Dear Jack,
We’ve just heard the wonderful news that Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, the “Dalai Lama of the Rainforest,” has won this year’s Right Livelihood Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”
It’s a fitting recognition of his lifelong battle to save his people and the Amazon from destruction.
On hearing the news Davi told us: “This has come at just the right time, I’m very happy. This gives me the strength to carry on fighting to defend the soul of the Amazon. We, the peoples of the planet, need to live well, caring for our land so that future generations can continue to use it.”
I’ve known Davi for many years. Survival had campaigned since the early 1970s for the Yanomami’s survival and land rights, in the face of land invasions and devastating epidemics brought in by road-building schemes.
Davi shares the award with Hutukara, the Yanomami organization he founded, and of which he’s President.
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In 1989 Survival itself won the Right Livelihood Award, and we invited Davi to Europe to accept it – his first trip outside Brazil.
Since then he’s travelled extensively, campaigning to protect the Amazon from destruction by mining, ranching and fire.
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But that’s not all.
In 2010 he wrote The Falling Sky, the first book by a Yanomami. An exploration of Yanomami cosmology, as well as a deeply moving account of his people’s struggle to survive epidemics and violence, it’s one of the most important books of our time.
The Yanomami are now suffering another influx of gold-miners, poisoning their rivers with mercury. Some camps are just a few miles from uncontacted Yanomami communities. And as the Amazon burns, the Yanomami need friends outside the forest more than ever.
Brazil's President Bolsonaro is trying to turn back the clock on indigenous rights. We're fighting alongside indigenous peoples to defend their lives and lands, and you can too. Please join the fightback today.
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With thanks,
Stephen Corry
Director
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P.S. We reject government funding so our integrity is never compromised. We rely entirely on your donations to keep fighting for tribal peoples worldwide. Please donate today. Without you, there can be no Survival.
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