Hutukara Project

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     We are supporting the non-profit, tax-exempt organization in Brazil called Hutukara. This is a coalition of indigenous tribes, led mainly by the Yanomami nation, fighting to save the lands of the indigenous peoples of the rainforests in the Brazilian Amazon. The Amazon Basin is the largest intact rainforest on earth, and the area with the highest overall terrestrial biodiversity—the largest number of species of animals and plants--on our planet. Most of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil, the country with more rainforest than any other on earth. Studies have demonstrated that indigenous people’s lands have the highest biodiversity. In addition, two scientific studies that have shown that the most effective way to save rainforest is aiding and empowering the indigenous peoples of the rainforest (1, 2). This is because poor tropical countries often do not have enough money to pay for a sufficient number of rangers and amount of equipment to protect their national parks, which become “paper parks”—national parks in name only. Indigenous people, on the other hand, live in the rainforest and want to protect their land, and hence are essentially unpaid guardians of the rainforest. Hutukara needs hand radios and boats so the tribes can communicate with each other. They need funds to hold conferences among indigenous nations that live far apart from each other to plan strategies to save their forest. Illegal gold miners, farmers, and fishermen are destroying and over-exploiting their rainforest homes. We are raising money to give them the radios, boats, and equipment, and to meet and hold conferences, needed to save their rainforest homes, and to remove the illegal destroyers of this diverse ecosystem. Among the primary goals of Hutukara is to remove the illegal gold miners and other rainforest destroyers from the lands of indigenous people. This battle can be won, since the Brazilian constitution recognizes indigenous people’s rights to their land. One key ingredient needed is to enforce their right to protect their rainforest homes.
     
     For the first $10,000 we raise for this project to help Hutukara, two additional dollars will be donated by a matching grant from an anonymous donor, tripling the impact of your gift to empower indigenous people and save a portion of the largest and most diverse rainforest on earth, the Brazilian Amazon.

     You can view a film that teaches about a key conference organized by Hutukara and how it helped save rainforest, organize and empower indigenous people, and gain their rights, by clicking on this Youtube link: Hutukara Yanomami Association