Photographs show Amazonian tribe capturing and stripping illegal rainforest loggers

Indians have taken matters into their own hands after claiming Brazilian government was not doing enough to protect their territory

(Reuters)

Amazonian warriors are catching and stripping loggers illegally destroying the rainforest, in an attempt to protect their territory in north-eastern Maranhao state, Brazil.

The Ka’apor Indians, who along with four other tribes are the legal inhabitants and caretakers of the Alto Turiacu Indian territory in the Amazonian basin, have taken matters into their own hands after what they claim was a lack of sufficient government assistance.

The tribes have sent out their warriors to expel all loggers they find, setting up monitoring camps in the areas that are being illegally exploited.

Reuters photographs detail how these warriors are dealing with the latest threat to their land.

After capturing the loggers the Indian warriors tie them up, stripping them so they cannot escape, and then frequently using the loggers own tools to ruin the already cut logs or equipment.

The Ka’apor people are a distinct ethnic group of indigenous Brazilians, who have faced significant tension and escalating violence defending their territory.

Since the 1980s as much as a third of the Ka’apor Indians’ land has been illegally deforested and converted to towns, rice fields and cattle pastures by landless peasants, cattle ranchers, loggers and local politicians.

The Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Reserve (now Terra Indigena Alto Turiaçu) was demarcated by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) in 1978, roughly 100 years after the Ka’apor Indians migrated there from more central regions.