Renowned Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa, the "Dalai Lama of the Rainforest," received this year's Right Livelihood Award, known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize" this Wednesday (Dec 4th). The ceremony took place in Stockholm and was the final event of a 10-day long program of celebrations in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. During his acceptance speech Davi said: "I want to help my indigenous brothers by asking the international authorities to put pressure on the Government of Brazil to demarcate the land of other indigenous peoples. I have always fought for the rights of my people, the Yanomami, and the Ye'kwana. This award is a new weapon to strengthen the fight of our people."
Davi Kopenawa has been on the front lines for over 40 years representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy. From encouraging tribesmen in villages in the heart of the Amazon rain forest to delivering a speech to Britain's Parliament to addressing the United Nations, he's fought for the rights of his people, the Yanomami of northern Brazil. These travels constitute a shamanic critique of Western industrial society, whose endless material greed, mass violence, and ecological blindness contrast sharply with Yanomami cultural values. Wherever Kopenawa speaks on behalf of his people, he delivers the same message: Help defend this region's natural resources and the health of the Yanomami.
In 2010 Kopenawa wrote The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, the first book by a Yanomami. The Falling Sky paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest--a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry. Kopenawa recounts his initiation and experience as a shaman, as well as his first encounters with outsiders: government officials, missionaries, road workers, cattle ranchers, and gold prospectors. He vividly describes the ensuing cultural repression, environmental devastation, and deaths resulting from epidemics and violence. To counter these threats, Davi Kopenawa became a global ambassador for his endangered people.
Survival International, an organization dedicated to campaigning for the rights of the Yanomami and other tribal peoples around the world, has worked alongside Kopenawa for the last 30 years in his campaign to persuade the government of Brazil to set aside and protect Yanomami tribal lands in the northern states of Roraima and Amazonas. In 1992 the Brazilian government designated 96,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles, an area the size of Portugal) for the Yanomami "Urihi," meaning "forest" in the Yanomami language. Combined with the Yanomami territory in Venezuela, it is the largest area of rainforest under indigenous control anywhere in the world. Indigenous peoples are the best conservationists and have so much to teach us.
Kopenawa has frequently been threatened by the gold miners and cattle ranchers who target the resources inside the Yanomami territory. Indigenous people in the Amazon are under threat from business interests as well as politicians, including far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has a long history of anti-indigenous statements and policies. The current regime in Brazil is trying now to undo decades, generations of progress in recognizing indigenous peoples' rights. The threat has never been more acute and has implications for the rest of the world.
Davi Kopenawa has been on the front lines for over 40 years representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy. From encouraging tribesmen in villages in the heart of the Amazon rain forest to delivering a speech to Britain's Parliament to addressing the United Nations, he's fought for the rights of his people, the Yanomami of northern Brazil. These travels constitute a shamanic critique of Western industrial society, whose endless material greed, mass violence, and ecological blindness contrast sharply with Yanomami cultural values. Wherever Kopenawa speaks on behalf of his people, he delivers the same message: Help defend this region's natural resources and the health of the Yanomami.
In 2010 Kopenawa wrote The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, the first book by a Yanomami. The Falling Sky paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest--a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry. Kopenawa recounts his initiation and experience as a shaman, as well as his first encounters with outsiders: government officials, missionaries, road workers, cattle ranchers, and gold prospectors. He vividly describes the ensuing cultural repression, environmental devastation, and deaths resulting from epidemics and violence. To counter these threats, Davi Kopenawa became a global ambassador for his endangered people.
Survival International, an organization dedicated to campaigning for the rights of the Yanomami and other tribal peoples around the world, has worked alongside Kopenawa for the last 30 years in his campaign to persuade the government of Brazil to set aside and protect Yanomami tribal lands in the northern states of Roraima and Amazonas. In 1992 the Brazilian government designated 96,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles, an area the size of Portugal) for the Yanomami "Urihi," meaning "forest" in the Yanomami language. Combined with the Yanomami territory in Venezuela, it is the largest area of rainforest under indigenous control anywhere in the world. Indigenous peoples are the best conservationists and have so much to teach us.
Kopenawa has frequently been threatened by the gold miners and cattle ranchers who target the resources inside the Yanomami territory. Indigenous people in the Amazon are under threat from business interests as well as politicians, including far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has a long history of anti-indigenous statements and policies. The current regime in Brazil is trying now to undo decades, generations of progress in recognizing indigenous peoples' rights. The threat has never been more acute and has implications for the rest of the world.
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