The Kayapo Project is a flagship program of the International Conservation Fund of Canada (ICFC).
ICFC and our US based partner EDF provide surveillance infrastructure and administrative services to Kayapó NGOs including boats, outboard engines, radios, 4X4 vehicles, expedition supplies, fuel, equipment maintenance, accounting and also capacity building workshops. We enable Kayapó NGOs to perform overflight surveillance and ground patrols with the result that several foci of illegal activity have been identified over the years: goldmining, logging and encroachment by ranchers.
About The Kayapo, Guardians of the Forest
Rainforests are the greatest expression of life on earth. They are home to half of the world’s terrestrial species of animal and plant. They are full of all that is wondrous, amazing and beautiful. They are also home to many indigenous tribes who make their livelihoods in these rich ecosystems. All rainforests are highly threatened. They are being logged and cleared for agriculture at alarming rates everywhere. Already, 20% of the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, is gone and the clearing continues.
There is something easy, meaningful and effective you can do to help conserve Amazon rainforest for nature, for our climate and for the future of all mankind: support the indigenous peoples who are protecting the last large tracts. One of these groups is the Kayapo.
The Kayapo have achieved more for preservation of tropical forest than any other group or organization on earth. In the 1980’s and 1990’s this warrior nation gained legal rights over an area the size of South Korea (110,000 km2) –almost all of which encompasses pristine Amazon rainforest and river ecosystems. This is the land that provides the Kayapo with all they need for sustenance and shelter. It is the forest and rivers that are the basis of their unique and magnificent culture. It is an area of rainforest large enough to protect healthy populations of even threatened and endangered Amazonian species of trees and wildlife. It is the home of the Kayapo.
Against all odds, the Kayapo have managed to protect and uphold their legal rights to their traditional lands in the midst of one of the world’s most intense deforestation zones known as the “arc of fire”. Threats to their lands include illegal invasion by ranchers, loggers, miners, colonists, land speculators and now hydro-electric dam development. Kayapo leaders feel strongly that they must meet in order to reach mutual understanding on various serious threats and to plan united strategy against these threats. To achieve unity, all Kayapo leaders must meet for several days in one of their communities. United, the Kayapo have proven to be a powerful barrier to deforestation.
The Kayapo are appealing for help to meet because their communities are scattered widely over distances that measure hundreds of km and transportation costs are very high especially for air taxis. Kayapo lands have no roads, telephone or internet service.
If given the chance the Kayapo can continue to protect their lands from the wave of destruction threatening to engulf them. With your help, the Kayapo will organize this historic meeting of all Kayapo leaders young and old: a meeting that will result in determined unity and their best chance for survival. Together, we can make this happen. Nowhere in the world is there such an opportunity for large scale conservation of tropical forest and the indigenous culture that protects it.