Google to harness satellite power for an Amazon tribe / When the Brazilian government failed to defend his tribe against loggers and miners, the leader found a high-tech ally

Google to harness satellite power for an Amazon tribe: When the Brazilian government failed to defend his tribe against loggers and miners, the leader found a high-tech ally. Chronicle Graphic Google to harness satellite power for an Amazon tribe: When the Brazilian government failed to defend his tribe against loggers and miners, the leader found a high-tech ally. Chronicle Graphic Photo: Todd Trumbull Photo: Todd Trumbull Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Google to harness satellite power for an Amazon tribe / When the Brazilian government failed to defend his tribe against loggers and miners, the leader found a high-tech ally 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

The journey from the September 7th Reserve deep in Brazil's Amazon forest includes a two-hour, four-wheel-drive jeep trip on a bumpy dirt road, a 10-hour bus ride and 14 hours on three airplane flights. But Amazon Chief Almir Surui knew it was the first step in his struggle to forge an alliance he hopes will save his 1,200-member tribe.

Almir says loggers and miners have already killed 11 Surui chiefs -- Surui is both the common surname and name of the tribe -- who tried to prevent them from entering their lands over the past five years, and he says Brazilian government officials have failed to stop the violence. So the 32-year-old indigenous leader, a stocky man who often dons a headdress made from feathers of Amazonian birds, opted for another route -- an appeal to Google.

During his visit to the Bay Area late last month, Almir, the first Surui to graduate from college, asked the folks at Google Earth for high-quality satellite imagery that would allow the tribe to monitor loggers and miners, who have no legal right to operate on the tribe's 600,000-acre reserve about 1,600 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro.

His plea fell on receptive ears with company officials in Mountain View, who are now at work on a plan to let the Surui use Google's technology to raise awareness of their plight by working with satellite providers to vastly improve image resolution.

"The Amazon rain forest and its indigenous peoples are disappearing rapidly, which has serious consequences both locally and globally," said Google Earth spokeswoman Megan Quinn. "This project can raise global awareness of the Surui people's struggle to preserve their land and culture by reaching more than 200 million Google Earth users around the world."

This is not the first time Google Earth has helped environmental or humanitarian causes. Last year, the Mountain View company joined with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to map out destroyed villages in Darfur, with the Jane Goodall Institute to follow chimpanzees in Tanzania, and with the U.N. Environment Program to illustrate 100 areas around the world that have been severely deforested.

In the case of the Amazon, Almir says improved satellite images would not only keep tabs on loggers and miners but would also help strengthen Surui culture by cataloging medicinal plants, hunting grounds, ancestral cemeteries and sacred sites.

"We want people to know that these territories are not just empty swaths of green as seen by satellite, but the homes, supermarkets, museums, libraries of a people who depend on these areas for their survival," said Vasco van Roosmalen, Brazil director for Amazon Conservation Team, an Arlington, Va., organization that provided the tribe's 22 villages with laptop computers, handheld Global Positioning System devices and satellite maps.

Brazilian officials "are sensitive about their image regarding illegal loggers," van Roosmalen said, "and are increasingly aware the world is watching."

Large-scale incursions into the country's tribal territories began in the 1970s soon after the completion of the 2,000-mile Trans-Amazon Highway. Indian tribes found themselves battling road builders, ranchers, farmers, loggers and miners. Partly as a result, Brazil's indigenous population has declined from an estimated 4 million before the first Europeans landed to about 700,000 today. An estimated 400,000 live in Amazon reserves. About 20 percent of the rain forest has been cut down.

In 1988, a new Brazilian constitution guaranteed indigenous tribes the right to live on their ancestral lands. Almost 600 reserves were established, encompassing 12.5 percent of Brazil's territory. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has added four new reserves since taking office in 2003.

Yet many of these areas exist only on paper, activists say, partly because Brazil's environmental agency has just one forest ranger for every 650 square miles at its 278 federal preserves. The country's Indian Affairs Bureau has "acknowledged a lack of resources to protect indigenous lands from encroachment ... depends on the understaffed and poorly equipped federal police for law enforcement on indigenous lands," according to the U.S. Department of State's 2006 human rights report.

As a result, between 60 and 80 percent of all logging in the Amazon is illegal, environmentalists say. Illegal loggers, hungry for the tribe's mahogany and other valuable hardwoods, are not happy with Almir's campaign.

On a recent 10-day U.S. tour, Almir asked the Organization of American States to provide him with protection after receiving several death threats and being told that loggers had offered $100,000 to two Surui youths to kill him. Brasilia has yet to make good on a promise to send him bodyguards, Almir says.

"I am not Chico Mendes," he said, referring to the Amazon rubber tapper leader and environmental activist who was killed by ranchers in 1988. "I don't want to be a hero. I am afraid, but that won't stop me from going home to fight for what I believe in."

In past years, Almir challenged the World Bank when its funds destined for indigenous groups didn't arrive. He sued the state of Rondonia after it failed to provide the tribe such basic services as water wells and health clinics. He has also encouraged the Surui to export crops such as coffee, Brazil nuts and acai, the latter an Amazon berry rich in nutrients that has become a favorite staple at such U.S. outlets as Jamba Juice.

"I am not against using the forest to make a living," he said. "But the environment must be respected in a sustainable and harmonious way."

Almir fears some Surui chiefs will succumb, as they have in the past, to huge bribes offered by loggers. "Our plan won't provide money tomorrow," he said. "I am very worried that when the rains stop, loggers will come and offer money, money, money."

Google officials say they hope their alliance with the tech-savvy Almir is the start of something entirely new in the Amazon.

"We are starting with Chief Almir ... because his tribe is the most advanced in their mapping skills and in their vision for positive use of technology," said Google Earth's Quinn. "We hope this project will inspire other Amazon tribes."

PBS documentary

Chief Almir Surui will be featured in "Children of the Amazon." The film, by Berkeley resident Denise Zmekhol, will air on PBS sometime next year.