I had an amazing opportunity to meet and listen to Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, the leader and shaman of the Yanomami tribe from Brazil and Venezuela. The talk was very insightful and spiritually beautiful. The Yanomami lands were officially recognised in 1992 but this has not provided any protection for the tribe.

Mining for gold continues since the 1980s. Over 1,000 gold-miners are now working illegally on Yanomami land, polluting the rivers and forest with mercury. Cattle ranchers are invading and deforesting the eastern fringe of their land also. The world is seeing more and more land conflict and the world’s indigenous community members are often murdered due to this. The Yanomami’s health is suffering and critical medical care is not reaching them, especially in Venezuela.

Davi Kopenawa warns of the dangers.

‘The Yanomami people do not want the national congress to approve the law or the president to sign it. We do not want to accept this law.’

‘Our land has to be respected. Our land is our heritage, a heritage which protects us.’

‘Mining will only destroy nature. It will only destroy the streams and the rivers and kill the fish and kill the environment – and kill us. And bring in diseases which never existed in our land.’