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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 toldThe 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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