Archive for May, 2009

The most famous tribe in the world?

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Photo from the air of uncontacted tribe in Brazil. © Gleison Miranda/FUNAI

Remember this?

This was the photo that sent the media dizzy last year and appeared on TV screens and in newspapers and magazines all around the world.

They are members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, living deep in the remote Brazilian Amazon.

According to Google, news of these photos went to 190 countries. That’s to say, every country in the world bar two.

Does that make this the most famous tribe in the world? Could be.

Davi Yanomami speaks on BBC1 (UK) in 1989.
Previously uncontacted members of the Paraguayan Ayoreo-Totobiegosode group the moment they were first contacted, in 2004. © GAT/Survival

To mark the ‘anniversary’ of the publication of this photo, released last year by Survival on May 29, we have written a report called ‘One Year On: Uncontacted tribes face extinction.’

The thrust of the report is simple. Despite all the media coverage last year and the wave of public outrage sparked by it, uncontacted tribes around the world still do not have their rights recognised.

Their lands are still being invaded. And the tribes themselves are still at risk of being wiped out by violence and by diseases against which they have no immunity.

You can read the report here.

And you can get involved – by writing to people in positions of power.

Tribal people do not just die out. They’re killed – and the people killing them have names and addresses.

Window dressing

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

In times when publishing a news story online can reach millions of people and online video is challenging broadcast TV, it can be easy to overlook the power of the humble poster.

Survival’s HQ on busy Goswell Road in central London is a great place to get our message across, and dramatic, large-format posters in the shop window are just the ticket.


Our Stamp It Out campaign targets
racist descriptions of tribal peoples
in the media.
“In 1500 there were 10 million tribal people living in Brazil.Today only 460,000 are left.” Disease from outsiders has decimated Brazil’s indigenous population.
 
“Next drink – 106 hours.” The Bushmen continue to be persecuted by the Botswana government. Despite having lived in the Kalahari for thousands of years, they aren’t allowed even one waterhole.
 

Somewhat fittingly for a member of one of the least contacted tribes in the world, Google respected the privacy of our Stamp It Out campaign’s Jarawa model by blurring out her face in Google Street View: