Dark is the trail of history...

The land of the Surui people from Rondônia is situated in Brazil, between the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso, in the municipalities of Cocoal (Rondônia) and Aripuanã (Mato Grosso).

The seventies
The first peaceful contact of the Surui with white people dates from 1969. Following this contact, about half of the Surui population died due to diseases introduced by the white people, so the ethnic group ended up counting less than 300 individuals at the beginning of 1980's.

The eighties
The exploitation of wood began in 1987, on the initiative of white people who pushed the Indians to this illegal activity of which they collected a part of the economic profits, huge disparities, previously unknown, appeared.

The Suruí were tempted by this easy money, and were for a long time swindled on the prices of the wood, not knowing, at this time, neither reading nor counting. The exploitation was realized by white lumberjacks, who cut down trees and then declared down the volumes of wood and paid it to Suruí, at much lower prices than those of the market.

Among the Suruí, very few families really benefited from this business, profits which were often quickly wasted in useless spending.

The nineties
The community Metareila organization (with the support of local environmentalist organizations, as Defesa Etno-Ambiental's Associação Kanindé and Proteção Ambiental Cacoalense (PACA)), began in 1988 to fight the illegal exploitation of wood on native lands, beginning by dismissing certain leaders compromised in this traffic. For 15 years, on the instigation of a new generation of leaders, this fight against the wood industry was naturally not simple and met numerous difficulties, even sometimes set backs. The habits taken meanwhile, the inferred needs, and external pressures led to the recurence of wood sales.

With the apparition od economic inequities and the proximity of the town of Cacoal with its subsequent social problems, a multitude of social problems appeared within the communities.

Nevertheless the Surui managed to free themselves from the dependence towards the lumberjacks, to return to traditional activities and to try to develop new activities less predatory (fish breeding, coffee, crafts).

The beginning of the third millennium
These last years, the Surui played, on the scale of Rondônia, an important role among the native organizations (notably within inter-ethnic organizations) as precursors and as examples of an effective fight against the invasions and the destructions of land. Although this success remains fragile and threatened, the deforestation does not progress any more today on the Surui lands. But nevertheless certain zones were profoundly affected, and the forest has not grown again there. Today the forest is playing an important role, symbolically and economically, in the traditional producing activities, it is to that effect that the Surui have undertaken a reafforestation program of their ancestral lands.

Some villages never gave in to deforestation; it is these villages, and most of all teh village of Lapetanha, which support the project of reaforestation.

The Aquaverde association intends to provide the Surui People the means to develop their activities in the respect of their dignity, of their ancestral culture and of their environment.

"Love never looses its way home"