Who is Txai Surui, the new face of the Amazon who continues the fight of Chief Raoni?

Txai Surui had just two minutes to speak at the 26th Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland on November 1.

But they were enough for the young woman, born in Brazil in 1997, to make an impression.

On this occasion, she, who is a member of an indigenous tribe in the Amazon, streaked her juvenile face with genipa, a tropical tree, covered the headdress of the feathers of the warriors of her clan, and put on two necklaces.

White, symbol of wisdom, and red, of strength.

His speech was not lacking in either.

“My father, Grand Chief Almir Surui, taught me that we should listen to the stars, the moon, the wind, the animals and the trees.

Today, the climate is warming up, animals are disappearing, rivers are dying and our plantations are no longer flourishing as before.

Earth speaks.

She tells us that we no longer have time, ”she said in English, in front of an audience of international leaders blown away by her charisma.

In Stockholm, with Greta Thunberg

With these few words, which have earned him the attention of media and politicians around the world, Walelasoetxeige Paiter Bandeira Surui, by his full name, has taken over from Raoni, 90 years old. Diminished, the Kayapo chief, whose face, with his lower lip stretched out by a red plateau, has embodied the defense of the Amazon rainforest for forty years, was not on the trip, nor Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

“They are complaining that I did not go to Glasgow.

They took an Indian there, to replace Raoni, and attack Brazil.

(…) Nobody criticizes their own country ”, tackled the Head of State, while deforestation is breaking records under his mandate.

Her supporters may have threatened Txai Surui on social networks, the activist, who visited Greta Thunberg in Stockholm before returning to her country, does not intend to give up.

This is not the kind of his family, nor of his tribe, the Paiter Surui, one of the 215 indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

Their original name,

means "We, the real men".

But the anthropologists who discover them call them

"enemy" in the language of the Indians of a rival group who serve as guides to scientists.

His father threatened with death

The meeting of the Surui with "the white man" in 1969, generated terrible epidemics.

Their population then fell from nearly 5,000 to less than 250 members, before growing again to today number 1,400.

In 1976, they obtained the marking of their territory, 247,870 hectares - the equivalent of Luxembourg - in the state of Rondônia, in western Brazil, then, in 1981, the expulsion by justice of the settlers who had invested the premises.

When the latter abandon their homes, the Surui settle there.

Txai grew up in one of these modern villages, Lapetanha, on the edge of a forest that his people make it their mission to protect.

"They see themselves as the guardians, I often compare them to the Gauls of Asterix and Obelix", specifies Thomas Pizer, a Swiss humanitarian whose association Aquaverde has worked with them for a long time.

Txai Surui's mother, Ivaneide Bandeira Cardozo, who founded an environmental NGO, and her father Almir Narayamoga, elected chief of the Surui since he was 36, are at the forefront of this fight.

The first of his tribe to do higher studies in biology, in the 2000s Almir set up a partnership with Google in order to geolocate illegal logging in real time.

Threatened with death to the point of exile for a time in the United States, the leader on his return lived under the protection of special forces.

In "Save the planet"

a letter addressed to his five children in the event that he is assassinated, published in 2015 by Albin Michel, he tells them the story of the Surui, recounts his battles and sends them a plan for the sustainable management of resources. of the forest over fifty years.

His childhood friend murdered in 2020

Txai Surui did not wait long before committing himself.

“She always wanted to study law to defend her people,” says Thomas Pizer, who has known her since childhood.

Still for a semester on the benches of the faculty of Porto Velho, the large city of the region, Txai Surui, who plans to return to live in his native village, created in 2020 the Movement of Indigenous Youth of Rondônia.

With a few comrades, she also lodged a complaint against the Brazilian state for non-compliance with climate objectives.

His fluency in English, acquired during an exchange with the United Kingdom, gives his speeches a wider echo than those of his father, in Portuguese.

Very active on social networks, she publishes texts and videos on Instagram, Twitter or YouTube, where she can be seen wandering among felled trees.

The mission it makes its own is not without risk.

At the Glasgow rostrum, she paid tribute to her childhood friend, Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, who campaigned against the deforestation of Rondônia and was murdered in 2020. She herself is aware of the danger: " Indigenous peoples are on the front lines of the climate emergency.

"