Tribal Link Foundation

10/21/2025

Support Flood-Affected Indigenous Communities in Mexico -

Last week, massive floods have devastated communities in Puebla, Hidalgo and Veracruz, displacing families, destroying homes, and cutting off access to basic resources.

06/04/2024

The Internet’s Final Frontier: Remote Amazon Tribes

Elon Musk’s Starlink has connected an isolated tribe to the outside world — and divided it from within.

"The Marubo people have long lived in communal huts scattered hundreds of miles along the Ituí River deep in the Amazon rainforest. They speak their own language, take ayahuasca to connect with forest spirits and trap spider monkeys to make soup or keep as pets.

They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation — some villages can take a week to reach. But since September, the Marubo have had high-speed internet thanks to Elon Musk. The 2,000-member tribe is one of hundreds across Brazil that are suddenly logging on with Starlink, the satellite-internet service from Space X..."

Elon Musk’s Starlink has connected an isolated tribe to the outside world — and divided it from within.

04/01/2024

We have some tragic news: our dear friends Tashka Yawanawa and Laura Soriano Yawanawa have reported devastating flooding in their territory. It has wiped out their homes, boats, clothes, livestock, crops and food sources.

So we have joined up with our colleague Cameron Saul of Bottletop & TOGETHERBAND, a partner of the Yawanawa for many years, who has launched a campaign to raise emergency funding for food, fuel and tools to repair and rebuild their homes and plantations.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/yawanawa-flood-emergency-appeal

The Yawanawá are a community of 1200 people who protect an area of over 250,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest in the state of Acre, Brazil. They are protecting our most precious remaining biodiversity, so it’s crucial that we support them.

Please join us and give what you can. 100% of proceeds will go directly to the Yawanawá Socio Cultural Association (ASCY) in the Amazon:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/yawanawa-flood-emergency-appeal

12/19/2023

"At the U.N. climate summit, I [Amy Goodman] spoke to the head of the largest Indigenous delegation in the history of the COP, Sônia Guajajara, Brazil’s first Indigenous cabinet minister. She’s the minister of Indigenous peoples."

When Democracy Now! was covering the COP28 U.N. climate summit in Dubai, we spoke to Sônia Guajajara, the head of the largest Indigenous delegation in the history of the climate talks.

12/14/2023

"The final deal fails to recognise the historic responsibility of the developed countries such as the US, UK, Canada and EU, which got rich by burning fossil fuels and are therefore most responsible for climate breakdown.

"Separate but connected to this issue of differentiated responsibility is the means of implementation: the obligation of developed countries to shoulder the burden and help developing countries to tackle and adapt to the climate crisis. Both are missing from the GST, which means the final deal lacks equity, according to climate justice advocates."

Developing countries call agreement to transition away from fossil fuels ‘unfair’ and ‘inequitable’

11/02/2023

On Tuesday, November 7, 2023 at 9AM EST, join our colleagues at the Equator Initiative in celebrating the Indigenous peoples and local communities winners of the 2023 and their work protecting .

Stream the award ceremony live at http://www.natureforlifehub.org/ and become part of the movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag2kaANIZJM

Join us in honoring the incredible 2023 winners and their outstanding contributions to our planet.As we work tirelessly to bring the Kunming-Mo...

10/20/2023

“This is a bitter irony,” the Indigenous leaders said in a statement, according to Reuters. “That people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognize those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years is beyond reason.”

Australian Indigenous leaders are calling for a week of silence after a referendum to recognize Indigenous people in the constitution failed. Every state and mainland territory except the Australia…

10/13/2023

"Indigenous inhabitants in the Amazon are asking the Brazilian government to declare a climate emergency as their villages have no drinking water, food or medicine due to a severe drought that is drying up rivers vital for travel in the rainforest, their leaders said on Tuesday.

"The drought and heatwave has killed masses of fish in the rivers that Indigenous people live off and the water in the muddy streams and tributaries of the Amazon river has become undrinkable, the umbrella organization APIAM that represents 63 tribes in the Amazon said.

"...The most serious problem for Indigenous communities that have no running water is sanitation now that the river water cannot be drunk, APIAM coordinator Mariazinha Bare said.

"The smaller rivers have dried up and turned to mud," Bare said in an interview. "Indigenous people have to walk long distances in the rainforest to find potable water, and the poor quality of water is making people ill," she said."

Indigenous inhabitants in the Amazon are asking the Brazilian government to declare a climate emergency as their villages have no drinking water, food or medicine due to a severe drought that is drying up rivers vital for travel in the rainforest, their leaders said on Tuesday.

10/09/2023

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

"Continuing to celebrate Christopher Columbus implies that we are ignoring the well-documented history of his atrocities... In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Many are taught that lesson early in American schools, but the rhyme leaves out the carnage that Columbus brought when he arrived."

Christopher Columbus has a well-documented record of torturing and killing Native Americans. Celebrating Indigenous People's Day helps denounce that.

09/13/2023

This Sunday Sept. 17, Tribal Link will help organize an afternoon of Indigenous wisdom, music, art, and fashion for the climate at Culture Lab LIC at The Plaxall Gallery, 5-25 46th Ave, Queens, NY. Please come!

1-9pm - Holistic and Art Salon Market
4pm - Opening Climate Conscious Ceremony by Tashka Yawanawa & Laura Soriano Yawanawa
4:30pm - Music by Eric Terena & Djuena Tikuna
5pm - Fashion by three incredible Indigenous designers: MAURÍCIO DUARTE, HAKHU Amazon Design, Leo, 4Kinship and all Indigenous models including , Samela Sateré Mawé, Tukumã Pataxó and others.

We hope to see you there!

Organized by Ofrenda Fest & Tribal Link Foundation

09/08/2023

Lula da Silva Grants Legal Protection to Two Indigenous Territories

September 5, 2023
Reuters

(Translated from Portuguese)

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday officially recognized two indigenous territories, granting them legal protection as reserves to defend against invasions by illegal loggers, gold miners and cattle ranchers.

The announcement was made on the day Brazil celebrates its Amazon region, home to the world's largest rainforest, whose conservation is considered essential to absorb the carbon emissions responsible for global warming.

Environmentalists say indigenous groups are the best guardians of the rainforest and deforestation data show that the forests in their reserves are the best preserved.

Lula, who has pledged to legalize as many reserves as possible, has so far signed decrees recognizing eight indigenous territories since taking office in January.

It is a race against time, as Brazil's Congress is pushing a law that would restrict recognition of indigenous land claims, a move backed by the country's powerful agricultural lobby.

However, the Supreme Court is expected to rule that the deadline for claiming ancestral lands that were not lived on in 1988 is unconstitutional for denying recognized indigenous rights.

The reserves legalized by Lula on Tuesday are the Acapuri de Cima and Rio Gregorio indigenous territories, in the states of Amazonas and Acre, respectively.

Some 500 Kokamas live on 19,000 hectares of rainforest in the first reserve, and 2,000 Katukina and Yawanawá live on 187,944 hectares in the second.

Lula plans to recognize six more reserves before the end of the year, according to Indigenous Peoples Minister Sonia Guajajara.

Guajajara claimed that the government's plans to legalize more reserves have provoked threats of violence against indigenous communities based on unfounded rumors.

"They say that the demarcations will take land from peasants, and even towns and cities, which is causing terror," she told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

Reuters El presidente de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reconoció oficialmente el martes dos territorios indígenas, otorgándoles protección legal como reservas para defenderse de las invasiones de madereros ilegales, mineros de oro […]

08/21/2023

An incredible story which will have far-reaching consequences for the Amazon rainforest.

"There was virtually nothing but rainforest for miles, and then the government agents spotted it: a makeshift shelter, the fire still smoldering. There were two sets of footprints, two machetes and two spots for hammocks.

“He was just here,” said one of the agents, Jair Candor, crouching beneath the shelter in June as his partner snapped photographs. Mr. Candor had spent 35 years searching for a man who did not want to be found — and this time, he just missed him.

"That man, Tamandua Piripkura, has lived his life on the run. Not from authorities or enemies — though plenty of people would like to see him dead — but from modernity.

"Tamandua is one of the last three known survivors of the Piripkura people, an offshoot of a larger Indigenous group that once spread across a large swath of the forest. He has lived isolated, deep in the Amazon rainforest, his entire life, believed to be about 50 years."

Pakyi and Tamandua are the final known isolated members of the Piripkura people. They are posing a tricky challenge for Brazil.