The traditional leader Davi Kopenawa Yanomami is urgently appealing to governments attending Rio+20 to help save the earth’s most threatened tribe, by pressuring Brazil to stamp out illegal logging. Davi Kopenawa Yanomami said properly protecting the Awá tribe’s land rights was the only way to guarantee their survival.
He described the tribe as his ‘brothers’, and said, "The Awá are seeing their forest cut down faster than any other tribe in the Amazon. How much longer will the government wait before it acts to evict the illegal settlers, ranchers and loggers and properly protect their territory?"
Davi became an international figure after leading a long-running campaign to save his people from being wiped out. The Yanomami spokesman is attending the conference in Rio, and urged all those involved to "ask the Brazilian President when she will take action"