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Indigenous youths use tech as 'weapon' to protect Amazon
Today, the weapon of choice for many young Indigenous activists to defend native lands in the Brazilian Amazon is technology.
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Indigenous activist Txai Surui speaks during the first day of the Web Summit Rio 2023 at the RioCentro Expo Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 1, 2023. (AFP/Mauro Pimentel)
H
er grandfather defended native lands in the Brazilian Amazon with bows and arrows. Today, the weapon of choice for Txai Surui and many young Indigenous activists like her is technology.
The 26-year-old Brazilian is one of the stars of Web Summit Rio, the world's biggest annual technology conference, which was held for the first time outside Europe this week, gathering more than 20,000 entrepreneurs and investors in Brazil.
"Today, technology is like a weapon for us... We use technology and ancestral knowledge as a form of resistance, to protect our land" against illegal logging and mining, Txai told AFP on the sidelines of the conference in Rio de Janeiro.
Using video cameras, drones, GPS, cell phones and social networks, a group of young people from her community monitors land invasions, using an application to report them, says Txai, who stands out in the high-tech conference venue with her feather headdress and traditional face paint.
"But technology can also be used for evil," adds the young activist, the coordinator of the Kaninde Ethno-Environmental Defense Association, which represents 21 Amazon Indigenous peoples.
"The same satellites we use to protect our territory are used by land invaders to destroy it. There are people who use Facebook to sell protected Indigenous lands."
Brazil is home to around 800,000 Indigenous people, according to the latest census.
