Brazil is the most dangerous place in the world to be an environmentalist. It accounts for about half of all recorded killings of environmental advocates.
And those numbers are going up, globally. As I reported recently for Foreign Policy:
Between 2002 and 2013, at least 908 people were killed because of their environmental advocacy, according to “Deadly Environment,” a new report from the investigative nonprofit Global Witness. That’s an average of at least one environmentalist murdered every week, and in the last four years, the rate of the murders has doubled. In 2012, the deadliest year on record, 147 deaths were recorded, three times more than a decade earlier. “There were almost certainly more cases,” the report says, “but the nature of the problem makes information hard to find, and even harder to verify.”
That incredibly dangerous environment makes what photographer Lunae Parracho documented even more incredible.
Parracho (website, Twitter, Flickr) followed the Ka’apor tribe, an indigenous community in Brazil, as they fought back against illegal loggers.
Ka’apor warriors ventured into the Alto Turiacu territory in the Amazon basin to track down illegal loggers, tie them up, and sabotage their equipment.
They stole their chainsaws and cut the logs so the loggers couldn’t profit from them.
They released the loggers, but only after taking their shoes and clothes, and setting their trucks on fire.
Activism
Environment
Indigenous Issues