Oil firms and loggers 'push indigenous people to brink of extinction'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Oil firms and loggers 'push indigenous people to brink of extinction'
''Uncontacted' tribes forced to flee armed gangs and bulldozers in forests of Peru, Brazil and Paraguay, says Survival
John Vidal, environment editor guardian.co.uk
Thursday 28 May 2009 13.30 BST

Five "uncontacted" tribes are at imminent risk of extinction as oil companies, colonists and loggers invade their territiories. The semi-nomadic groups, who live deep in the forests of Peru, Brazil and Paraguay, are vulnerable to common western diseases such as flu and measles but also risk being killed by armed gangs, according to a report by Survival International, which identifies the five groups as the most threatened on Earth.

Sixty members of the Awá tribe are said to be fleeing from gangs of loggers and ranchers on their land near Maranhão, Brazil. "Logging roads have been bulldozed through a part of their territory, where the uncontacted groups are living. The ranchers want land to graze cattle for beef. The loggers regularly block roads to prevent government teams from entering the area to investigate," says David Hill, a Survival researcher and co-author of the report.

Little is known about the group of 50 Indians who live along the River Pardo in the western Brazilian Amazon, although there is plenty of evidence for their existence, including communal houses, arrows, baskets, hammocks, and footprints along river banks. "Loggers operating out of Colniza have forced them to be constantly on the run, unable to cultivate crops and relying solely on hunting, gathering and fishing. It is believed that the women have stopped giving birth," says the report.

Perenco, an Anglo-French oil company working in a proposed Indian reserve in northern Peru, is endangering several uncontacted tribes, says the report. "The company plans to send hundreds of workers into the region. In recent weeks, indigenous protesters have blockaded the Napo river in order to prevent Perenco boats from passing. In response, a naval gunboat was called in to break the blockade."



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/28/indigenous-tribes-survival-international-peru-brazil-praguay

[redqueen]

1. The more things change...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRYsRLSrvuo&feature=related

[Wednesdays]

2. K&R

:kick:

[Baby Snooks]

3. But we want cheap gas and pretty wood floors!

Bottom line is most Americans really don't care about the rainforest or the indigenous peoples. All they care about is cheap gas and pretty wood floors made from exotic Brazilian wood. They have, they want.

"I have, therefore I am." That is what most Americans care about. Getting rich and showing it off. We are a very selfish nation as well as a very shameful nation.

[No Elephants]

4. It's not only Americans. People who have money tend to want what they want when they want it.

[No Elephants]

5. Oil companies, loggers and others will drive the planet to extinction.

[Lorien]

8. Yep. And faster than anyone thinks. nt

[gula]

6. Let's not forget the mining companies. n/t

[daggahead]

7. I consider logging and mining the same - rape the planet of natural resources. n/t

[WriteDown]

10. Luckily....

You don't live in a building made of any wood or steel, right? The problem has a lot of facets.

[sammythecat]

9. LoL Fucking humans

Always the same. Junkies never have enough.

Delay is the best that can be hoped for here, I'm afraid. The future for these tribes is every bit as bright as that of the Plains Indians in the 1850's.

Sometimes I dream of an enlightened distant future, and sometimes it seems we can't possibly last another few hundred years before bringing about some cataclysmic catastrophe that'll have us living like rats.

[Zorra]

11. Isn't it wonderful to see the kind, compassionate forces of global economics

at work on the people of this planet?

Subcomandante Marcos wrote:

With national borders destroyed (for merchandise) the globalized market organizes the global economy: research and design of goods and services, as well as their circulation and consumption are thought of in intercontinental terms. For each part of the capitalist process the "new world order" organizes the flow of the labor force, specialized or not, up to where it is necessary. Far from subject ing itself to the "free flow" so clucked-over by neoliberalism, the employment markets are each day determined more by migratory flows. Where skilled workers are concerned, whose numbers are not significant in the context of global migration, the "crossing of brains" represents a great deal in terms of economic power and knowledge. Nevertheless, whether skilled labor, or unskilled labor, the migratory politics of neoliberalism is oriented more towards destabilizing the global labor market than towards stopping immigration.

The Fourth World War, with its process of destruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganization provokes the displacement of millions of people. Their destiny is to continue to wander, with the nightmare at their side, and to offer to employed workers in different nations a threat to their employment stability, an enemy to hide the image of the boss, and a pretext for giving meaning to the racist nonsense promoted by neoliberalism.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

[fascisthunter]

12. this is considered to be "progress" by those doing this

an incentive to wipe out a group of people...

"just doing business" - sociopath