Brazilian Amazon chief: The people destroying our forest are naive... not us

The Surui, with a proud history of resistance, fought them with bows and arrows but it was hopeless and, on September 7, 1969, they were forced to give up. It was a disaster. Within three years disease had reduced them from 5,000 to 300. The Brazilian government encouraged settlers by telling them indigenous lands had no owners and illegal logging flourished.

[Photograph by: Arthur Edwards/REUTERS]