They remain uncontacted, living in the last stands of jungle in this region. Incredibly, though, a few dozen Awa are holding out. Pira’I and his family – like most of the Awa – were forced to give up their traditional lifestyle and move into villages. “We would find a place to sleep, then the loggers would arrive again to cut down our trees and we would go on the run again.” I’d asked Pira’I what it was like growing up in the forest. Over the last couple of decades illegal loggers and farmers have invaded their ancestral lands, destroying the forest. Survival International, a pressure group that campaigns for the rights of indigenous people, has described the Awa as “the most endangered tribe on the planet”. The Awa are one of very few hunter-gatherer communities left in the Amazon basin. This was a momentous trip for them, and for the entire tribe. They gave me a nervous smile through the window, then the engine roared and their faces vanished in a great eddy of leaves and dust as the helicopter rose up into the air. Now, together with his friend Hamo, he was taking his first ever flight, leaving the jungle where they have lived all their lives. He grew up in a tiny nomadic tribal group, completely separate from the rest of the world. They live in the last islands of rainforest in what is now the extreme eastern edge of the Amazon.
Pira’I is a member of a 350-strong tribe called the Awa.
It took Pira’I two small steps to get up into the helicopter, but those steps bridged two completely different worlds. However, a new operation by the army, air force and military police is designed to save an endangered tribe – by keeping loggers off their land. Logging in the Brazilian Amazon has had a devastating effect on the rainforest and its indigenous people.
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