Her name is Maganogan Surui. She is 76 years old, which means that the first 23 years of her life were before first contact with Brazilian society.
It seemed like all my senses were supercharged.
We will hope to meet some day…Where their people never say…SAYONARA
When I was 17, I went hiking by myself in the ancient forests of Meares Island on the west coast of Canada. As dusk fell, I encountered a pack of wolves, who soon surrounded me — howling and flashing their fangs. I was terrified and ran deep into the forest and found this hollow tree to take shelter in. The wolves then left me alone. I stayed all night within the belly of this mighty tree. In the morning, I set up my camera and snapped this photograph of me and the tree that took me in for the night (look closely and you'll spot me). It's no wonder that I care for trees given how well they've treated me.
The most rewarding part of the trip for me happened at the end when we spent a day with an organization called Ny Tanintsika, which translates to Our World. Each of their initiatives is connected to the others in a way that strengthens each one and forms a cohesive whole. It was a tangible example of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
Their makeshift sleeping bag had been sewn by other survivors using insulation salvaged from the plane wreckage. It barely worked and the two suffered hypothermia on several terrifying nights when death seemed to be tapping them on the shoulder.
At the age of just five years old, Ruby Dunstan began attending the innocuously termed "residential school" near her village. In the first few days, she was beaten by the supervisors for not obeying orders correctly — however she, like other native children at the school, only spoke an indigenous language and didn’t understand English!
Over time, thousands of people came to visit Merve and his "Wildwood" forest to learn about his alternative to the predominant "clear-cut" industrial forestry that had laid waste to forests in Canada and around the world.
Désiré Rabary used his modest earnings as a nature guide in northern Madagascar to purchase an endangered forest near his home in order to protect it.