![]() ![]() A friend’s tip-off had allowed him to evade an ambush and return safely to the reserve. He said they’d been going around the city of Amarante, just outside the reserve, showing his image to Guajajara on the street, asking if anyone knew of his whereabouts. At the time, Paulino said he was using a pseudonym, Lobo Mau, or “Bad Wolf,” so “they won’t know my real name.” But loggers did know what he looked like-they had a photo of him on their cell phones. I was in Maranhão two years ago to report on the Guardians and the fate of the Awá for National Geographic. The wounded Guardian, Tainaky Tehetehar, also known by his Portuguese name, Laércio Souza Silva Guajajara, received medical treatment and was later moved to an undisclosed location for his safety. But the Guardians had little doubt who stood behind them: the same criminals who have been stealing their timber and endangering the lives of the Awá, a tribe living apart from the modern world that is especially vulnerable to contagious diseases and violence. Those issuing the threats cloaked themselves in anonymity. The dead man, Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, and his fellow volunteers had been warning authorities for months that they were receiving a steady stream of death threats. ![]() Besides the Guajajara, Arariboia harbors several dozen uncontacted Awá nomads, whom the Guardians have vowed to defend, together with the forests they depend on for survival. While the other deaths occurred outside the bounds of the territory, this month’s assault marked the first time Guardians have been ambushed inside the reserve. The Forest Guardians-three of whom were killed in a single month in 2016-have been locked in an intensifying battle with illegal loggers invading their homeland, Arariboia Indigenous Territory, in the eastern Amazonian state of Maranhão.
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