Why We Fight

This is a resident of the rain forest, recently photographed in Quito (Ecuador's capital). He commutes with his family from the rain forest to the city in order to play music on the streets. He is one of the Quechua, and the woman who took this photograph is worried these people won't be around much longer.

The photographer told me that when you look into the eyes of a rain forest native, it is as if something indescribably ancient and vast is looking back at you.

"When you look at somebody like this," she said, "you feel as if you're looking at a unicorn."


Photo credit: Mary "Grassroots Girl" B.

Horrifying Fact of the Day

Ecuador's Sacha Sur tribe used to number over fifteen thousand. Today there are about three hundred of them, less than two percent.*

When your pockets are as deep as Chevron's, you can afford to wait out most anything. Delay court proceedings long enough, and eventually the people suing you will die off. Especially if you've made them sick with cancer.

Here's a story about one such person:

Mother of Three Dies of Cancer



* Correction: I've just been informed that the actual number of surviving Sacha Sur is 200, not 300.

Just to put those numbers in perspective, if we were talking about an animal species rather than a human tribe, this is the category that the Sacha Sur would be placed in:

"Critically Endangered is the highest risk category assigned by the IUCN Red List for wild species. Critically endangered means that a species' numbers have decreased, or will decrease, by 80% within three generations."

The only category between this one and Extinction is "Extinct in the Wild."

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critically_Endangered