Amazon Guardian Olimpio Guajajara in Berlin protesting for his people's land rights. © Katie Mähler / Survival

Dear Jack,

This has been a tumultuous and deadly year for Indigenous peoples around the world – yet it’s also been filled with hope and inspiration.

We have seen the completion of a genocide in the Brazilian Amazon, attacks on unarmed Maasai families in Tanzania, and the ongoing push to drive Adivasi people off their lands for both mines and Tiger Reserves in India. But in face of these all-out assaults, Indigenous peoples have shown time and time again an extraordinary resilience and courage.

Our organization – your organization – has stood alongside them for 53 years, and we’re needed now more than ever.

Because – despite the challenges - we are winning more battles than ever before. I’d like to share with you some highlights from 2022:

After intensive advocacy on the issues, the US House of Representatives passed a ground-breaking law to help prevent US public money from funding human rights abuses in the name of conservation.

Thousands of you sent emails calling for the protection of highly vulnerable uncontacted tribal territories in Brazil. Our campaign triumphed against the odds, with several of them winning protection. Survival helped expose a secret plot to open up a tribe’s territory to commercial exploitation: those responsible are now being investigated.

The French authorities suspended planned funding for the Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park after we helped expose brutal atrocities committed against the Batwa, the Indigenous inhabitants of the park, who were expelled when it was created.

Our Uncontacted Tribes Week in June was the biggest week of online activism in Survival’s history. You took action on critical cases where uncontacted tribes face threats to their very existence, sending an incredible 21,000 protest emails to the governments responsible.

Our unique new Guide to Decolonize Language in Conservation challenged the hidden racism behind much supposedly “neutral” and “scientific” language used in conservation writing. It won widespread praise from journalists around the world: “eye-opening.. what you write is so true.” “Really striking.” “Spot on and very useful.” “Brilliant idea and very well executed.”

We worked together to bring all these stories to the world, including through many thousands of you posting and sharing our information, attending live and virtual events, and spreading the word; and through our partnerships with artists such as Cecilia Vicuña and Claudia Andujar, who have brought unique stories and testimonies from the frontlines of the Indigenous struggle to tens of thousands of people.

Survival is your movement. It is an expression of the connection felt by tens of thousands of people around the world with the Indigenous people who risk – and sometimes sacrifice – their lives to defend their lands. They do this not just for themselves, but for the forests, the rivers, the biodiversity, on which they - and the rest of us - depend.

I know times are hard for many, but if you have not yet done so, do please consider donating before the year is out.

From all of us at Survival – thank you.

For tribes, for nature, for all humanity.

Caroline Pearce
Executive Director