to prepare for our patrol. They brought several motorbikes and a quad bike. About 15 men chatted casually as they honed their machetes, checked motorbike chains, and calculated how much petrol to take. They wrapped and stowed a big piece of meat—food for the journey. One man drew a map in the earth with a stick and pointed to the illegal logging camp—the object of our patrol. Well-worn bulletproof vests were distributed, then we got on the bikes and headed into the forest.
Lobo was quiet and focused, pitching in with an easy smile. He insisted I travel with him and his cousin on the more comfortable quad bike. As we rode dirt trails into the thickening forest, he taught me words in Tenetehar, his Indigenous language. He pointed and said, “foot,” “hand,” “elbow.” I repeated, worked to get my mouth around the unfamiliar syllables. Later, I proudly spoke the words he’d taught me, and the Guardians guffawed. I was saying, “ blue foot,” “fat elbow,” “laughing hand.” Lobo just grinned.
We gathered around a fire that night, kept small to prevent detection. The meat was cooked, and Lobo offered it to me on a skewer. He drew his machete, elegantly ran it down the meat’s edge, and urged me to pull away a thin, sinewy slice. It was a welcome treat, dipped in crunchy cassava farinha.
Lobo admired a woolly hat I’d brought from London, so I gave it to him. He cut eye holes and wore it pulled down over his face to keep his identity secret and protect him from the hired assassins. The group spread out and settled on the cold forest floor, wrapped in darkness and sound—the buzz of cicadas and trills of crickets, descants over the rumbling bass line of amorous bullfrogs.
The next day we travelled on foot. The Guardians inspected every snapped twig—evidence loggers were nearby. They examined tire tracks, noting their age and direction of travel. Tension rose as we got closer. We passed a pile of stacked logs and arrived at the camp—an oval-shaped clearing where blue and black tarps sheltered cooking and seating areas.
But the loggers had fled. We ate their breakfast—eggs and a pot of pumpkin they’d left cooking on their fire. And when we discovered a barrel of fresh water, Lobo insisted that I be the first to bathe.
He was angry though, disgusted at the loggers’ intrusion, the theft of trees, the destruction of the forest. And he was frustrated they’d escaped. “I want to burn and destroy this camp,” Lobo said, holding his lighter to a tarpaulin’s edge. “We don’t want anything of theirs in our territory.”
Lobo was out hunting when he was ambushed—shot and killed. Beside him, his friend and fellow Guardian Tainaky Tenetehar was also hit. The impact bent Tainaky over in pain. Straining with every part of his body, he straightened up and ran as blood poured from his right shoulder. Lobo lay dead on the forest floor, still wearing the hat that could not protect him.
Lobo was the sixth Guardian killed by loggers in the Arariboia forest. News of his death went round the world. Despite that, none of the killers have been caught or tried. And on this fifth anniversary of his killing, everything Lobo sought to protect is in greater peril—particularly the uncontacted Awá. They are among more than 150 uncontacted Indigenous peoples around the world—the most self-sufficient and most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Survival International is fighting to stop miners, loggers, ranchers, other extractive industries, and criminals stealing their territory and resources. The loggers are still there, while the Brazilian government fails the Awá by not upholding its own and international laws that require their land be protected for their exclusive use.
When I think of Lobo, I remember his easy laugh, the grin that spread slowly across his face. He always carried a pen drive loaded with his tunes. That smile grew ever wider when his favourite came on: Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” He would close his eyes and hum along.
Lobo once said, “Even if they kill me, I won’t stop fighting.”
His fight continues; for there is a little boy growing up without his marvellous father. And he still needs the forest.
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The Nightmarish Truth Behind World Heritage Sites
UNESCO must abandon its support for a conservation model that annihilates Indigenous peoples; it should begin by de-listing sites where human rights abuses occur.
Sep 18, 2024
I stand, mesmerized by the landscape. Distant mountains are cloaked in every shade of green, and a clear, still lake reflects the sky. The deep amber sunset lights the golden script carved into the wooden sign: Kaeng Krachan National Park.
Nearby, a young couple captures the moment in a selfie—a postcard from paradise, one of Thailand’s World Heritage Sites.
“Not there... there!” Kai, our guide, tugs my arm, and points to a spot by the river. “That’s where they found part of Billy’s body.” And, just like that, my reverie breaks.
For many Indigenous people, their lands declared as World Heritage Sites morph into alien territories, belonging not to them, but to “all the peoples of the world”—especially the fee-paying tourists.
Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen was an Indigenous Karen activist. He was collecting honey when he was arrested by park officials and vanished. Five years later, pieces of his skull surfaced in a drum under a bridge—right here in paradise. Billy was just 30, about the same age as those young selfie takers.
Later, we meet Menor, his widow. Her eyes heavy with sorrow, she says, “Why do we need a World Heritage Site on our ancestral land? It never gives the community any benefits. It just takes things away from us.”
This landscape, hailed by UNESCO for its “outstanding value to all humanity,” is home to a tragedy. And the Karen people, its true custodians, are its victims. The Karen practice rotational agriculture—where different plots of land are used over successive years and then left fallow for up to a decade. Essentially, they prepare a new area for planting by using controlled fires, which enrich the soil and enhance biodiversity. All of this is accompanied by rituals and ceremonies to honor the Earth, their food provider. Since colonial times, conservationists, blind to this harmony, branded it pejoratively as “slash and burn.”
In 1996, the Karen of Bang Kloi village were evicted by the government under the guise of protecting the park. They resisted. Billy was one of them—until his voice was silenced.
Inspired by Billy and his grandfather, the indomitable Ko-ee who died aged 107 after a lifetime of resistance, the Karen of Bang Kloi reclaimed their territory in 2020, only to be violently expelled again. Despite this grim history, despite the pleas of three United Nations special rapporteurs to address human rights concerns before the designation, UNESCO assigned the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex (KKFC) World Heritage Site (WHS) status in 2021. The accolade was in the category “natural criteria,” defined as a “significant natural habitat for in-situ conservation of biological diversity.”
But despite the beliefs of UNESCO experts and tourists, the Kaeng Krachan habitat did not occur naturally. The landscape was sculpted and nurtured by Indigenous people for generations. As one Karen man pointed out, “The WHS staff only see the forest and animals; they don’t see the people. They don’t see us. It’s a kind of blindness.”
Another Karen voice added bluntly, “KKFC becoming a WHS is a serious violation of human rights.”
Since its designation as a World Heritage Site there’s been an increase in harassment and arrests, and a tightening of restrictions. Karen people said that the World Heritage status meant that attempts to force everyone out of the forest “have got worse”.
This isn’t just a Thai tragedy. It’s a global one. Human rights investigations have documented torture, rape, and killings of Indigenous people in “natural” World Heritage Sites—especially in Asia and Africa. These sites, celebrated for their beauty and ecological importance, become war zones for the locals. Governments and NGOs, armed with UNESCO’s blessing, push the Indigenous people out and blame them for the degradation of what they have long protected.
Countries crave UNESCO’s nod. It brings prestige, tourists, funding. But for those evicted, it’s a nightmare.
In my travels with Survival International, the global movement for Indigenous peoples’ rights, I’ve seen these “wonders of the world.” The Serengeti’s vast plains, Odzala’s shadowy Congo forests, India’s tiger reserves, Yosemite’s grandeur—all share a dark secret. The pristine wilderness tourists adore is soaked with Indigenous blood, sweat, and tears. These landscapes were their homes, sustained by their knowledge and practices until outsiders decided they were “wild nature,” needing protection from the very people who understood them best. It’s colonialism masquerading as conservation.
For many Indigenous people, their lands declared as World Heritage Sites morph into alien territories, belonging not to them, but to “all the peoples of the world”—especially the fee-paying tourists.
We need to put this conservation model on trial, just as we did with other unjust, outdated, and harmful ideas—racial segregation, gender inequality. The true protectors of our shared natural heritage are Indigenous peoples. Their ways of life are sustainable, rooted in providing for future generations. For them, nature is home, the foundation of life and survival. They are the best stewards of the natural world. As one group of Karen declared, defiant despite the years of oppression: “If we don’t fight today, there will be no future for our children.”
UNESCO must abandon its support for a conservation model that annihilates Indigenous peoples. It should begin by de-listing sites where human rights abuses occur. Only then can it begin to decolonize itself—and genuinely protect our planet.
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Sightings of Uncontacted Tribe Spur Calls to End Logging in Peruvian Amazon
"This is a humanitarian disaster in the making—it's absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco-Piro's territory is properly protected at last," said the director of Survival International.
Jul 16, 2024
A leading rights group on Tuesday called for loggers to be "thrown out" of a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon following recent sightings of people belonging to what is believed to be the world's largest uncontacted Indigenous tribe.
London-based Survival International published video and photos of dozens of Mashco-Piro people taken near the village of Monte Salvado in southeastern Peru near the Brazilian border. The group said that in recent days, more than 50 Mashco-Piro have appeared near the village, which is inhabited by the related Yine people. A group of 17 Mashco-Piro were also recently sighted near the neighboring village of Puerto Nuevo.
Several logging companies are operating within just a few miles of where the Mascho-Piro were spotted. One company operating inside Mashco-Piro territory, Canalaes Tahuamanu, has laid more than 120 miles of road there to facilitate timber extraction. The company is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as a sustainable and ethical operator, even though it is known to be felling trees inside Mashco-Piro territory. Survival International is calling on the FSC to withdraw its certification.
"This is a humanitarian disaster in the making—it's absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco-Piro's territory is properly protected at last," Survival International director Caroline Pearce said in a statement Tuesday. "The FSC must cancel its certification of Canales Tahuamanu immediately—failure to do so will make a mockery of the entire certification system."
Alfredo Vargas Pio, president of the local Indigenous group Native Federation of the Río Madre and its Tributaries, called the new photographs "irrefutable evidence that many Mashco-Piro live in this area, which the government has not only failed to protect, but sold off to logging companies."
"The logging workers could bring in new diseases which would wipe out the Mashco-Piro, and there's also a risk of violence on either side," he added, "so it's very important that the territorial rights of the Mashco-Piro are recognized and protected in law."
In 2014, Peruvian authorities evacuated residents from Monte Salvado by boat after around 200 Mashco-Piro armed with bows and arrows raided the village, killing livestock and pets and taking food and tools. In 2022, Mashco-Piro members killed 21-year-old Peruvian logger Gean del Aguila and wounded another man with arrows as they fished on the Tahuamanu River.
In the 1890s most Mashco-Piro were either enslaved or exterminated by private mercenaries hired by self-described Peruvian "Rubber King" Carlos Fitzcarrald—immortalized in the 1982 Werner Herzog film Fitzcarraldo. Surviving Mashco-Piro fled deeper into the Amazon and avoided contact with most outsiders. They fiercely defended their territory from intruders. However, in recent decades, loggers have penetrated and exploited Mascho-Piro lands.
There are believed to be more than 750 Mascho-Piro living in Peru. They sometimes cross the border into Brazil.
"They flee from loggers on the Peruvian side. At this time of the year they appear on the beaches to take tracajá eggs," Rosa Padilha of the Indigenous Missionary Council in the Brazilian state of Acre told The Guardian, referring to a species of Amazon turtle.
"That's when we find their footprints on the sand. They leave behind a lot of turtle shells," Padilha added. "They are a people with no peace, restless, because they are always on the run."
Around 15 other uncontacted Indigenous tribes with as many as 15,000 members are believed to remain in the Peruvian Amazon. It is illegal to make contact with such peoples for fear they would contract common human illnesses that could be fatal to unexposed populations without immunity.
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Stop Green Genocide in Cameroon
Fortress conservation has pushed the Baka people from the rainforests of the Congo Basin into villages bordering the national parks of southern Cameroon, while the logging that truly threatens the forest continues.
Jul 16, 2024
Clouds of red dust rise into the sky and hang in the air as the truck roars past. It's impossible to breathe as the dust gathers in the folds of villagers' clothes, settles on rooftops, and coats the forest's green leaves. The next truck goes by, and another cloud rises up in its wake. They carry massive tree trunks felled in the rainforests of the Congo Basin. The Baka people struggle to breathe every day, as logging companies from China, France, Italy, and Lebanon descend on the tropical forests and cut everything in their path.
The Baka have been pushed into villages bordering the national parks of southern Cameroon. Amid the din of passing trucks, they tell me they have been barred from their forest—they can no longer hunt for food, access their sacred sites, fish, or gather medicinal plants. Government authorities and "nature conservation" organizations say it's not the clear-cutting loggers destroying the forests. They blame the Baka—Indigenous hunter-gatherers who rely on the forests to live.
You're probably wondering how such a paradox can be tolerated. This is the heart of what's known as fortress conservation, driven by the erroneous belief that Indigenous people cannot look after their own land.
The Baka are fighting for their own survival, for their way of life, and for the forest they love. We in the West must ensure that our governments, and organizations such as WWF, finally stop supporting these atrocities.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) supports national parks, including Lobéké, Nki, and Boumba Bek parks. The organization funds heavily armed rangers who prevent the Baka from entering their forest by arresting, beating, and torturing them. The Baka are forced to live in small roadside villages—without access to their own lands. Logging companies' concessions surround the parks. And it's not hard to see that it's their activities—not the Baka—threatening the Congo Basin forest, especially as most of the timber is destined for export to industrialized countries.
The companies sometimes operate within the parks. But WWF and other major conservation NGOs look the other way. Instead, they create partnerships with the companies for "sustainable forest management." But let's be honest: For WWF, it has more to do with the money they receive from the companies than actual conservation. WWF and the companies set up "anti-poaching units," with yet more guards attacking the Baka—all while the trucks keep roaring by. The certification labels on the timber say "sustainable"—so does the companies' advertising. But, watching the trunks trundle past before me, and seeing the destruction of the forest, that is laughable. There's no such thing as sustainable destruction.
National parks are not—as the conservation industry would have us believe—rare islands of unspoiled nature that mitigate the surrounding destruction. Instead, they are an integral part of a strategy designed to maximize profit from the environment and its resources while pointing the finger of blame at local communities—the people who are least responsible for the destruction.
Michel is chief of a Baka village on the edge of Lobéké National Park. He explains: "Our grandparents used the forest at Lobéké, before WWF arrived. Since they came, we don't go there anymore. If you go there, in the park, you won't be able to go home without problems. They're not protecting anything—they just want to kick us out."
For the Baka, the loss of their forest takes all of that away. It's not just losing a place to live or access to food; it's losing their identity. So, it's not just a matter of material hardship, it's also the destruction of a people.
Baka children no longer learn about the forest plants: It's too dangerous to take them into the forest to teach them. The Baka say that for them the forest is absolutely everything. It sustains them and it provides everything that gives meaning to their lives. Without access to their forest, the Baka's future is in jeopardy.
Tragic as it may seem, the situation was much worse just a few years ago. WWF-funded guards waged a veritable war against the Baka. They harassed people, invading their homes, beating and torturing anyone they found—including the elderly who weren't quick enough to flee. Many Baka had to abandon their villages to escape. Some fled to neighboring Congo.
Thanks in large part to the work of Survival International, which catalyzed international support and investigations, the once-extreme level of violence has radically diminished. But the guards still beat Baka people if they try to enter the forest, and the severe trauma of the extreme physical violence of previous years remains. Célestin, a young Baka man in his mid-20s says: "We always think about violence. We go to sleep without having eaten, and we think about it. All the time."
The big conservation organizations are responsible for this chaos and pain. Once they've forced the Baka out of the forest, they offer "alternative livelihood projects" to draw them further away from their ancestral territory and way of life. Though they claim the projects compensate for the loss of the forest, it's just a less obvious way to go about destroying the Baka's lives and their bonds with their forest.
"They want to turn us into villagers," say the Baka. "We stay in the village all day, but we were born to be in the forest." WWF set up a mushroom-growing project in a Baka village. It provided equipment and training and built a warehouse. The Baka followed the instructions to grow and dry the mushrooms. But a year later, no one came to buy them, and WWF never returned. That's just one example among many. NGOs promise people chickens, sheep, ponds for fish farming, saying they'll have a "better" life. But for the Baka, the best life is one at peace in the forest, and the promises never materialize. "So far, we've had nothing. The people to whom these promises were made are dead now," testify the Baka.
The loss of their forest, as described by village chief Michel, leads to a disintegration of the social fabric, and loss of the foundations of the Baka identity and way of life. It is simply the destruction of them as a people: it's a green genocide. Nothing could compensate the Baka for the loss of their forest. The Baka survive by working in neighboring communities' fields, in conditions akin to slavery, paid tiny sums of money or just given alcohol. But it's dependent on the goodwill of those who "employ" them. (There is a big problem now with alcohol dependency among the Baka, not unlike the historical problems of other peoples who were dispossessed of their land, such as those in North America and Australia.)
"We are suffering. Those who make us work in the fields don't consider us human, they want to kill us. They give us so much to do, and if you refuse to work in the fields, they hit you," says Michel.
Michel, Célestin, and the rest of the Baka are fighting for their own survival, for their way of life, and for the forest they love. We in the West must ensure that our governments, and organizations such as WWF, finally stop supporting these atrocities. It's not too late to prevent the conservation industry suffocating an entire people, just as the red dust suffocates everyone in its path. Let's stop this green genocide.
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Brazilian Supreme Court Delivers 'Historic Victory' to Indigenous Peoples
The court ruled against the Big Ag-backed "time limit trick," which would have only recognized Indigenous land claims if the group could prove they were living in a given territory on October 5, 1988.
Sep 22, 2023
In a major victory for Indigenous rights, Brazil's Supreme Federal Court rejected an argument Thursday that could have forced hundreds of thousands from their ancestral lands.
The so-called "time limit trick," backed by the nation's powerful agricultural interests, would have only recognized Indigenous land claims if the group could prove they were living in a given territory on October 5, 1988, the day the current Brazilian constitution was signed, as Survival International explained. The proposed rule ignored the fact that Brazil's military dictatorship displaced many Indigenous groups before it finally ended in 1985, The Guardian pointed out.
"I'm shaking," Jéssica Nghe Mum Priprá of the Xokleng-Laklano Indigenous group told The Associated Press while celebrating the news. "It took a while, but we did it. It's a very beautiful and strong feeling. Our ancestors are present—no doubt about it."
"The Supreme Court has shown that it cares about our lives and that it's against genocide."
The particular case the nation's highest court heard Thursday involved a land dispute in the state of Santa Catarina, Reuters reported. The Xokleng people were driven from much of their traditional lands in the state during the 1950s, when Brazil sold the land to tobacco farmers, the outlet explained in 2021. Santa Catarina then used the 1988 time limit to push more members of the Xokleng group out of a national park, prompting the current dispute.
"Before they killed us with guns, now they kill us with the stroke of a pen," former chief João Paté told Reuters in 2021.
However, the court on Thursday ruled 9-2 in favor of the Xokleng.
"Areas occupied by Indigenous people and areas that are linked to the ancestry and tradition of Indigenous peoples have constitutional protection, even if they are not demarcated," Justice Luiz Fux said.
The only two dissenting judges were appointed by right-wing former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who supported extractive industries at the expense of Indigenous rights.
The court also said that the decision had "general repercussion" status, meaning it would apply to other rulings involving Indigenous land claims.
"This is a momentous, historic victory for Brazil's Indigenous peoples, and a massive defeat for the agribusiness lobby," Survival International research and advocacy director Fiona Watson said in a statement, adding that a broad application of the time limit trick would have threatened many Indigenous groups in the country, among them the uncontacted Kawahiva.
"It was all part of a devastating assault on Brazil's Indigenous peoples and the Amazon rainforest, so this rejection of it is hugely important, not only for Indigenous peoples, but for the global fight against climate change too," she said.
Indigenous peoples gathered in Brasilia celebrated the news with dancing and weeping, The Guardian reported, as did those following the case from their homes in the Amazon region.
"We're crying with joy," Aty Guasu, an organization representing the Guarani group, said in a statement translated by Survival International. "Today we're going to sing the song of life and dance the dance of joy. The Supreme Court has shown that it cares about our lives and that it's against genocide. It has listened to the cry of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil."
National Indigenous rights group APIB also welcomed the decision, but said that there were other pending threats to Indigenous rights.
"We have indeed emerged victorious from the time frame thesis, but there is still much to be done," the group's executive coordinator Dinamam Tuxá said in a statement.
Tuxá pointed to a bill currently in the Senate that would only allow new reservations in land occupied by Indigenous groups as of 1988, as Reuters described it. While the court decision may make this provision harder to pass, the bill would also ease the way for mining, farming, dams, and transportation projects in Indigenous territory, AP explained.
"We remain mobilized," Tuxá said. "We continue to fight because we need to ensure and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples."
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Ecuadorians Vote on 'Monumental Referendum' to End Oil Drilling in Yasuní National Park
The vote comes after a decade of campaigning by organizers who want to protect the park's biodiversity and the tribes who live there.
Aug 20, 2023
Ecuadorian voters on Sunday headed to the polls to cast their votes in both a snap presidential election and to take what environmental justice campaigners said was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to help protect one of the world's most vital ecosystems.
Signs urging the public to vote "Sí al Yasuni" or "yes" for the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon rainforest have been plastered across the country in recent weeks, as organizers call on voters to support a referendum that would stop oil drilling in the Yasuní Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oilfield.
The 198,000-hectare park is Ecuador's largest protected area and is home to 1,130 species of trees—more than the United States and Canada combined—165 mammal species, 630 species of birds, and over 100,000 insect species per hectare.
The Indigenous Waorani, Kichwa, and Shuar people coexist in the region, as well as the uncontacted Tagaeri and Taromenan tribes.
As Indigenous rights group Survival International said in a video posted to social media on Saturday, oil drilling in the tribes' territory "poses a huge threat to their survival" as well as perpetuating an energy system that scientists have warned is heating the planet and causing dangerous sea level rise and extreme weather events.
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa began an initiative after taking office in 2007 to keep the oil in the ground in Yasuní National Park, creating a fund equal to half of the oilfield's reserves and asking other countries to pay into the fund in exchange for not drilling.
But the initiative ended in 2013 and state oil firm Petroecuador has extracted as many as 57,000 barrels of oil per day from the park since then.
The grassroots movement Yasunidos has spent a decade gathering 750,000 signatures to support the placing of the referendum on ballots and Ecuador's top electoral court ruled last year that the vote could go forward.
If the referendum is successful, said human rights group Global Justice Now, Ecuador could "become the first country to limit fossil fuel extraction through direct democracy."
"Ecuadorian campaigners are defending their local environment while standing on the frontline of the global battle to keep fossil fuels in the ground," said Izzie McIntosh, climate campaign manager for the group. "Whichever way the vote goes, they have sent a clear message to polluting multinationals: communities will not stand by while corporations profit at the expense of the Amazon, and our planet's collective well-being."
After 10 years of oil extraction in the fragile rainforest, the referendum offers Indigenous tribes and the entire country the possibility of "a different future," Hueiya Cayuiya, founder of the Waorani Women's Association of the Ecuadorian Amazon, told The Guardian.
"If we win, it will be a triumph for Ecuador," said Cahuiya. "We don't want any more contamination in our rivers, any more extraction on our land."
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Brazilian Indigenous Activists Join Peruvian Comrades Fighting 'Genocide Bill'
Opponents warn that the proposed legislation is "a naked land grab by the oil and gas industry" that critically imperils Peru's uncontacted tribes.
Jun 13, 2023
A delegation of Indigenous leaders from Brazil is in Peru this week to join forces with their counterparts there who are fighting to stop proposed legislation many critics call the "genocide bill" due to fears its passage could result in uncontacted tribes being wiped out by fossil fuel companies and other rapacious resource extractors.
Members of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA), a coalition of tribes from the Amazon region, joined the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP) and the Regional Organization of Eastern Indigenous Peoples (ORPIO) on Tuesday during a joint session of Peru's Congress ahead of a Wednesday meeting of a congressional decentralization committee debating 3518/2022-CR, a bill that would modify a law protecting uncontatced tribes.
"For the Indigenous, there are no borders. This is an invention of the states," UNIVAJA coordinator Bushe Matis said at the Peruvian Congress on Tuesday. "If the project were approved, it is very dangerous, as happened with my people, the Matsés, who were contacted in 1976 and caught the flu, which killed many people."
Speaking at the same press conference, AIDESEP president Jorge Pérez said that "just as there are beneficial laws, there are also laws that can harm. In our opinion, this bill is negative."
The proposed legislation was introduced by Peruvian Congressman Jorge Morante Figari, a member of the far-right Popular Force party run by Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori. Right-wing lawmakers are trying to push the bill through amid the deadly political chaos that followed the December 2022 ouster of former leftist leader Pedro Castillo and what opponents call a political coup by unelected U.S.-backed President Dina Boluarte.
Critics say that the 25 uncontacted and recently contacted Indigenous peoples in Peru who have been officially recognized could lose that recognition if the bill is passed, that reserves established for these people could be revoked with no prospect for the allocation of new reserves, and that Indigenous lands will be subject to further exploitation by fossil fuel, logging, and mining companies.
Peru's Ministry of Culture says 3518/2022-CR "represents a danger to the protection of the life and territory of the Indigenous peoples."
The proposal has sparked worldwide alarm, with the British, Canadian, and German ambassadors to Peru signing a joint letter urging the decentralization committee to shelve the legislation. More than 10,000 people have also signed a petition against the bill.
Teresa Mayo of the London-based Indigenous rights group Survival International—which calls 3518/2022-CR "a naked land grab by the oil and gas industry"—said Tuesday that "the genocide bill is the most serious attack on Peru's uncontacted tribes in decades."
"All the rights and protections that Peru's Indigenous people and their allies have fought so hard for, over many years, are now at risk of being extinguished with a stroke of the pen," Mayo continued.
"These rights are under attack in Brazil too, which is why Indigenous people have joined hands across the Peru-Brazil border to fight these genocidal plans," she added. "It's a moment of desperate danger—the very survival of dozens of uncontacted tribes is now at risk."
While Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, Brazil's leftist president, has centered Indigenous rights during his five-month administration, the Brazilian Congress—which is controlled by right-wing lawmakers—last month voted to limit the power of a pair of ministries tasked with protecting Indigenous peoples and the environment.
Survival International reported earlier this year that 3518/2022-CR was drafted by Peruvian legislators with ties to fossil fuel corporations, including Perenco, an Anglo-French oil company operating inside uncontacted tribes' lands. Perenco and other companies, as well as right-wing Peruvian lawmakers, are trying to block finalization of the Napo-Tigre Indigenous Reserve, which would protect five isolated communities from intrusion and exploitation of lands and resources by extractive interests.
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As Rivers Run Black in Peru, Indigenous Tribes Left Cleaning Big Oil's Disaster
"Those responsible, where are they?" Water supply and delicate ecosystem contaminated by spate of oil spills in Amazon
Feb 23, 2016
A disastrous spate of oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon has gone from bad to worse in recent days, leaving Indigenous tribes frantically trying to clean up the mess left by the nation's state-owned oil company.
The catastrophic ruptures in Petroperu's Northern Peruvian Pipeline occurred on January 25th and February 3rd and have threatened the water supply of nearly 10,000 indigenous people, says Amazon Watch.
On Monday, Petroperu officials confirmed to Reuters that 3,000 barrels of oil had been poured into two critical Amazon River tributaries, the Chiriaco and Morona rivers, which eight Achuar tribes depended on for water.
Critics charge that the spills continued to spread and caused far worse damage after the responsible company, Petroperu, failed to act to contain the oil released by the pipeline breakages.
A third pipeline rupture was rumored on February 19, reports Amazon Watch, but the state-owned petroleum company took to Twitter to deny those reports.
The devastating spills occurred mere months after Indigenous activists staged massive protests against Peru's oil industry in September.
Over the weekend, local activist Marco Arana Zegarra posted horrific images of the oil's spread in the Chiriaco tributary:
"Those responsible? Where are they?" Zegarra appealed.
Waterways flow with black sludge and trees and flowers are rendered nearly unrecognizable by a thick coating of oil in video footage of the spills:
"At least this time," observed Zegarra, "Petroperu has given Indigenous populations suits to wear for cleaning up oil."
Petroperu president German Velasquez "denied reports the company paid children to clean up the oil," reports the Guardian, but then he went on, perhaps damningly, to say that "he was evaluating firing four officials, including one who may have allowed children to collect the crude."
"It's important to note that the spills...are not isolated cases. Similar emergencies have emerged as a result of defects in sections of the pipeline," the national environmental regulator said, according to the Guardian.
Reuters reports that the regulator "ordered Petroperu to replace parts of the pipeline and improve maintenance. " The Guardian reports that Petroperu could face fines of up to $17 million if it is proven that the oil spills have affected local health.
"This environmental disaster is just the latest in a long history of oil and gas leaks in the area," laments Indigenous rights group Survival International, observing that "[m]ore" than 70% of the Peruvian Amazon has been leased by the government to oil companies."
The group translates a call to action by AIDESEP. This organization fights for indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon, in which it pleads for "international public opinion, the media, NGOs and civil society to pay attention to this serious event that puts in danger the lives of thousands of people living in the area who have traditionally been neglected."
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