A group of warriors from Brazil's indigenous Ka'apor tribe
tracked down illegal loggers in the Amazon, tied them up, stripped
them and beat them with sticks.
Photographer Lunae Parracho followed the Ka'apor warriors during
their jungle expedition to search for and expel illegal loggers
from the Alto Turiacu Indian territory in the Amazon basin.
Tired of what they say is a lack of sufficient government
assistance in keeping loggers off their land, the Ka'apor people,
who along with four other tribes are the legal inhabitants and
caretakers of the territory, have sent their warriors out to expel
all loggers they find and set up monitoring camps.
Last year, the Brazilian government said that annual destruction
of its Amazon rain forest jumped by 28 percent after four straight
years of decline. Based on satellite images, it estimated that
5,843 square kilometres of rain forest were felled in the one-year
period ending July 2013.
The Amazon rain forest is considered one of the world's most
important natural defences against global warming because of its
capacity to absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Rain forest
clearing is responsible for about 75 percent of Brazil's emissions,
as vegetation is burned and felled trees rot. Such activity
releases an estimated 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere every year, making Brazil at least the sixth-biggest
emitter of carbon dioxide gas.
