BACKGROUND BRIEFING
Awá & Amazon Guardians
Collection of videos of the Awá and Guajajara peoples.
The Awá’s land retains some of the last remaining patches of rainforest in the eastern Amazon. The Awá know this forest intimately. To them, the forest is perfection and provides them with all they need.
Around 100 Awá remain uncontacted and are particularly vulnerable to diseases brought in by outsiders, which could decimate them. This is why the Amazon Guardians – who belong to a neighboring Indigenous people called the Guajajara – are fighting to protect the uncontacted Awá and their forest from loggers and other invaders.
Stand with the Amazon Guardians!
Watch the videos below to know more about the Awá, the Amazon Guardians and their struggle.
Earth’s most threatened tribe: the campaign triumphs!
In 2014, Brazil's government bowed to the global campaign and sent in troops to expel all illegal loggers from Awá land. Despite this success, some loggers have come back so the Awá still need our support.
Awá: people and animals
The Awá tribe have an extraordinarily close relationship with their pets: most families have many more animals than people, from raccoon-like coatis to wild pigs and king vultures. But without question, monkeys are the Awá's favourites.
How to make an eco-backpack
The Awá don’t need any lessons in sustainability: watch how they turn leaves into an eco-backpack in just a few minutes!
Uncontacted Awá in the Amazon © Mídia Índia
Extraordinary footage showing some members of one of the most threatened uncontacted peoples in the world, filmed and released by an Indigenous group in Brazil.
Uncontacted man discovers lost son is alive: Karapiru's story
Karapiru Awá, who died of COVID in 2021, survived a massacre in which the rest of his family were killed. He lived alone in the forest for 10 years but then had an astonishing reunion. We filmed this interview a few years ago – it's our tribute to him now. Rest in Peace Karapiru.
Take action for the uncontacted Awá!
"The children depend on us"
Olimpio Guajajara is a member of the Amazon Guardians, an Indigenous group that patrols and protects the Amazon rainforest in the Arariboia Indigenous territory, home to the Guajajara people and uncontacted Awá.
Listen to Olímpio explain why humanity should be concerned about the climate crisis - and then advocate for the demarcation and protection of Indigenous lands in Brazil, and around the world.
Rainforest or no rainforest?
Amazon Guardian Taniaky Tenetehar shows us the glaring contrast between the forests of the Arariboia Indigenous Territory, and the ranches that now surround it. With no support from the authorities, the Guardians are putting their lives at risk – six of them have already been killed for protecting Arariboia, which is not only their home, but also home to uncontacted Awá people.
"All we want is for our land to be free“
In 2019, Tainaky Tenetehar, an Amazon Guardian, explained what the forest means to his people and why Indigenous peoples are fighting to protect their land.
"We won't give up our land“
The Amazon Guardians are protecting their Amazon forest for their future and to prevent the extinction of their uncontacted Awá neighbors. Zahy Tata Guajajara has an important message for you to watch and share.
To watch more Tribal Voice videos from Indigenous peoples in Brazil and many other parts of the world, visit:
Other Survival videos
Proud not Primitive
Tribal people are not 'backwards', they haven't been 'left behind'. They choose to live on their land, in their own ways.
Seeing
There are many different ways of living on this planet, who's to say their way is best?
"We feel free"
Nixiwaka of the Yawanawá tribe in Brazil explains the importance of the Amazon rainforest to him and to all the one million Indigenous people who live there, and speaks about the crucial role they play in protecting it.
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