Amazon Region: Irreversible Global Impact On Indigenous People

In a country known for its elegant and flashy display of beautiful and wealth, there are groups of people, particular in the Amazon Rainforest, who still live detached from modernity and lifestyle of the contemporary world. Even though some of those groups live in voluntary isolation, they are united in their fight for land and environmental rights. One of these groups is the Kayapo, a group of around nine thousand indigenous people, who lives in the village of Gorotire along the Xingu River. Although the Kayapo have famously evolved from an isolated tribute to active voice against numerous developmental projects proposed by the Brazilian government, other groups such as rubber tappers in the Xapuri area have also made significant progress in securing political and cultural rights. While these communities and indigenous groups often share different cultures and customs, they are connected through a common struggle: defending their cultural and political identity amidst oppression and neglect from the Brazilian government.

When one thinks about the Amazon rainforest often our minds flip to monkeys, toucans, and lots of trees. We think of the peacefulness and serenity of untouched land and the balance that nature has to offer. What we don’t think of is primitive tribes, mass killings, deadly snakes, ferocious jaguars, and satanic activity. This is the Amazon that Michael Dawson and his family were accustomed to. This was Yanomamo.

The Amazon is the planet's largest remaining rainforest. However, it is in danger because of deforestation and climate change. It is also home to over 20 million people. Greenpeace created a campaign to solve this problem called “Save the Amazon”. Due to this campaign, the organization is trying to stop companies from taking advantage of these natural resources without limits, protecting both indigenous people’s rights and environment. To be more specific, Greenpeace fights against the construction of a huge dam, which will eventually flood an area of rainforest. This project has not come to an end yet, but the organization keeps trying to prevent the impact of this

There have been many instances throughout history in which indigenous people have unwillingly suffered the consequences of foreigners’ interaction with their culture. In the case of the Huaorani two foreign groups, the oil companies and the missionaries, invaded their land and gravely affected the life they led in the Ecuadorian amazon. In the book Savages Joe Kane gives a firsthand account at how the Huaorani fight to preserve their land and traditional way of life.

Deforestation poses an alarming threat to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, and it has been a serious concern for over 40 years. For thousands of years, the abundant, valuable resources in the Amazon were familiar only to the indigenous people of the region. In the 1500’s, before European colonization of Brazil, there were an estimated six to nine million individuals part of different cultures that made up a rich Amazonian society (“History”). Surrounded by the luxuriant rainforest and its natural resources, these indigenous tribes were able to thrive by utilizing the resources without destroying their habitat. After European emigration, the government of Brazil exploited the value of the Amazon’s resources in the twentieth century. In the 1970’s, the Brazilian government discovered the “untapped source of boundless potential” hiding in the Amazon and began using incentives to persuade settlers to develop its resources (Casey). Once economists realized the importance of the resources found within the rainforest, European pioneers set out to transform the Amazon into their home. By endorsing colonization, the government could not only boost the country’s economy, but also gain control over Brazil’s vast territory. The government supported migration to the rainforest and campaigned for the construction of infrastructure (“History”). In concurrence, the development of roads such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway, a 2,000 mile road built in 1972, granted people and machinery entrance to

This paper is written almost exclusively with information taken directly from the book Families of the Forest by Alan Johnson about the lifestyle of the Matsigenka Amazonian Natives. Information regarding the Matsigenka is almost solely derived from the work of Johnson unless noted otherwise. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Matsigenka people, their needs as a community and finally pose a development project that meets the needs described. Realistically this is only one possible solution posed by an inexperienced undergraduate student. The author is student who has never set

Deforestation is defined as: “the clearing of virgin forests, or intentional destruction or removal of trees and other vegetation for agricultural, commercial, housing, or firewood use without replanting and without allowing time for the forest to regenerate itself” (SCRIBD). Deforestation has been a problem in Latin America since the early 1900s and the severity of the dilemma is increasing rapidly. Deforestation not only has consequences for the environment, but also, the indigenous people and the national economy. The logging industry in Latin America is often exploited by multinational companies that are not properly regulated. The land that has provided a home and cultivated indigenous development for centuries is being dissipated rapidly. Due to an exponentially growing global population, there is an increased demand for low priced goods--like timber, crops, and meat. Many Latin American countries value revenue from selling these goods over the health of their local ecosystems. The crisis of deforestation and habitat loss is shifting from a local to global problem. As deforestation continues, global warming escalates worldwide, impacting every country and person. About 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation, which is more than from all the world’s cars, trucks and buses combined (Schwartzman). Puerto Rico and Brazil provide contrasting examples of the impact of deforestation. Puerto Rico had an economic and environmental shift

The injustice surrounding the Indigenous populations in Mexico and Central America began with the Spanish colonies in the sixteenth century, and the struggle for their land and constitution rights has been an ongoing battle for hundreds of years. The indigenous people take up a large part of the population in Mexico and Central America. (See Table 1; Graph 1 below). Indigenous people make up of over 16 percent of the Mexican population, and over 66 percent of the population is indigenous in Guatemala. The historical reality of the indigenous peoples in Central America has been one poverty, eviction from their land, political violence and mistreatment at the hands of

Smith discusses how important advances have been made over the past four decades in improving both the living and the political conditions for many of Latin America’s indigenous peoples. Chase Smith discusses five major challenges facing Indigenous Latin Americans. Three of which will be discussed in this report. Firstly, there are many challenges regarding territory and resources. Smith states that since the beginning of European colonial domination in the Americas, that Indigenous peoples have suffered and protested the continual loss of access to their land and resources in order to their “place” in this world. The twentieth century brought political and organizational innovations to support indigenous peoples’ attempts to recover and insure access to resources. Chase uses the example of Brazil, the Andean Amazon and parts of Central America, in which, the Indigenous peoples’ demands now focus on state recognition of their collective rights to a territory, which includes subsoil and surface resources.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the indigenous population has been able to create a network with many NGOs and activists communities to help them raise awareness of the environmental and human rights being violated by these multi-national corporations in the Amazon. Two events that were responsible for

There is no slight irony in the fact that their major allies throughout the world are the surviving indigenous communities that have upheld their own versions of the Charter of the Forest. In Canada, the Gitxaala First Nation is filing a lawsuit opposing a tar-sands pipeline passing through its territory, relying on recent high-court rulings on indigenous rights. In Ecuador, the large indigenous community played an essential part in the government’s offer to keep some of its oil in the ground, where it should be, if the rich countries would compensate Ecuador for a fraction of the lost profits. (The offer was refused.) The one country governed by an indigenous majority, Bolivia, held a World People’s Conference in 2010, with 35,000 participants from 140 countries. It produced a People’s Agreement calling for sharp reductions in emissions, as well as a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. These are key demands of indigenous communities all over the

Is it really beneficial to contact new tribes or communities who have been uncontacted since forever probably? Even though that Stephanie Nolan suggests in her article “Last lost tribes of the Amazon fear being found” that contacting these humans will promote welfare to their standard of living, this can be only one side of the problem. In this essay I will explain my disagreement with the idea of contacting the amazon tribes for three reasons; culture shock, unfamiliar diseases, and seizing the Amazon tribes natural resources.

The Amazon is home to about 400 indigenous tribes for a total of about 1 million Indians. Many of these indigenous groups are being affected by the Anthropocene era, which is the period during which human activity has been the dominant factor contributing to changes in our climate and environment. Human activity such as timber and wood extraction, defaundation, and pollution through oil projects has affected not only the environment but also the indigenous people that reside in the areas being eradicated. One specific indigenous group experiencing the detrimental effects of human invasion into the Amazon are the Achuar. The Achuar have been largely impacted by oil extraction projects occurring near the Corrientes River; however, they have resisted the pressures from oil companies by taking action and voicing the injustices.

The most appropriate way to resolve conflict in the amazon forest is to make a treaty with the other group so they won’t cross a certain line to enter our reserve because it provides evidence of how this group has been here longer and has much more knowledge. The important thing is they hunted and gathered to maintain a proper building manner. Even partly of why these particular groups want the other settlers to leave the land, because it’s too crowded- meaning one of the groups will have to move, but there are no other places in the Amazon, their groups could go, hunting and gathering generally nomadic, living in one small temporary settler for 4-5 years until all natural resources droughted, then they moved on, and their food, medicine, and clothing came along with them from the forest. Small farming and having a system for hunting and gathering, during these times the Native Amazonians had a lifestyle of a sustainable living. They call the forest their home. They’ve been losing land for 500 years because of the Europeans.

Illegal mining in the Peruvian Amazon has led to crime, deforestation and mercury poisoning in local villages and has further weakened the economy. Peru is the largest producer of gold in South America, the sixth largest in the world and in recent years Peru’s remote Amazon rainforest has become a hotspot for illegal mining. An estimated ten to thirty-thousand illegal miners work day in and day out to remove flecks of gold from Amazonian soil using cyanide, mercury, lead and arsenic which has in turn contaminated water sources and poisoned many in rural villages. Mining camps run rampant with crime, including sex trafficking and slave labor, poaching is common and litter is scattered everywhere. These miners have come from cities across Peru