If we ask Olimpio Santos Guajajara when the Guardians of the Forest were founded, his answer would be very simple: in 1500, the year the Portuguese landed in Brazil with an armada under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral. This indigenous group, which protects what is left of the Amazon forest in the state of Maranhão, in the northeast of the country, was officially established in 2013, but for the Arariboia Guajajara that date represents only the formalization of a struggle to which they have already dedicated more than five centuries.
The Guardians of the Forest are a group of 120 indigenous activists who are trying to protect the 413,000 hectares in Arariboia against environmental crimes, which are perpetrated almost always by illegal loggers. This territory, located in southeast Maranhão, is home to nearly 12,000 members of the Guajajara, Awá-Guajá and Awá people. Some of the latter are uncontacted. The Guajajara are the ones primarily responsible for protecting this land and also account for most of those who have been killed doing so.
Their work is grueling and dangerous. In the last 20 years alone, 49 members of the Guajajara people, who call themselves the Tenetehar, were killed in armed conflicts with loggers in Maranhão, according to a report by the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI). Researchers say there have been 44 instances of invasion involving illegal use of the land since 2006, including 20 in the last six years, which makes Arariboia by far the indigenous territory in Maranhão that is most affected by violence.
