Fire in Amazon Indigenous Reserve

    Tiapé Suruí, member of an indigenous community of Amazon region named Suruí Aikewára, tells a sad fact that happened in the end of the year 2010.
    According to his information, someone traveling by the road that crosses the Aikewára’s reserve called Sororó Land, threw a cigarette butt by the window of a truck that provoked a terrible fire the brought severe damages to the Aikewára people.
    As a result of this criminal fire the reserve lost a large biodiversity and, the Indians were seriously damaged in relation to raw material to produce the handcrafts that they produce in order to save some money to buy important things to them. The consequence of this: this year the Aikewára Indians do not have a reap and now it is necessary to buy the food that before they produced.
    The smoke of the fire was another serious trouble. Many Aikewára Indians, adults and children, had breathing and eye problems.
    Nowadays, the habitants of Sororó Land are living with many difficulties because they do not have any help to replant the species. Tiapé Suruí says that the only way to bring back the quality of life and the economical independence of his people is investing in sustainability.
   This tragedy probably caused by a non-Indian person must offer to everybody a reflection about respect and responsibility in relation to the people that live in the forest regions.


Written by: Joel Pantoja e Raimundo Tocantins
Translated by: Raimundo Tocantins