COLIN FIRTH: Campaign triumphs as loggers expelled from territory of ‘Earth’s most threatened tribe’

SURVIVAL
February 26, 2014

A global campaign by Survival International, fronted by Colin Firth, to save the Awá, Earth’s most threatened tribe, has triumphed this week, as loggers and ranchers responsible for the destruction of the tribe’s rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon are being expelled. The first deadlines for the invaders to leave voluntarily expired on Monday, February 24, 2014.

According to reports by FUNAI, Brazil’s indigenous affairs department, several loggers and ranchers have left the area in the last week, and a ground squad is set to remove all remaining invaders by March 9.

The operation marks a major success in Survival International’s high-profile campaign to save the Awá tribe from extinction. After the launch of the campaign in April 2012, the Brazilian government announced that the Awá case was a priority, and sent a ground squad of at least 200 soldiers, police officers and government agents at the beginning of 2014 to remove the invaders. Official sources have confirmed that the launch of Operation Awá is due to international pressure.

Brazil’s Justice Minister has received over 56,000 messages from Survival supporters calling for the Awá’s land to be protected, and celebrities such as Hollywood star Colin Firth, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado have spread the campaign’s message ‘Brazil: Save the Awá’ around the world.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Americas’ top human rights body, has also been demanding answers from Brazil about its treatment of the Awá, after receiving an urgent submission from Survival and Brazilian NGO CIMI, which has worked closely with the Awá for decades.

The Awá are one of the last nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in Brazil who depend on the forest and its game for survival. But they have been living in fear as illegal loggers are closing in on them.

READ MORE HERE AT SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10026

Colin Firth video: Brazilian Tribe On Brink of Extinction by Paul Canning May 22, 2012 6:00 pm CARE 2

A Brazilian government agency says that it has as its top priority saving the Amazon Awá tribe — as Survival International says that a new government survey finds them outnumbered ten-to-one by invaders.

The survey estimates that there could be up to 4,500 ranchers, loggers and settlers now occupying just one of the four territories inhabited by the Awá, whose total population now stands at no more than 450, many living uncontacted in the remaining forest, many of them survivors of brutal massacres. Hired guns are known to have been paid $60 per Awá head by unscrupulous landowners and speculators in the past.

They live in the North East of Brazil, in the Maranhao State, at the heart of the Tiracambu sierra.

The government has been receiving tens of thousands of messages following a campaign launched last month by the actor Colin Firth — you can take action here.

The tribe’s land is being destroyed faster than that of any other Amazon tribe. As the rainy season ends, one of their main hunting areas is now being targeted by loggers. An Awá man named Armadillo told Survival International: “How will we live without the forest?”

The government agency for indigenous people (FUNAI) says that saving the Awá is its top priority but Brazilian Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo has yet to meet the campaign’s demand to send in federal police to clear out the invaders.

Said Survival International Director Stephen Corry:

Brazil is one of the world’s most important countries with one of its most dynamic economies, and it certainly has the resources to protect Awa land. Can it deliver?

If not, and the Awá are destroyed, then is this new ‘economic miracle’ just for the rich and powerful?



Read more:  http://www.care2.com/causes/brazilian-tribe-on-brink-of-extinction.html

Colin Firth Campaign for Brazilian Tribe Breaks Records Sunday, 29 April 2012, 11:45 am Press Release: Survival International (SCOOP WORLD)

Colin Firth's appeal has generated more than 10,000 protest emails.

 A campaign launched by Colin Firth to save the world’s most threatened tribe has generated more than 10,000 protest emails to the Brazilian government in just three days – a record for protest action for tribal peoples anywhere in the world.

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP

The Survival International campaign aims to save the Awá tribe, whose lands are being illegally invaded and destroyed. In a video appeal, Colin Firth asks viewers to send a protest message to Brazil’s Justice Minister, who has the power to send in federal police to evict the loggers, ranchers and settlers who are ravaging the tribe’s land.

In his appeal Colin Firth says, ‘The Awá’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. But we're going to make sure the world doesn't let that happen...’

Brazil’s Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo has yet to respond to the barrage of messages, but told a Brazilian journalist, ‘Unfortunately we have a lot of violence in relation to indigenous peoples, and the scale is such that it is impossible, for any government, to prevent situations as they unfold.’


READ MORE: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1204/S00535/colin-firth-campaign-for-brazilian-tribe-breaks-records.htm

Colin Firth: 'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help Gethin Chamberlain The Observer, Saturday 21 April 2012

Logging companies keen to exploit Brazil's rainforest have been accused by human rights organisations of using gunmen to wipe out the Awá, a tribe of just 355. Survival International, with backing from Colin Firth, is campaigning to stop what a judge referred to as 'genocide'

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.

READ MORE:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/22/brazil-rainforest-awa-endangered-tribe