Salgado launches appeal to save Amazon indigenous people. They risk genocide

Renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado have issued an appeal to the government, congress, the supreme court, and the authorities of Brazil to save the indigenous peoples of the Amazon from the epidemiological emergency. “These indigenous peoples are part of the extraordinary history of our species. Their disappearance would be an extreme tragedy for Brazil and an immense loss for humanity. There is no time to lose,” he said.

In the last decade of his work, Salgado has worked among Amazonian tribes and, knowing their reality, he points out that these communities are in serious danger, not only from the spread of the Coronavirus, but also from the encroachment of miners, loggers and cattle ranchers into territories reserved for the exclusive use of the indigenous people. These activities and illegal intrusion have intensified in the last period, bringing Coronavirus among indigenous people: therefore, urgent measures are needed to protect them. These are populations that have already suffered from fires that have devastated forests and poisoned rivers.

Five centuries ago, these ethnic groups were decimated by diseases brought by European colonizers. Since then, successive epidemiological crises have killed most of their populations. Now, with this new scourge spreading rapidly throughout Brazil, indigenous peoples, such as those living isolated in the Amazon basin, could be wiped out altogether, risking genocide.

A video of Salgado’s appeal is available at this link .

Salgado launches appeal to save Amazon indigenous people. They risk genocide

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