Supporters of tribal peoples’ rights might be interested to know the position of the main English political parties on this issue.

The Labour government’s position was that the UK should not ratify the international law on tribal peoples (ILO Convention 169), ‘because the UK has no indigenous peoples’.

Davi Yanomami visits the Houses of Parliament to urge the British Government to ratify ILO 169.

Nevertheless, 23% of Labour MPs signed an ‘early day motion’ (EDM) in 2008 disagreeing and saying the government should ratify it.

The Conservative party agrees with Labour’s position. 3% of Conservative MPs signed the same EDM.

The Liberal Democrats have made a formal decision to ratify the law. The same EDM was signed by 87% of LibDem MPs.

Survival has no political position and supports no political party.

We do, however, believe it to be important that all countries ratify the law.

We are urging Survival supporters to ask the candidates in their constituency for their position on this issue.

The percentage of MPs from the three main parties who signed an Early Day Motion calling for the British Government to ratify ILO 169, the international law for tribal peoples.

How many words do the Inuit people have for snow?

At the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End, the anthropologist Hugh Brody entranced the audience with several. He told us the word for fresh snow falling in the air (‘Qanirpuq’); the word for snow thawed to make drinking water (‘Aniuk’), and the word for grainy and crystalline snow (‘Pukak’).

Mark Rylance leading a rehearsal… will it come together in time?

Hugh Brody was speaking from the set of ‘Jerusalem,’ sitting by a fire that cast a flickering light on the actors brought together by Mark Rylance for his one-off theatrical adaptation of Survival’s new book on tribal peoples, ‘We are One’. On a large screen suspended above the stage, the audience watched images of an Inuit family ploughing their way through deep drifts, their children wrapped in caribou skins, the northern winds blowing snow across the icy tundra.

Juliet Stevenson, Imelda Staunton, Emilia Fox and Gillian Anderson around the fire

Throughout the evening on Sunday 18th April, 2010, actors including Julie Christie, John Sessions, Juliet Stevenson, Mackenzie Crook, Imelda Staunton and Edward Fox led the audience from the Amazon rainforest to the Kalahari desert, and the grassy plains of South Dakota.

We heard the thoughts of the Yanomami people of Brazil, the Penan nomads of Sarawak, and the Arhuaco of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada. When Derek Jacobi enacted the moving words of the great North American Indian orator, Chief Seattle, the lights went down as he told the audience that ‘every part of this land is sacred in the estimation of my people’.

Seattle’s words had encapsulated the essence of the evening – the importance of land to tribal peoples.

Mackenzie Crook reading the words of Davi Yanomami, from Survival’s book We Are One.

‘We are One’ was a fundraising evening for Survival, and raised nearly £20,000, all of which will go to our campaigns for tribal peoples.

And if you’re wondering just how many different words the Inuit have for snow, don’t ask Wikipedia. Thanks to Hugh Brody’s piece I can now tell you it’s… zero. Not one of the dozens of Inuit words to differentiate the many varieties of snow and ice that have meaning to them refers simply to ‘snow.’

The book ‘We are One’ is available from Survival.

In celebration of the 40th Earth Day, we thought you might like to see some statements from tribal peoples across the world – Penan of Malaysia, Bushmen of Botswana, Yanomami of Amazon river basin – that depict the profound ties tribal peoples have with their lands.

Kombai children, West Papua © Grenville Charles

For many, their part of the Earth is the very bedrock of their lives – it provides their shelter, food and medicines, is the burial place of their ancestors and the inheritance of their children.

Tribal peoples still understand better than most the vital connections between man and nature, and that in damaging the Earth we are also damaging ourselves and our collective future.

These quotes are taken from Survival’s book We Are One and our archives.

We were made the same as the sand, we were born here. This place is my father’s father’s father’s land.
Bushman, Botswana

We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth as ‘wild’. Only to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness’ and only to him was it ‘infested’ with ‘wild’ animals and ’savage’ people. To us it was tame.
Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux, American Indian

Our land belongs to us because we belong to the land.
Wichi, Argentina

I do not think the measure of a civilisation is how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.
Sun Bear, Chippewa, American Indian

This land is the house we have always lived in.
Linda Hogan, Chicksaw, American Indian

Over the years, Survival has been accused of all kinds of wild and ridiculous things by those abusing indigenous peoples’ rights and cultures.

These include ‘inventing’ uncontacted tribes to keep companies out of the Amazon, fronting a terrorist organisation, publishing pornography, and being ‘communist excrement’ (article in Spanish) who want indigenous people to ‘remain in misery and ignorance.’

Ayoreo-Totobiegosode family shortly after first contact in 2004. © GAT

And the latest? That Paraguay’s Environment Minister, Oscar Rivas, is on our payroll (article in Spanish). This claim was made by a Brazilian cattle-ranching company, Yaguarete Pora S.A, after Survival exposed the company’s destruction of thousands of hectares of forest belonging to the indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode in the Chaco forest, northern Paraguay.

Paraguay’s Environment Ministry, SEAM, later cancelled Yaguarete’s licence to work there.

Ayoreo-Totobiegosode men talk about the destruction of their land and concern for their relatives in the forest.

Yaguarete’s accusation was reported in the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color on 27 March 2010. The company accused ‘Minister Rivas of being a representative of the NGO Survival,’ ABC states.

‘In the opinion of Yaguarete’s Eduardo Livieres, the Environment minister, Rivas, owner of the NGO Sobrevivencia, is the Paraguayan representative of Survival International. ‘Survival has installed itself in the Environment Ministry,’ said Livieres.’

You can see why the company got its wires crossed: ‘Sobreviviencia’ is the Spanish word for ‘survival’.

However, the fact is that neither Rivas nor Sobrevivencia, a Paraguayan NGO, have anything to do with Survival International.

Indeed, we have never met or even spoken with Mr Rivas, although we have written to him, along with other Paraguayan officials like president Lugo and the head of the government’s indigenous affairs department, about the Totobiegsode.

An Ayoreo-Totobiegosode communal house discovered when a road was bulldozed through their land. © Survival

Rather than trying to tarnish Survival’s reputation, Yaguarete should worry more about its own.

In recent months its destruction of the Totobiegosode’s territory has been covered by media in India, the US, the UK, Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, France, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Paraguay.

Indeed, it is now the biggest international news story concerning Paraguay.

The film Samson and Delilah, released in the UK this Friday, has been acclaimed as the best – and the future – of Australian film-making: a film of ‘delicate simplicity and gut-wrenching power.’

The film depicts an Aboriginal community in the Central Australian desert where two teenagers, Samson and Delilah, live.

Very little seems to happen in their day to day lives. There is a palpable listlessness, a lot of sitting around on fences and wandering aimlessly along the red roads, kicking up dust. The flies buzz, the crickets chirrup, a band plays loud repetitive music from a verandah. And Samson sniffs petrol.

There is a feeling that the collective spirit of this indigenous community has been ground down to such a degree that to grind it down further in solvent abuse matters little.

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