A group of Baka "Pygmies" and their neighbors in southeast Cameroon have sent an impassioned plea to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), urging the conservation giant to stop funding anti-poaching squads that are responsible for a long history of persecution against the Baka. One letter by a village elder reads, "When WWF started its work here in Ndongo we welcomed it, but … [Read more...]
Dam will displace half a million people
International NGOs are calling for the halt of the destructive Gibe 3 Dam on Ethiopia’s Omo River. The dam threatens the land and livelihoods of 500,000 tribal people in Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya. By ending the river’s natural flood cycle, the dam would destroy harvests and grazing lands along the river banks, and destroy fisheries in Lake Turkana, the world’s … [Read more...]
Botswana Bushmen’s borehole breakthrough
Survival International has been speaking to Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve as they celebrate drinking water from the Mothomelo borehole for the first time in nine years. It marks a significant step towards their full return to their ancestral lands following a landmark court ruling in 2006. Despite winning Botswana's longest running court case over four … [Read more...]
Tension mounts as Brazilian Indians retake land
A community of Guarani Indians in Brazil has retaken part of its ancestral land in an act of desperation, having lived by the side of a highway for a year and a half. The Guarani marched back to their land last week, unwilling further to endure the appalling living conditions they have been subject to on the roadside. The Indians of Laranjeira Nanderu community had their … [Read more...]
Uncontacted tribes at risk of huge population loss
Survival International has warned on the eve of World Health Day (April 7) that uncontacted tribes face massive population loss if their land is not protected. Tribes like the Amazon Indians shown in the incredible aerial footage released by Survival this year are likely to lose more than half their population if outsiders invade their land. Around 100 tribes worldwide … [Read more...]
Brazil Indians demand Shell leave their land
Ambrosio Vilhalva, a Guarani man from one of the communities affected, told Survival, "Shell must leave our land; the companies must stop using indigenous land. We want justice, we want our land to be mapped out and protected for us." Shell is united with Brazilian ethanol company Cosan, in a joint venture company called Raizen. Some of Raizen's ethanol, sold as a biofuel, … [Read more...]
