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.
They released the loggers, but only after taking their shoes and clothes, and setting their trucks on fire.
