Survival International

In last week's Cornish Guardian, my article was about Survival International, which was founded in 1969. The article was as follows:

As a child, I was fascinated by the history and culture of Native Americans, as well as how they lived in modern times.

On my seventh birthday, my parents bought me a Hamlyn book called “Spotlight on the Wild West” and a couple of years later, in 1976, thanks to the encouragement of my wonderful teacher Molly Merkett, I gave a presentation in school assembly to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Looking back, I am quite heartened to recall that I took the side of the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho – and not General George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry.

This interest in tribal peoples has remained with me throughout my adult life and for more than two decades I have been a supporter of Survival International, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

The catalyst to the foundation of this group was an article titled “Genocide” in the Sunday Times on 23rd February 1969. Written by Norman Lewis, it was based on the

Figueiredo Report which detailed atrocities committed against Brazilian Indians in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s including “mass murder, torture, enslavement, bacteriological warfare, sexual abuse, land theft and neglect.”

The article was followed by a letter from Francis Huxley and Nicolas Guppy calling for something to be done. A subsequent meeting was held in the London flat of Robin Hanbury-Tenison and Survival International soon after came into being.

The previous year, Robin (who lives on Bodmin Moor) had been on an expedition up the Orinoco in a hovercraft. Interviewed a few years ago, he recalled how he spent much time there with Conrad Gorinsky, an ethnobotanist and research scientist from Bart's Hospital.

“We travelled up some smaller rivers together to try and reach the tribes to consult them about potentially therapeutic plants. But there was already word coming out of Brazil about the massacres of the Indians that were exposed later by Norman Lewis, and we talked about this endlessly, and it was really Conrad's inspiration that there really ought to be an organisation to protect these people. Libraries of information are lost each time the last shaman dies in a tribe, and a tribe a year was dying out. Conrad was full of it. We talked and talked, and agreed there should be an organisation.”

Survival International is now the world’s leading supporter of tribal people and, over the last fifty years, has done an amazing amount of work to help them defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures.

Further information about the work of Survival International can be viewed at www.survivalinternational.org.