Indigenous tribes in Brazil have turned to prayer as thousands of fires wreak havoc on the Amazon.
A number of people from Shanenawa tribe gathered in the village of Feijo, located in the West of Brazil, alongside the border with Peru, to perform a ritual.
The ritual, that was aimed to pray for peace between nature and humans, included a traditional performance from the tribesmen who painted their faces and danced around in circles.
Watch the ritual below.
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Video credit: Rumble
“We want peace and love,” Tekaheyne Shanenawa, one of the leaders of the tribe, told Reuters. “Peace, harmony and education to stop these fires that have attacked the Amazon.”
The world’s largest rainforest has been devastated by tens of thousands of fires during this year’s dry season, the worst season in the last 10 years.
It comes just when President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right leader, hinted his plans to exploit the forest reserves of the Amazon.
“If the fires continue the way they are, in 50 years time we will no longer have the forest standing up,” another Shanenawa leader, Bainawa Inu Bake Huni Kuin, said.
“And we will not feel secure in what we have, in our culture, in our language, in our songs. Us without the forest, we won’t be able to farm, we won’t be able to eat, without our land we won’t be able to live.”
“Our rituals pray for planet Earth, to always keep it healthy and safe,” he said. “We pray for mother water, for father sun, for mother forest and for mother earth, whom today feel very wounded.”
A major part of the Amazon is in Brazil. Colombia and Peru also host significant portions of the rainforest and blazes have also been detected in them.
Brazil’s incumbent administration sparked outrage after it admitted that it lacks the resources required to extinguish a fire of such magnitude.
Many of the fires have reportedly been started by soy and cattle farmers.
The tribe Shanenawa comprises of around 720 people, who live on 57,000 acres (23,000 hectares) of land.
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