The Vale do Javari indigenous territory is home to 4000 indigenous from 5 tribes, but it also protects the largest number of uncontacted tribes living in complete isolation in the Brazilian Amazon. Collectively these tribes face threats of loss of ancestral land, oil exploitation, illegal fishing, hunting, and logging, drug trafficking, and gold mining while the contacted tribes have also been facing an underlying health crisis hindering their survival. Parallel to the human story, the Javari is considered by IUCN as one of the irreplaceable places of our planet due to its incredible biodiversity.
The issues faced here are not restricted to the indigenous tribes of the Amazon Basin, they are shared across cultures and continents: health crises, economic development at the expense of human life, land demarcation, human rights abuse, and environmental degradation. What we find here happens to indigenous peoples and remote communities worldwide. This isn’t the middle of nowhere, but rather the middle of somewhere incredibly relevant to us all.
Created by Céline Cousteau through CauseCentric Productions (CCP), Tribes on the Edge is a campaign to support the indigenous people of the Vale do Javari and aid in the continued protection of this land for the benefit of all peoples. Our goals are to educate an international community about the indigenous people and this incredibly biodiverse ecosystem, bring support to entities on the ground working with and on relevant issues, and empower the tribes to govern their own fate. At the center of this movement is an intimate narrative documentary film that weaves the stories of Céline and Adauto, two people from very different worlds whose intersecting paths are symbolic of a global human story. A second shorter film will be guided primarily by the voices of the Javari with a more journalistic approach to revealing what the tribes want the world to know. An engagement campaign will include film festivals, conferences, and discussions to involve and motivate the audience to take action. Educational materials will be created for digital (printable) distribution, including a schedule of Skype the Classroom lectures by experts.
