Awa the World's 'Most Endangered Tribe' in Brazil Is Under Threat Due to Deforestation

Deforestation is having an impact on marginalized populations all around the world. The Awá tribe of Brazil, one of the world's most endangered Indigenous tribes and one of the last few uncontacted peoples, is under threat due to illegal logging that directly affects their forested hunting grounds.

What is Awá Tribe

All That's Interesting mentioned that the Awá tribe, also known as the Guajá or Awá-Guajá, is a group of hunter-gatherers who live in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. They are expert hunters but great pet keepers.

Their pets include coatis, wild pigs, king vultures and monkeys. Although they eat monkeys, a baby monkey integrated into an Awa family and breastfed will never be slaughtered for a meal. When the monkey returns to the forest, Awa can still recognize it because, for them, it is hanima - a part of the family.

When European conquerors began penetrating the Latin American country in the early nineteenth century, the tribe became nomadic to remain concealed from them. To this day, roughly 100 members of the tribe live in secluded areas of the bush to keep themselves hidden from strangers.

Children of the tribe are taught to hunt with handcrafted bows and arrows from an early age. Members of the group live with their extended families and go on gathering and hunting trips together, leaving their group base and living in makeshift shelters made of palm leaves for several weeks. The tribe is no stranger to handiwork, as they make their own tools out of branches and rocks, torches out of tree resin, and hammocks out of palm tree fibers.

The Awá tribe is highly close to nature since they live in the woods. Many of the members have jungle creatures as pets, such as little monkeys.

Why Awá Tribe Is Threatened?

Deforestation has been harming Brazil's Amazon jungle for years, and in 2020, it reached an all-time high in 12 years. Despite the president's commitment on Earth Day to eradicate deforestation by 2030, it does not appear that this will happen.

According to BBC News, Survival International considers the Awá tribe to be the "most threatened tribe on earth" and they are becoming increasingly accustomed to hearing chainsaws wreaking havoc near their village.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, per Green Matters, feels that the forest should be cultivated to help farmers and loggers. He has cut funds for the country's environmental police and reversed safeguards, arguing that the Awá tribe "doesn't want to live like cavemen."

Illegal logging has placed the Awa people in hazardous terrain for a long time. Logging has resulted in the loss of rainforest trees.

Fiona Watson, Survival's research director, said in 2012, that the tribe was on the brink of extinction because they are invaded by loggers, settlers and cattle ranchers, and they only depend on the forest.

"If we have no forest, we can't feed our children and we will die," the tribe told her, per The Guardian.

The invasion and destruction of their territory have resulted in the loss of life. After loggers created illegal villages and ran cattle ranches, Brazilian judge Carlos do Vale Madeira called the problem (per Daily Star) "a real genocide." Awa is also said to have been pursued by hired shooters, known as pistoleros.

Despite the efforts of organizations such as the Survival campaign and the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) to assist the Awa, the group remains vulnerable due to illicit logging, malaria, and tribal clashes with the Ka'apor tribe.

In 2011, illegal loggers burned to death an 8-year-old Awa girl who had wandered away from her community in a protected region in the state of Maranhao.

This was seen by other tribe members as a sick warning to the Awa people who remained in the protected territory.

According to a study by the Indigenous Missionary Council, over 450 Indigenous people were slain between 2003 and 2010.

As a result, the fate of the world's most vulnerable tribe continues to cruelly unfold.

The Awa has become the fastest vanishing indigenous territory in the Brazilian Amazon, with 35 percent of its constitutionally protected land lost.

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