film from Survival International
Another mix of upper and downer, today, kids, as I belatedly respond to Hannah's prompt for her last Transforming Friday feature at Real Toads. I will so miss Transforming Friday, as I love traveling to different regions in my mind . It's the only way I can afford to travel. The video above shows a Paradise being encroached upon, and a beautiful, gentle people who are clinging to the edge of survival, with few places left to hide.
photo by Survival International
Our land mass thistime is the tropical rainforest, so I chose the Awa people of the Amazon, a tribe of 450, 100 of whom have never had contact with the outside world. This tribe, one of an estimated 77 isolated indigenous tribes in the Amazon, is now endangered by the encroachment of outsiders, who log and burn the rainforest for their own purposes, making survival for these people of simple needs very difficult.
photo by Survival International
The Awa, now designated earth's most threatened tribe, are at risk of extinction. They are hunters and gatherers, who leave virtually no environmental footprint on the land. But in the 1960's, iron ore was discovered in their region, later a railway was built to transport the ore, and the Awa are being pushed farther and farther back in search of sustenance. The Awa are afraid to hunt in the forest, for fear of attacks by illegal loggers. Also the chain saws scare wildlife away, removing their food supply.
As the forests are increasingly decimated, its untold wealth (of as yet undiscovered medicines and species) are being destroyed before their value to human health can be discovered. There is a global tragedy occurring here, as well as a personal one, for the Awa.
photo by Survival International
*source Alice Bayer of Survival International, as told to the BBC
I step lightly across the forest floor.
Above me, the canopy is alive with
macaw and monkey chatter.
This is good.
It means the Others are not here.
When the forest burns,
when the chain saws roar,
wildlife flees in terror
and we do not eat that night.
We wonder at the ways of the Others.
They take with force,
and do not worry about
the people of tomorrow.
For many many life cycles,
we have been taught:
take only what you need today,
leave always for the future.
We watch in amazed disbelief
as the forest burns,
as the machines rumble in and lay waste
our home,
as the trees are taken away
day and night.
The animals of the forest
and our children hunger.
We all know fear.
We cannot flee far enough
to escape them
for now they are
everywhere.
