Train terror as mining giant endangers Earth’s most threatened tribe 26 July 2012 [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Train terror as mining giant endangers Earth’s most threatened tribe 26 July 2012


Plans by a giant mining company to expand a controversial railway line that has already opened up parts of Brazil’s Amazon to invaders, are now putting Earth’s most threatened tribe in direct danger.

Brazilian company Vale owns the world’s largest iron ore mine, transporting its lucrative resources from the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean in 2 km-long trains.

Now it wants to expand this stretch of railway line to allow some of the longest trains in the world to run simultaneously in both directions, to increase capacity. But the forest homes of Earth’s most threatened tribe, Brazil’s Awá, border the railway tracks, putting the tribe, especially those uncontacted , in immediate danger.

The Awá are against the project. They say it will increase the amount of noise from the railway, scare away the game they need to survive, and increase the number of invaders in their forest.

Vale’s notorious Carajás mine and railway devastated the Awá tribe in the early 1980s by opening their land up to settlers, ranchers and loggers.

More:
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/8534