Join Alaska Wildlife Alliance for this special Wildlife Wednesday conversation with Ann Fienup-Riordan, one of the authors of "Nunakun-gguq Ciutengqertut, They Say They Have Ears Through the Ground: Animal Essays from Southwest Alaska". He eventually settled at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in 2001 where he continues to work as a wildlife biologist. Since then, he worked as the bander-in-charge at the fledgling Alaska Bird Observatory, trained banders during several temporary stints with the US Fish & Wildlife Service and established and operated MAPS stations for Denali National Park, Alaska Peninsula/Becharof National Wildlife Refuge and Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. His professional interest in birds began at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Learn about his discoveries over the past four years of hummingbird field work, how you can invite hummingbirds to your home, and what the future may hold in a changing climate.Įskelin is a Wildlife Biologist with the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. Did you know there are multiple species of hummingbirds on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska? Watch this virtual presentation with Todd Eskelin as he discusses the current and future status of Anna’s Hummingbirds in Southcentral Alaska. You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter and on Facebook. The European Community contributed funding. "The land belongs to the Awá."Įditor's note: This article has been updated to correct the funding source of the Carajás development program. "It's a very simple, direct message to the Minister of Justice," Watson said. Watson and her colleagues are hoping that their new campaign will put pressure on Brazil to honor the Awá's legal right to their land and provide the funding needed to enforce the protected areas' borders. In August 2011, FUNAI officials were alarmed to find evidence of a fight between drug traffickers and uncontacted native people, who went missing after the violence. Other tribes have also been haunted by violent clashes. "It's a violent part of the Amazon," Watson said. The ranchers had taken his son, leaving Karapiru to believe him dead. The man, Karapiru, had been living alone in the forest since 1975, when ranchers killed his daughter and wounded him and his son. In 1988, for example, townspeople in west Bahia, Brazil, met a lone native man who turned out to be of the Awá tribe. In addition, reports from Awá tribe members and from the Brazilian Indian affairs office FUNAI suggest that this land controversy can all-too-easily turn deadly. "Time is not on their side," Watson said. By that time, it will be too late for the Awá. If the case continues in the legal system, it could take 20 or 30 years for the Brazilian Supreme Court to decide it. Survival fears that continued legal wrangling will delay these departures, too. In December 2011, a second federal judge ruled that colonists and ranchers had to leave the land by December 2012. A legal appeal by one of the largest cattle ranchers in the region delayed the ruling. In 2009, a federal judge ruled that illegal settlers had to leave the Awá territories within 180 days. Īs the forest vanishes, the Awá are trapped in a legal battle to save it. That includes food - babaçu nuts and açaí berries as well as fresh meat - and medicines and supplies, such as the resin of the maçaranduba tree, which is used to make torches. "When you talk to the Awá, it's just so clear how much the forest means to them," she said. This is especially devastating to the Awá, who depend on the forest for their survival, Watson said. Illegal logging has left the scar of deforestation on the land. The Awá's right to their land was formally recognized in 2005, making mining and other activities by outsiders illegal but satellite photos of the forest reveal that these rights are not being honored. "This acts like a magnet for settlers to pour in, and ranchers, so Awá land started to be invaded," Watson said. After iron ore was discovered in the area, the European Community and the World Bank even helped fund a railway and other developments in the region. After first contact with the Awá in 1973, the Brazilian government has opened up the region where the tribe has long roamed. Survival estimates that there are about 100 uncontacted Awá in addition to the 360 or so who have semi-settled in villages on their legally protected land. Not only do clashes between native peoples and settlers sometimes result in violence, uncontacted people lack immunity to common diseases and can be felled by a simple flu virus. In fact, many are purposefully avoiding society after deadly run-ins with civilization in the past. Uncontacted tribespeople are often romanticized as "primitive" people who aren't aware of the outside world, which is a myth, according to Survival.
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