On Octo­ber 23rd 2015, indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties from around the world gath­ered on the banks of the Baram Riv­er in Sarawak, Malaysia in the con­text of the sec­ond year anniver­sary of the indige­nous-led block­ades against the pro­posed Baram Dam. Two years ago indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties set up two block­ades and chased work­ers and researchers from the site. The works on the dam have come to a stand­still and last month the gov­ern­ment of Sarawak announced a mora­to­ri­um.

Indige­nous anti-dam activists from Indone­sia, the Philip­pines, Cam­bo­dia, Brazil, the US, Hon­duras, and from around Malaysia unit­ed at the block­ades to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the resis­tance against the Baram Dam and to strength­en ties between their com­mu­ni­ties. The week-long event is called the World Indige­nous Sum­mit on Envi­ron­ment and Rivers, WISER Baram 2015, and was host­ed by the grass­roots net­work SAVE Rivers.

Dur­ing cel­e­bra­tions at the two block­ades, the pro­posed dam site, as well as at a con­fer­ence in the town of Miri, the par­tic­i­pants were unit­ed by the sim­i­lar­i­ties between their strug­gles. “I have gained a lot of expe­ri­ence from all of the del­e­gates. And with such infor­ma­tion, I am con­fi­dent enough such expe­ri­ences will be fun­da­men­tal to us – the Baram Peo­ple – and our strate­gies to con­tin­ue to fight and stop the pro­posed Baram Dam,” said James Nyu­rang, who host­ed the del­e­gates at his vil­lage.

Accord­ing to Berta Cáceres, 2015 Gold­man Prize win­ner from Hon­duras, “this sum­mit on indige­nous peo­ples and rivers has a spe­cial val­ue in that its actions give strength to the his­toric resis­tance of our peo­ples and makes vis­i­ble the grave aggres­sion and con­flict gen­er­at­ed by the pri­va­ti­za­tion of rivers and the con­struc­tion of dams with­in Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and regions.”

The dec­la­ra­tion also calls on gov­ern­ments and insti­tu­tions to stop pre­sent­ing dams as cli­mate neu­tral, and rec­og­nize that dams emit large amounts of green­house gas­es, includ­ing methane.

Par­tic­i­pants in the sum­mit col­lec­tive­ly pro­duced a dec­la­ra­tion that acknowl­edges the wide­spread suf­fer­ing and destruc­tion caused by dams, and stress­es the impor­tance of obtain­ing Free, Pri­or, and Informed Con­sent from com­mu­ni­ties impact­ed by dam build­ing. It urges all stake­hold­ers to act in full account­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and com­pli­ance of all human rights prin­ci­pals and val­ues.

The indige­nous defense of the Baram riv­er stands unit­ed with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties’ strug­gles for land, liveli­hood, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, iden­ti­ty, and com­mu­ni­ty cohe­sion.

Sep­tem­ber 10th, 2015

With bows, arrows, GPS track­ers and cam­era traps, an indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in north­ern Brazil is fight­ing to achieve what the gov­ern­ment has long failed to do: halt ille­gal log­ging in their cor­ner of the Ama­zon.

The Ka’apor – a tribe of about 2,200 peo­ple in Maran­hão state – have organ­ised a mili­tia of “for­est guardians” who fol­low a strat­e­gy of nature con­ser­va­tion through aggres­sive con­fronta­tion.

Log­ging trucks and trac­tors that encroach upon their ter­ri­to­ry – the 530,000-hectare Alto Turi­açu Indige­nous Land – are inter­cept­ed and burned. Dri­vers and chain­saw oper­a­tors are warned nev­er to return. Those that fail to heed the advice are stripped and beat­en.

It is dan­ger­ous work. Since the tribe decid­ed to man­age their own pro­tec­tion in 2011, they say the theft of tim­ber has been reduced, but four Ka’apor have been mur­dered and more than a dozen oth­ers have received death threats.

Now the Ka’apor are seek­ing sup­port through NGOs and the media. Ear­li­er this month, the Guardian was among a first group of for­eign jour­nal­ists and Green­peace activists who were invit­ed to see how they live and oper­ate.

Reach­ing their land was a long haul. After fly­ing to São Luis, the cap­i­tal of Maran­hão state, it took more than eight hours to dri­ve along a pot­holed high­way flanked by cat­tle farms and palm plan­ta­tions before turn­ing off on to a bumpy dirt track through tracts of defor­est­ed land, until a dense thick­et of jun­gle marked the lim­it of Ka’apor ter­ri­to­ry.

The path was so close to the foliage here that branch­es con­stant­ly scratched and scraped the sides of our 4×4 until final­ly, just a few min­utes before mid­night, we emerged into a clear­ing bathed in moon­light.

This was Jax­ipuxiren­da, one of eight for­mer log­ging camps that have been tak­en over by the Ka’apor and set­tled by a hand­ful of fam­i­lies so the tim­ber thieves can­not return. It was very sim­ple; six thatched roofs under which fam­i­lies slept in ham­mocks.

Liv­ing in such out­posts is a sac­ri­fice. Longer-estab­lished vil­lages have elec­tric­i­ty, health cen­tres, foot­ball pitch­es and satel­lite dish­es. Jax­ipuxiren­da is bereft of such crea­ture com­forts.

But it is a key part of a dri­ve to regain ter­ri­to­ry, inde­pen­dence and respect – all of which have been steadi­ly erod­ed by log­gers for more than two decades. Alto Turi­açu, which cov­ers an area equal to Delaware or three times that of Greater Lon­don, is a vul­ner­a­ble and lucra­tive tar­get. Although 8% has already been cleared, the indige­nous land con­tains about half of the Ama­zon for­est left in Maran­hão state. This includes much sought-after trees, like ipê (Brazil­ian wal­nut), which can fetch almost £1,000 ($1,500) per cubic metre after pro­cess­ing and export.

The Ka’apor asked the gov­ern­ment to pro­tect their bor­ders, which were recog­nised in 1982. Last year, a fed­er­al court ordered the author­i­ties to set up secu­ri­ty posts. But noth­ing has been done, prompt­ing the com­mu­ni­ty to organ­ise self-defence mis­sions.

In the morn­ing, one of the for­est guardians, Tid­i­un Ka’apor (who, like all of the lead­ers of the group, asked to have his name changed to avoid being tar­get­ed by log­gers) explains what hap­pens when they encounter log­gers.

“Some­times, it’s like a film. They fight us with machetes, but we always dri­ve them off,” he says. “We tell them, ‘We’re not like you. We don’t steal your cows so don’t steal our trees.”

The main weapons used by the Ka’apor are bows and arrows and bor­duna – a heavy sword-shaped baton. One of the group also owns a rusty old rifle. Most­ly though, they depend on greater num­bers.

Tid­i­un Ka’apor takes us to a charred truck and trac­tor that the group burned in a con­fronta­tion a lit­tle over a week ear­li­er and uses the ash­es to paint his face. “This gives us strength,” one of his asso­ciates says. The Ka’apor are thought to have set fire to about a dozen log­gers’ vehi­cles. Fur­ther along the road, they build a pyre of planks seized inside their land, douse it with gaso­line and then watch it burn.

Anoth­er of the group’s lead­ers Miraté Ka’apor says the use of vio­lence – which has result­ed in some bro­ken bones but no deaths among the log­gers – is jus­ti­fied. “The log­gers come here to steal from us. So, they deserve what they get. We have to make them feel our loss – the loss of our tim­ber, the destruc­tion of our for­est.”

Com­pared with the past, he said the mis­sions were effec­tive. “Our strug­gle is hav­ing results because the log­gers respect us now.”

But the log­gers also appear to be respond­ing with lethal force. On 26 April, a for­mer chief­tain, Eusébio Ka’apor was mur­dered by gun­men on his way back from a vis­it to his broth­er. Like most killings of indige­nous peo­ple and envi­ron­men­tal activists in Brazil, the crime has not been solved, but the dead man’s son has lit­tle doubt who is respon­si­ble and what they were try­ing to achieve.

“He was a tar­get because [the log­gers] thought he was the main leader of the group,” said Iraun Ka’apor. “They thought the Ka’apor would stop if they killed him. But we will con­tin­ue with our work of pro­tec­tion. I’m not afraid. This is my home, my land, my for­est.”

Ten days before we arrived, Iraun received a death threat and was told that the bul­let that killed his father had been meant for him.

The author­i­ties in Maran­hão – the poor­est state in Brazil – warn the Ka’apor that although they are with­in their rights to pro­tect their land, it is ulti­mate­ly up to the state to resolve dis­putes over ter­ri­to­ry.

“The involve­ment of the Ka’apor in the defence of their ter­ri­to­ry against the log­gers should be under­stood as legit­i­mate defence, since the action of the log­gers puts their sur­vival at risk,” said Alexan­dre Sil­va Sarai­va, region­al super­in­ten­dent of the fed­er­al police. “But the pres­ence of the state is the only way to dimin­ish the agrar­i­an con­flicts and reduce homi­cides.”

Inside Alto Turi­açu, peo­ple are scep­ti­cal that the police and gov­ern­ment are will­ing to look after indige­nous inter­ests. Last year 70 Indi­ans were mur­dered in Brazil, a 32% increase on 2013, accord­ing to the Mis­sion­ary Indige­nous Coun­cil. In many cas­es the killings were relat­ed to land dis­putes with log­gers or ranch­ers. In their com­mu­ni­ty gath­er­ing, many Ka’apor expressed the belief that the author­i­ties were col­lud­ing in the sell-off of the for­est.

“We are very con­cerned,” Miraté says. “Even the local author­i­ties are involved. They grant licences to the sawmills and that encour­ages the log­gers. The way the bran­cos [white or non-indige­nous peo­ple] are organ­ised also pro­motes death. They make a prof­it from this.”

Gov­ern­ment offi­cials pre­fer to focus on the pos­i­tives: the slow­down in Ama­zon­ian defor­esta­tion rates over the past 10 years (though in Maranhão’s case this is large­ly because there is so lit­tle for­est left) and the progress made in bring­ing cul­prits to jus­tice. This year, pros­e­cu­tors in neigh­bour­ing Pará state have bro­ken up an ille­gal land-clear­ance ring and arrest­ed cor­rupt offi­cials in tim­ber-laun­der­ing syn­di­cates that sup­ply fake cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to log­gers. Else­where, satel­lite mon­i­tor­ing has helped to iden­ti­fy which landown­ers are tear­ing down or burn­ing the most trees, though this approach is of less use when it comes to the steady degrad­ing of the forests by inva­sive log­gers.

Pedro Leão, super­in­ten­dent for Iba­ma (Brazil­ian Insti­tute of the Envi­ron­ment and Renew­able Nat­ur­al Resources) insists his agency is already com­bat­ing the crim­i­nal organ­i­sa­tions behind ille­gal log­ging and cau­tions that it is “extreme­ly risky” for the Ka’apor to do the same. He said he hoped Iba­ma could make greater strides in the future by focus­ing on sawmills and pos­si­bly using GPS track­ers.

These are already areas where the Ka’apor are active. Dur­ing this month’s vis­it, Green­peace – which also helped the Guardian to reach the area – pro­vid­ed the com­mu­ni­ty with 11 cam­era traps, 11 GPS track­ers and two com­put­ers, worth a total of 20,000 reais (£3,480/$5,260).

Mari­na Lacorte, a for­est cam­paign­er with Green­peace Brazil, said the devices – which are usu­al­ly used to cap­ture wild ani­mals on film – were intend­ed to enhance the Ka’apor’s suc­cess in dimin­ish­ing ille­gal log­ging. “With the cam­eras, we hope to prove that at a cer­tain time and date in a cer­tain place, the trucks arrived emp­ty and left with tim­ber. We hope the devices can pro­duce more evi­dence to per­suade the author­i­ties to do some­thing to stop the log­ging and the con­flict and the mur­der.”

For many con­ser­va­tion­ists, the sig­nif­i­cance of the Ka’apor’s actions goes beyond their par­tic­u­lar case and puts them on the front­line of the bat­tle against cli­mate change. Brazil, like oth­er Ama­zon­ian coun­tries, has strug­gled to tack­le defor­esta­tion part­ly because envi­ron­men­tal author­i­ties are con­stant­ly out­num­bered and out­gunned by log­gers, ranch­ers and farm­ers.

Iba­ma – the main agency ded­i­cat­ed to pro­tect­ing the for­est – has about 1,500 rangers to mon­i­tor the Brazil­ian Ama­zon, an area that is more than half the size of the US. Many of them have mixed feel­ings about land clear­ance. Some are even in the pay of log­gers, as recent scan­dals have revealed.

By con­trast, indige­nous groups like the Ka’apor have the incen­tive and the man­pow­er on the ground to resist the dec­i­ma­tion of their forests. For them, this is not just a job, but a mat­ter of iden­ti­ty and sur­vival. The ben­e­fits can be glob­al. In a recent report, the World Resources Insti­tute not­ed that when indige­nous peo­ple have weak legal rights, their forests tend to become the source of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions, while those in a strong posi­tion are more like­ly to main­tain or even improve their forests’ car­bon stor­age. Under­lin­ing this, a research paper pub­lished last month in Sci­ence, notes that for­est dwellers are the best defence against log­ging and land clear­ance.

The dan­ger is that such groups might become involved in a proxy war against emis­sions with­out the tech­nol­o­gy, the fire­pow­er or the legal author­i­ty to over­come more pow­er­ful oppo­nents. But Miraté said the com­mu­ni­ty would pick and choose how and when to get involved.

“It’s not that we don’t under­stand tech­nol­o­gy. We can dri­ve cars and motor­bikes and we can use com­put­ers. But we want to do things our way, the Ka’apor way,” he said.

The log­gers are not the only threat to the tribe’s sur­vival. Pre­vi­ous bat­tles with the author­i­ties and the spread of dis­eases brought in by out­siders reduced the pop­u­la­tion – which once stood at sev­er­al thou­sand – to lit­tle more than 500 at the low point in 1982. The com­mu­ni­ty has since rebound­ed – large­ly thanks to the recog­ni­tion of its ter­ri­to­ry – and it con­tin­ues to assert its cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty on a vari­ety of fronts.

While many oth­er indige­nous groups are plagued by alco­holism, the Ka’apor recent­ly intro­duced a ban on con­sump­tion of beer and spir­its (as well as vis­its by Chris­t­ian evan­ge­lists and polit­i­cal cam­paign­ers). If a mem­ber vio­lates the rule once, he gets a warn­ing; twice, he must face a full meet­ing of the tribe; three times and he is sen­tenced to work in the near­by town. In their rela­tions with the gov­ern­ment, the tribe insist­ed last year on being rep­re­sent­ed by a mem­ber of their own com­mu­ni­ty rather than a bureau­crat from Funai (the Nation­al Indi­an Foun­da­tion). They have also moved away from what they say is a Funai-led sys­tem of hav­ing a sin­gle vil­lage chief and instead revert­ed towards col­lec­tive lead­er­ship.

In edu­ca­tion, they have ensured that their chil­dren are taught entire­ly in Ka’apor rather than Por­tuguese until the age of 10. Most cre­ative­ly, they also recent­ly cod­i­fied their own cal­en­dar, which pri­ori­tis­es plant­i­ng, har­vest­ing and mat­ing sea­sons, as an alter­na­tive to the solar-based Gre­go­ri­an sys­tem. While they occa­sion­al­ly shop for rice, the Ka’apor says they are large­ly self-suf­fi­cient with crops of man­ioc, bananas, pump­kin and water­mel­on. They also raise chick­ens, and hunt wild boar, deer, capy­bara and par­rots – though only in cer­tain sea­sons to ensure wild pop­u­la­tions remain strong.

But Miraté fears the author­i­ties in Brasília are more con­cerned about the country’s non-indige­nous pop­u­la­tion and the pres­sure of a glob­al econ­o­my.

“We believe that what the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment is doing now is wrong. They are fol­low­ing a pol­i­cy to fin­ish off the indige­nous peo­ple,” he warns. But “we want to do things our own way, to respect our own cul­ture. That’s the only way to sur­vive.”

by Jonathan Watts / The Guardian

Sev­en women and one man were arrest­ed ear­ly on Wednes­day in the lat­est round of arrests in the ongo­ing bat­tle against build­ing a giant tele­scope atop a moun­tain many native Hawai­ians con­sid­er sacred.

The state depart­ment of land and nat­ur­al resources said 20 of its offi­cers arrest­ed the pro­test­ers on Mau­na Kea at about 1am. They were enforc­ing an emer­gency rule cre­at­ed to stop peo­ple from camp­ing on Mau­na Kea. The land board approved the rule in July, which restricts access to the moun­tain dur­ing cer­tain night­time hours and pro­hibits cer­tain camp­ing gear. It was prompt­ed by pro­test­ers’ around-the-clock pres­ence to pre­vent con­struc­tion of the Thir­ty Meter Tele­scope.

Pro­test­ers say offi­cers hauled them away while they were pray­ing. In video footage pro­vid­ed by the state, offi­cers are seen walk­ing toward a group of peo­ple hud­dled in a cir­cle and chant­i­ng. A man’s voice is heard say­ing: “Eh, they’re pray­ing you guys, they’re pray­ing.”

The footage shows offi­cers putting plas­tic hand­cuffs on women and putting them into the back of a vehi­cle. “Why do I have to have my hands behind my back,” a woman asked. “Because you’ll be placed in restraints, ma’am,” an offi­cer respond­ed.

The emer­gency rule, in place for 120 days, is intend­ed to make the moun­tain safe for pro­test­ers, vis­i­tors and work­ers of the 13 tele­scopes already on the moun­tain, the state said. Attor­ney gen­er­al Doug Chin told the land board that even though camp­ing is already pro­hib­it­ed on the moun­tain, a tar­get­ed rule is nec­es­sary because of bad behav­ior by some pro­test­ers – rang­ing from putting boul­ders in the road to threats and harass­ment – cre­at­ed unsafe con­di­tions.

The non­prof­it com­pa­ny build­ing the Thir­ty Meter Tele­scope hasn’t indi­cat­ed when there will be anoth­er attempt to resume con­struc­tion. Work­ers weren’t able reach the site dur­ing two pre­vi­ous attempts when they were blocked by hun­dreds of pro­test­ers, includ­ing dozens who were arrest­ed.

This was the fourth time tele­scope oppo­nents have been arrest­ed on the moun­tain.

Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii law school pro­fes­sor Williamson Chang has filed a law­suit seek­ing to repeal the rule, argu­ing it pre­vents tele­scope oppo­nents from legal­ly exer­cis­ing their rights to peace­ful­ly protest.