One year after Oscar winning actor Colin Firth launched Survival International’s campaign to save the Awá, Earth’s most threatened tribe, a large number of international celebrities have joined him and his wife Livia in backing the urgent campaign.

Hollywood star Gillian Anderson, British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, Californian rock band Allah-Las, actors Mark Rylance, Sophie Okonedo, Emilia Fox, Sinead Cusack and stars of the hit series Game of Thrones Oona Chaplin, Natalia Tena and Finn Jones are among the celebrities photographed with the awáIcon, which reads ‘Brazil: Save the Awá’.

Gillian Anderson told Survival, ‘We must as human beings collectively wake up and help save the Awá: the Earth’s most threatened tribe. We cannot have another people become extinct due to the negligence and greed of others. We all have a duty.’

Other British celebrities backing the campaign to save the Awá include Olympic star and winner of Strictly Come Dancing Louis Smith, TV and radio presenters Davina McCall and Dave Berry, MTV presenter Lilah Parsons, human rights activist Peter Tatchell, artist Kurt Jackson and many others.

The Awá of northeastern Brazil live under the threat of extinction due to violent attacks and the theft of their land by loggers and ranchers. Brazil’s authorities have done nothing to evict the invaders from the Awá’s heartland, despite experts warning of a ‘genocide’ if no action is taken.


Pire’i Ma’a Awá, an Awá man told Survival International, ‘We’ve been waiting too long. When the rains stop, the loggers will come back. The loggers will close in on us, here around our community. The police must be brought here!’

The celebrities joined a worldwide movement to save the Awá which has seen over 50,000 letters sent to Brazil’s Justice Minister and the awáIcon photographed at famous landmarks around the world – from Brazil’s Sugarloaf mountain, to the Eiffel tower in Paris.


 Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘As celebrities join the campaign to save the Awá, Brazil must not ignore the growing number of voices being raised in support of the world’s most threatened tribe. Its reputation hangs in the balance.’
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 London-based Survival International said the Awa, which it describes as "Earth's most threatened tribe," are "at extreme risk of extinction as the authorities have taken no action to stop illegal loggers and settlers from destroying their forest."

It noted that federal Judge Jirair Aram Meguerian ordered all the loggers and settlers removed from Awa lands in the eastern Amazon forests by the end of March.

"But the deadline has passed and not a single person has been evicted," said Survival, a leading advocate for tribal peoples' rights worldwide.

Over 30 percent of one of the Awa's territories are said to have already been deforested.

"The Awa have reported that loggers are rapidly closing in on their communities and have already been marking trees for deforestation as little as two miles (3.2 kilometers) away," Survival said.

"Logging trucks laden with wood leave the area day and night and the Indians are scared to go into their forest to hunt."


Awa tribesman Haikaramoka'a was quoted as saying: "The loggers are ruining our forest. They have built roads. We are scared."

Brazil's National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) said it could not immediately comment on the case.

In December, Survival sponsored protests in London, Madrid, Paris, Milan, Berlin, The Hague and San Francisco to pressure Brasilia to honor its pledge to remove loggers, ranchers and settlers from demarcated Awa territories.


The rights group said nearly 50,000 letters have already been sent to Brazilian Justice Minister Eduardo Cardoso since it launched a drive spearheaded by Britain's Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth a year ago to focus world attention on the plight of the Awa.

"It is entirely within the minister of justice's capabilities to evict loggers, but he must act today. If he doesn't, tomorrow the Awa will be gone," Survival International chief Stephen Corry said.


Today, around 100 of the 450 Awa remain uncontacted and are at particular risk of diseases brought in by the outsiders, Survival said.

FUNAI estimates that there are 77 isolated indigenous tribes scattered across the Amazon. Only 30 such groups have been located.

Indigenous peoples represent less than one percent of Brazil's 194 million people and occupy 12 percent of the national territory, mainly in the Amazon.
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 Mining giant Vale announced it has obtained an installation license for its doubling of the Carajás railway, which transports iron ore from its notorious huge mine to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Great Carajás industrial project opened up this eastern part of Amazonia to development and exposed the Awá to invaders who have massacred whole families in the last three decades, and who continue to destroy much of their forest.

The new license allows the company to start constructing a second railway line, to allow trains to run simultaneously in both directions, and increase capacity.

The Awá have warned that the expansion project will increase noise levels coming from the railway, scare away the game on which they rely for hunting, and result in more invasions.

One Awá man said, ‘We don’t accept the expansion of the train line which passes right in front of our territory. It is really bad! It makes a lot of noise! The hunters can’t find any game; the animals are scared off’.

Vale has not properly consulted the Awá about the plans, as required by Brazilian and international law.

Survival is calling on the company to respect the Awá’s land rights, rather than putting their lives in jeopardy.


Earlier this year, a judge halted the project, stating that Vale’s social and environmental impact studies were ‘insufficient’, and that the expansion could cause ‘extremely serious environmental degradation’. His ruling was soon overturned.

Last month, the railway was paralyzed by the Awá and hundreds more Indians protesting for their land rights to be upheld, and earlier this month some Awá made an unprecedented trip to Brasilia, to call for their forest to be protected.
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In a statement, Survival International said the Awa tribe has made a "desperate appeal" to Brazil's justice minister to "evict loggers from our land immediately... before they come back and destroy everything."

Consisting of just 450 people, the Awa tribe suffers the fastest rate of deforestation in the Amazon, according to the group.

The appeal is part of a campaign launched on April 25 with the help of British actor Colin Firth, who won an Academy Award in 2011 for his performance in "The King's Speech."

It calls on the public to show their support for the Awa by sending protest messages to the justice minister, Jose Eduardo Cardozo. So far, more than 27,000 people have done so, Survival said.

"Brazil's government must stop ignoring the Awa, and put them at the top of its agenda," said Survival's director, Stephen Corry. "The start of the logging season is a critical time. Pressure must not cease."

Brazil's indigenous population makes up less than one percent of the country's 191 million people and lives on 12 percent of the country's territory, mostly in the Amazon rainforest.

Later this month, more than 100 heads of state and tens of thousands of participants from governments, the private sector and NGOs will converge on the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

Ahead of the June 20-22 gathering, Brazil announced this week it planned to preserve an additional 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) of land and pledged not to let economic woes stop it from implementing other measures to protect the environment.
(c) 2012 AFP

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Britain's Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth on Wednesday launched a major drive by Survival International to save "Earth's most threatened tribe," the Awa of the Brazilian Amazon.

Survival International, a leading advocate for tribal peoples' rights worldwide, said the Awa's territory has been invaded by a vast army of illegal loggers, ranchers and settlers, and the small tribe is threatened with "genocide" and "extinction."

The aim of the campaign is to persuade Brazilian Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo to send in federal police to clear out the loggers, ranchers and settlers, and keep them out.

A short film by Survival International features an appeal by Firth to sign a petition calling on Cardozo to act to save the Awa.

"The Awa's forest is being illegally cut for timber. When the loggers see them, they kill them. Their bows and arrows are no match for guns. And at any other time in history, that's where it would end. Another people wiped off the face of the earth, forever," Firth says in his appeal. "But we're going to make sure the world doesn't let that happen."

The film includes scenes showing the Awas' close relationship to their pets, the moonlit ritual in which they talk to their ancestors' spirits and the devastating destruction caused by loggers and ranchers, who set whole hillsides ablaze.

Survival said the situation was now so critical that several Brazilian experts have spoken of a "genocide" and "extinction".

"If enough people, in Brazil and around the world, show they care, Awa children will be able to grow up in peace on their own land. That's been proved over and over again," Survival's Director Stephen Corry said in a statement.

The organization said there are roughly 360 contacted Awa, many of them survivors of brutal massacres.

Another 100 of them are believed to be hiding in the rapidly-shrinking forest.


According to Brazil's National Indian Foundation, some 77 isolated indigenous tribes are scattered across the Amazon. Only 30 such groups have been located.

Indigenous peoples represent less than one percent of Brazil's 191 million people and occupy 12 percent of the national territory, mainly in the Amazon.

Copyright © 2012 AFP.

Campaign group Survival International says that the Awa of northern Brazil is the world's most endangered tribe. About 360 of the largely nomadic tribe have had some contact with the outside world, and it is believed that 60-100 more uncontacted members are taking refuge in the Amazon.

‘If my children are hungry, I just go into the forest and I can find them food,’ says Peccary Awá. Women encourage their husbands to return with plentiful game meat, and the men oblige. Those Awá still living uncontacted in the forest hunt with 2 metre (6 foot) long bows. Arrows fly high and silent into the forest canopy, allowing several shots before game is alerted to the hunters’ presence.

Some settled Awá have confiscated shotguns from poachers and have become skilled marksmen. But each hunter maintains a highly crafted bow and set of arrows for when the ammunition runs out.

Forbidden food

The forest provides its bounty, but not everything is taken. Some animals, such as the capybara and the harpy eagle, are taboo and no Awá will eat them. Eating a bat is said to cause a headache. The large opossum? Bad-smelling. Hummingbirds? Just too small. Other animals are hunted only at certain times of the year. In this way the Awá ensure the survival of the entire forest, themselves included.

The Awá know their forests intimately. Every valley, stream and trail is inscribed on their mental map. They know where to find the best honey, which of the great trees of the forest are coming into fruit, and when the game is ready to be hunted. To them, the forest is perfection: they cannot dream of it being developed or improved upon.

As nomadic hunter-gatherers, the Awá are always on the move. But not aimlessly wandering, for it is precisely their nomadic way of life which nurtures a fundamental bond with their lands. They cannot conceive of moving on, of leaving the place of their ancestors.

‘The outsiders are coming, and it’s like our forest is being eaten up,’ says Takia Awá. For the outsiders—for us—staying still is falling behind.

The frontier is always moving, driven by restless Westernized societies who must keep pushing into new lands simply to maintain their way of living.

Another kind of nomadism, perhaps.
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Trundling along the dirt roads of the Amazon, the giant logging lorry dwarfed the vehicle of the investigators following it. The trunks of nine huge trees were piled high on the back – incontrovertible proof of the continuing destruction of the world's greatest rainforest and its most endangered tribe, the Awá.

Yet as they travelled through the jungle early this year, the small team from Funai – Brazil's National Indian Foundation – did not dare try to stop the loggers; the vehicle was too large and the loggers were almost certainly armed. All they could do was video the lorry and add the film to the growing mountain of evidence showing how the Awá – with only 355 surviving members, more than 100 of whom have had no contact with the outside world – are teetering on the edge of extinction.

It is a scene played out throughout the Amazon as the authorities struggle to tackle the powerful illegal logging industry. But it is not just the loss of the trees that has created a situation so serious that it led a Brazilian judge, José Carlos do Vale Madeira, to describe it as "a real genocide". People are pouring on to the Awá's land, building illegal settlements, running cattle ranches. Hired gunmen – known as pistoleros – are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers. Members of the tribe describe seeing their families wiped out. Human rights campaigners say the tribe has reached a tipping point and only immediate action by the Brazilian government to prevent logging can save the tribe.

This week Survival International will launch a new campaign to highlight the plight of the Awá, backed by Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth. In a video to be launched on Wednesday, Firth will ask the Brazilian government to take urgent action to protect the tribe. The 51-year-old, who starred in last year's hit movie The King's Speech, and came to prominence playing Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, delivers an appeal to camera calling on Brazil's minister of justice to send in police to drive out the loggers.


The Awá are one of only two nomadic hunter-gathering tribes left in the Amazon. According to Survival, they are now the world's most threatened tribe, assailed by gunmen, loggers and hostile settler farmers.

Their troubles began in earnest in 1982 with the inauguration of a European Economic Community (EEC) and World Bank-funded programme to extract massive iron ore deposits found in the Carajás mountains. The EEC gave Brazil $600m to build a railway from the mines to the coast, on condition that Europe received a third of the output, a minimum of 13.6m tons a year for 15 years. The railway cut directly through the Awá's land and with the railway came settlers. A road-building programme quickly followed, opening up the Awá's jungle home to loggers, who moved in from the east.

It was, according to Survival's research director, Fiona Watson, a recipe for disaster. A third of the rainforest in the Awá territory in Maranhão state in north-east Brazil has since been destroyed and outsiders have exposed the Awá to diseases against which they have no natural immunity.

"The Awá and the uncontacted Awá are really on the brink," she said. "It is an extremely small population and the forces against them are massive. They are being invaded by loggers, settlers and cattle ranchers. They rely entirely on the forest. They have said to me: 'If we have no forest, we can't feed our children and we will die'."

But it appears that the Awá also face a more direct threat. Earlier this year an investigation into reports that an Awá child had been killed by loggers found that their tractors had destroyed the Awá camp.

"It is not just the destruction of the land; it is the violence," said Watson. "I have talked to Awá people who have survived massacres. I have interviewed Awá who have seen their families shot in front of them. There are immensely powerful people against them. The land-grabbers use pistoleros to clear the land. If this is not stopped now, these people could be wiped out. This is extinction taking place before our eyes."


What is most striking about the Funai undercover video of the loggers – apart from the sheer size of the trunks – is the absence of jungle in the surrounding landscape. Once the landscape would have been lush rainforest. Now it has been clear-felled, leaving behind just grass and scrub and only a few scattered clumps of trees.

Such is the Awá's affinity with the jungle and its inhabitants that if they find a baby animal during their hunts they take it back and raise it almost like a child, to the extent that the women will sometimes breastfeed the creature. The loss of their jungle has left them in a state of despair. "They are chopping down wood and they are going to destroy everything," said Pire'i Ma'a, a member of the tribe. "Monkeys, peccaries, tapir, they are all running away. I don't know how we are going to eat – everything is being destroyed, the whole area.

"This land is mine, it is ours. They can go away to the city, but we Indians live in the forest. They are going to kill everything. Everything is dying. We are all going to go hungry, the children will be hungry, my daughter will be hungry, and I'll be hungry too."

In an earlier interview with Survival, another member of the tribe, Karapiru, described how most of his family were killed by ranchers. "I hid in the forest and escaped from the white people. They killed my mother, my brothers and sisters and my wife," he said. "When I was shot during the massacre, I suffered a great deal because I couldn't put any medicine on my back. I couldn't see the wound: it was amazing that I escaped – it was through the Tupã [spirit]. I spent a long time in the forest, hungry and being chased by ranchers. I was always running away, on my own. I had no family to help me, to talk to. So I went deeper and deeper into the forest.


"I hope when my daughter grows up she won't face any of the difficulties I've had. I hope everything will be better for her. I hope the same things that happened to me won't happen to her."

The Survival campaign reflects growing international concern over the plight of the world's remaining indigenous tribes. Earlier this year the Observer revealed how police were colluding with tour operators in India's Andaman Islands to run human safaris into the jungle heartland of the protected Jarawa tribe. A video showing half-naked Jarawa women and girls dancing in return for food caused outrage in India and around the world. Further revelations followed, exposing human safaris in Orissa, in India, and in Peru, where tour operators are profiting from the exploitation of Amazon jungle tribes.

Meanwhile, drug traffickers are posing a threat to other Amazon tribes. Last year a previously uncontacted tribe was photographed from the air close to the Peru-Brazil border only to go missing a few months later after a gang of drug traffickers overpowered guards protecting their land.

The Brazilian embassy in London referred requests for a response to the president's Human Rights Secretariat, which did not respond. However, Brazil has recently been able to point to research that shows it has been making progress in tackling illegal logging. The country's National Institute for Space Research estimates that 6,238 sq km of rainforest was lost between 2010 and 2011, down dramatically from the 2004 peak of 27,700 sq km. The same year, Brazil pledged to cut deforestation by 80% by 2020.

The year-on-year fall last year was 11% and in March Brazil's forestry department raided and closed down 14 illegal sawmills on the borders of the Awá's land. Even so, the figures also show that two states recorded sharp rises in deforestation, and illegal logging is destroying the Awá's jungle at a faster rate than that of any other Amazon tribe.


In a statement, Survival urged the Brazilian government to give more support to Funai and to increase its efforts to shut down illegal activities in the Awá's territories. "Timing is crucial, and the timing of this is now, because while all hope is not lost an entire people are on the verge of being lost, most critically the uncontacted Awá. And we have a moral responsibility to act. EU and World Bank money has helped fund huge projects in Brazil that have exploited the Awá's land resources and made infrastructure ripe for developers."
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