OUGD505 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - RESEARCH - ILLEGAL LOGGERS THREATEN INDIGENOUS TRIBES

The Awa Tribe has only 450 members, however their territory has attracted thousands of loggers and settlers. In 2012 a judge ordered all outside people to leave the area, however a year later when the date had passed, no evictions were made, according to Survival International (indigenous rights group).
The Awa's territory is in the northeast area of the Brasilian Amazon, and they survive as hunter-gatherers in remote areas of the rainforest. Out of the 450 people in the tribe, around 100 of them have not had contact with the outside world.
Over the year's the tribes territory has been slowly destroyed by settlers and loggers, who now outnumber the Awa 10:1.
The Awa have four territories, and one of those territories of 120,000 hectares has 30% of it's forest destroyed, with logging trucks reported leaving the area day and night.
"The Awa talk about hearing chainsaws and their game being scared away. They find when they go to hunt there are less animals there because of all the noise. We're very worried, more and more, that the Awa are going to find less food in the forest and become dependant on government handouts in the end, if their forest is being destroyed they will end up living on handouts and lose their way of life." Alice Bayer, Survival International.
In the late 1960's geologists discovered the world's richest resource of iron ore in the area where the Awa live, and in the 1980's a railway line was developed to transport the iron ore from it's mine. This development brought outsiders who exposed the Awa to disease and violence, and their population was decimated.
Brasil's National Indian Foundation estimates there are 77 uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, with only 30 being located so far.

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