Landmark talks on uncontacted tribe fail to
stop logging
There have been
confrontations between the Ayoreo and the Paraguayan
authorities in recent years, as the tribe have protested
against the theft and destruction of their land.
© GAT/ Survival Landmark
talks between the Paraguayan government and a recently
contacted tribe have yet to reach an agreement, allowing
rampant
deforestation to continue. Some members of the tribe
are uncontacted,
and live in a rapidly shrinking island of forest.
The
talks began six months ago after a petition from the
Ayoreo
tribe to the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights, an influential body which holds governments in
the Americas to account on human rights issues. The
Ayoreo have been claiming the right to their ancestral
land since 1993.
Halfway
through the year-long process, however, and little
concrete action has been taken, leading to fears for the
tribe’s long-term survival. A technical study is due to
be carried out to assess the feasibility of securing the
land.
The
government has also failed to stop the rapid logging of
land owned by the Ayoreo, despite a 2016 emergency
order from the Inter-American Commission to protect
the uncontacted Indians and halt deforestation.
Aerial photograph showing the
devastation that logging has brought to Ayoreo
land.
© Survival Background
briefing
–
The Ayoreo live in the Chaco, which is the largest
forest in South America outside the Amazon and has
recently been recorded as having the highest
rate of deforestation in the world. Experts estimate
that the forest
lost almost 10 million trees in January 2017.
–
This poses a deadly threat to the Ayoreo, who face
catastrophe unless their land is protected.
– Many
members of the Ayoreo tribe were forcibly contacted by
missionaries between 1969 and 1986. Continual land
invasions forced
them to abandon their homes. Many have since
suffered from disease, including a
TB-like illness, poverty, and exploitation on the
fringes of mainstream Paraguayan society.
– Recently
contacted members of the tribe spent years fleeing
from bulldozers, which they called “beasts with
metal skin.” The machines are used by loggers to clear
paths for cutting trees.
– The petition which
finally brought the Paraguayan government to the
negotiating table is called Petition 850-15. It features
a claim for the restitution of Ayoreo land.
- In
February 2016, the Inter-American Commission issued an
emergency order (MC 54-13) calling for the protection of
uncontacted Ayoreo and their forests. Although this was
in response to a separate petition submitted by the
Ayoreo, the orders are to also be discussed during the
talks.
– The local support
group GAT, and indigenous
organization OPIT, have
played an important role in lobbying the government, and
after months of warning, finally pressed them to
investigate the logging in July 2017. It remains to be
seen whether the deforestation will be stopped and the
perpetrators brought to justice.
Most of the Ayoreo have been
forced out of the forest. They have since been fighting
for their land rights.
© Survival Survival
International is calling for a complete halt to logging
on Ayoreo land, and for the return of all lands which
have been titled to ranching companies.
Uncontacted
tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a
remote past. They are our contemporaries and a vitally
important part of humankind’s diversity. Where their
rights are respected, they continue to thrive.
They
are the best guardians of their environment. And
evidence proves that tribal territories are the best
barrier to deforestation.
Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said: “The Ayoreo have already
been waiting more than twenty years for their lands to
be protected. All this time they’ve seen their forests
destroyed about them. They hoped the Inter-American
Commission’s intervention would finally push the
government to act, but that hope too has proved an
illusion. Tragically, it seems that Paraguay’s
government is so firmly tied to the ranchers and
landowners who control the levers of power that nothing
short of massive public pressure will move them to
act.”
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11784
Brazil: campaigners welcome court rulings in
favor of indigenous land rights
Brazilian Indians have been
protesting in Brasilia against the government's
anti-indigenous proposals.
© APIB Indigenous
activists and human rights campaigners around the world
yesterday celebrated Brazil’s Supreme Court ruling
unanimously in favor of indigenous land rights.
In
two land rights cases, all eight of the judges present
voted for indigenous land rights and against the
government of Mato Grosso state, in the Amazon, which
was demanding compensation for lands mapped out as
indigenous territories decades ago.
Although
ruling on one further case was postponed, this outcome
has been seen as a significant victory for indigenous
land rights in the country.
An
international campaign was launched earlier this month
after President Temer attempted to have a controversial
legal opinion on tribal land recognition adopted as
policy.
The
proposal
stated that indigenous peoples who were not
occupying their ancestral lands on October 5, 1988, when
the country’s current constitution came into force,
would no
longer have the right to live there. This new
proposal was referred to as the “marco temporal” or
“time frame” by activists and legal experts.
If
the judges had accepted this, it would have set
indigenous rights in the country back decades, and
risked destroying dozens of tribes. The theft of tribal
land destroys self-sufficient peoples and their diverse
ways of life. It causes disease, destitution and
suicide.
The new policy would have
massively undermined the Guarani’s attempts to regain
their ancestral land, most of which has been taken over
by agribusiness.
© Anon/Survival In
response to the ruling, Luiz Henrique Eloy, a Terena
Indian lawyer, said: “This is an important victory for
the indigenous peoples of these territories. The Supreme
Court recognised their original [land] rights and this
has national repercussions, because the Supreme Court
indicated that it was against the concept of the time
frame.”
APIB, Brazil’s pan-indigenous
organization, led a protest movement, under the slogan
“our history didn’t start in 1988.”
The
measure is being opposed by Indians across Brazil.
Eliseu Guarani from the Guarani
Kaiowá people in the southwest of the country said:
“If the time frame is enforced, there will be no more
legal recognition of indigenous territories… there is
violence, we all face it, attacks by paramilitaries,
criminalization, racism.”
Survival
International led
an international outcry against the proposal,
calling on supporters around the globe to petition
Brazil’s leaders and high court to reject the opinion.
Over 4,000 emails were sent directly to senior judicial
figures and other key targets.
While
the ruling does not end the possibility of further
attacks on tribal land rights in Brazil, it is a
significant victory against the country’s notorious
agribusiness lobby, who have very close ties to the Temer
government.
Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said: “If the judges had accepted
this proposal it would have set back indigenous rights
in the country by decades. Brazil’s indigenous peoples
are already battling a comprehensive assault on their
lands and identity – a continuation of the invasion
and genocide which characterized the European
colonization of the Americas. We’re hugely grateful for
the energy and enthusiasm of our supporters in helping
the Indians fight back against this disastrous
proposal.”
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11777
Kalahari Bushmen appeal to Dalai
Lama
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
is scheduled to visit Botswana from the 17th
August.
© Survival The
Bushmen
of Botswana’s Central
Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR)
have written
a moving appeal to the Dalai Lama, who is scheduled
to visit Botswana this month, criticizing their
country’s government for its brutal policies and urging
him to speak out.
In
the letter, Bushman spokesman Jumanda Gakelebone
said: “We still cannot live on our lands freely. The
government makes it so that children must apply for
permits to visit their parents when they become adults.
We worry what the government will do when those parents
pass away.
“The
government still forbids us from hunting and has
introduced a shoot-on-sight policy against poachers.
Last year a group of Bushmen out hunting were shot at
from a police helicopter. Some of them were stripped
naked and beaten.
“People
praise President Khama [Botswana’s President] as a
conservation hero when he ignores our struggle and our
country’s own courts. Yet his government is happy for
mining to take place on our ancestral land.
Hundreds of Bushmen were
moved out of the Kalahari and into government eviction
camps.
© Survival
International “We
are the first people of the Kalahari. We are the ones
who have protected this land and the animals that live
there. Why has “conservation” brought us so much
suffering?”
Hundreds
of Bushmen families were illegally evicted from their
ancestral homelands in the name of conservation and
moved into government eviction camps between 1997 and
2002, following the discovery of diamonds in the
Kalahari.
Although
the Bushmen won the right to return to the reserve in a
historic
court case in 2006, the country still has not
respected its own high court’s ruling. Most Bushmen are
denied access to their land by a brutal permit
scheme.
They
are also accused of “poaching” because they hunt
to feed their families, facing arrest and beatings,
torture and death under a nationwide
hunting ban.
Survival
International led the global campaign for Bushmen rights
and is urging the Botswana government to allow them to
determine their own futures.
Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said: “Botswana’s President has
been violating his country’s High Court ruling and
trampling on Bushmen rights for over a decade now. No
independent observer believes the Bushmen pose any kind
of risk to the country’s wildlife, but they’re still
prevented from hunting, and still being forced to get
permits just to see their relatives. It’s a terrible
stain on the country’s reputation that won’t be erased
until they’re treated humanely, and with respect.”
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11772
Historic ruling set to decide future of
Brazilian tribes
Brazil has seen frequent
indigenous protests this year, against the anti-Indian
policies of President Temer.
© Rogerio Assis Brazil’s
Supreme Court will next week deliver a historic
judgement on tribal territories which could strike the
greatest blow to indigenous
land rights since the country’s military
dictatorship.
The
judgement will be delivered on Wednesday, August 16.
Large-scale indigenous
protests are anticipated, as the judges decide
whether to incorporate a proposal on indigenous land
rights drafted by the attorney-general’s office.
The
proposal states that indigenous peoples who were not
occupying their ancestral lands on or before October 5,
1988, when the country’s current constitution came into
force, would no longer have the right to live there.
If
the judges accept it, this would set indigenous rights
in the country back decades, and risk destroying
hundreds of self-sufficient tribes, who depend on their
land for autonomy and survival.
Brazil’s
pan-indigenous organization APIB: is organizing several events
and protests in the capital Brasilia and across the
country in the lead up to the ruling, with the slogan:
“Our history didn’t start in 1988. No to the time
limit.”
President Temer's
proposed legal opinion has sparked major indigenous
protests in Brasilia
© APIB Activists
have speculated that the proposal is being pushed by
President Temer to secure his political position. His
period in office has seen single digit approval ratings,
instability, and widespread protest, after the
government he leads was installed in April 2016
following the impeachment of former president Dilma
Rousseff.
If
it becomes policy, this measure would be beneficial to
Brazil’s ruralista agribusiness lobby, who regard land
protections for indigenous peoples as an unnecessary
barrier to profit.
Further
details on the judgement here
The
Guarani
Kaiowá people in southwestern Brazil are just one of
the many tribes who would be affected. They will never
recover most of their land if this measure is
approved.
"Our history didn't
start in 1988" – major APIB campaign against the ruling.
© APIB Eliseu
Guarani, a spokesman for the tribe, said: “This is very
hard for us… there will be no more legal recognition of
indigenous territories… there is violence, we all face
it, attacks by paramilitaries, criminalization,
racism.”
Survival
International is actively campaigning against the
measure, which is illegal
under international law, and has urged its
supporters to take action.
Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said: “Land theft is the biggest
problem that tribal people face, and this proposal is
little more than a land grabber’s manifesto. It’s a
blatant shredding of tribal land rights, selling them
out to ranchers, loggers, soy barons and other vested
interests.”
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11768
Guard’s arrest backs up tribals’ claim that
many Kaziranga “poachers” were innocent
Wife of a man killed in the
forest after being called to work by the Forest
Department. Kaziranga Tiger Reserve.
© Survival A
forest guard in India’s notorious “shoot on sight” Kaziranga
National Park has been arrested, after an incident
that local people say proves their longstanding claim
that many people shot as “poachers” are innocent local
people.
Three
villagers, one from the local
Mising tribe, have been tortured and beaten by
Kaziranga forest officials after selling cattle at a
market. They report that officials took their money,
beat them, and threatened to shoot them and claim they
were poachers caught in the act.
One
of the villagers managed to escape and get help. Subal
Bawri, a tribal man, tried to intervene and was also
badly beaten. The victims believe that had other
villagers not arrived they would have been killed.
The
men have made a formal police complaint against their
treatment, and protests have been held by local people.
They claim that this is an abuse of the legal immunity
guards have been granted, supposedly to help them
protect wildlife. One forest guard has been
arrested.
Guards in Kaziranga National
Park are armed, and have effective immunity from
prosecution.
© Agence France
Presse Subal
Bawri said: “I saw the beat officer [forest guard] and
two battalion men [from the Assam Forest Protection
Force]. The battalion men were holding both the hands of
Arshad Ali and the beat officer had a stack of money in
one of his hands and a broken bottle in the other and I
very distinctly heard him say, “ I will murder you with
this bottle, take you by the river and shoot you.”
Hearing this I got very angry and asked them if they are
Gundas [villains]. I also said that the government is
giving you this uniform and also spending so much money
for you to do your duty in Kaziranaga, have you come
here to murder? So this is how you have been framing
innocent people as poachers and you are protecting the
real ones.” He was subsequently grabbed by the throat
and beaten by two officers.
Witnesses
report hearing the guards specifically threaten to shoot
two of the men and claim they were poachers.
Kaziranga
guards have effective immunity from prosecution and are
instructed to shoot poaching suspects on sight. 106
people were reportedly killed there in a twenty year
period, including a severely disabled tribal man who had
wandered over the park’s unmarked boundaries.
Tribal people testify to
beating at the hands of forest gaurds, Kaziranga
© Survival The
park was the subject
of a BBC report, “Killing
for conservation,” after Survival International led a
global outcry over the “shoot on sight” policy, and over
the shooting
of a seven-year-old tribal boy in July 2016. The
boy, Akash Orang, is now maimed for life.
Several
Kaziranga park officials have been arrested for involvement
in the illegal wildlife trade, despite being
employed to protect the endangered one-horned rhinos and
tigers which live in the park.
Survival
International is leading the global campaign against
abuses in the name of conservation, and in favor of a conservation
model that respects tribal peoples’ rights.
Many people in and around
Kaziranga were moved there by the British to work on tea
plantations. They face eviction, displacement, and
frequent harassment by forest guards.
© Survival Tribal
peoples have been dependent on and managed their
environments for millennia. They are the best
conservationists and guardians of the natural world. In
one tiger reserve in southern India where tribal people
won the right to stay, tiger numbers have increased at
dramatically above the Indian national average.
Despite
this, tribal people face arrest and beating, torture and
even death, in the name of conservation.
Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said: “Incidents like this show
the true face of conservation as practiced in places
like Kaziranga: horrendous violence and corruption among
officials, with tribal people then blamed for harming
the environment. It’s a con. And it’s harming
conservation. When will people wake up to the fact that
the current conservation model is killing tribal
peoples? This sort of horror is not going to protect the
rhino or the tiger.”
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11737
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