Historical - Blog - maoliworld

A member of a Brazilian indigenous tribe is silhouetted against the morning sky

(AFP) – 10 hours agoBRASILIA — Brazil on Tuesday declared new indigenous reserves in vast tracts of Amazon rainforest totaling an area equivalent to half the size of Portugal.The zones, amounting to 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square miles), will enjoy protected status for the 7,000 indigenous Brazilians living in them, according to the decree signed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva."We will never be able to do enough for the indigenous people. The debt is historic and we can never reimburse through money, we can only make concrete gestures," Lula said.The biggest of the reserves, Trombetas Mapuera, comprises 40,000 square kilometers of forest -- practically the same size as the Netherlands or Switzerland. It is home to some tribes which have never had contact with the outside world.Another reserve, Arroio-Kora, goes to the Guarani-kaiowa and Nandeva Indians in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where violent conflicts over land also claimed by farmers are frequent.The government has two motives in establishing the zones: giving back land to traditional populations, and preserving the Amazon rainforest. Lula's administration has pledged to cut deforestation by 80 percent over the next decade.There are now 663 indigenous reserves in Brazil totaling more than one million square kilometers -- equivalent to two times the size of Spain.The National Foundation of the Indians, or Funai, a government agency, calculates that there are around one million Indians in Brazil out of the total national population of 195 million.Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »Here is Wade Davis again.Watch and listen to this video to the end - Wade speaks about the Inuit Nation and the land they recovered:

With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, which are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.

I read through the latest script last night. Obviously this guy wanted to use our Princess as a main character simply because he needed an exotic angle to make a sub-standard love story seem more interesting.What I found most ironic was the disclaimer on the second page: "This film is based on historical fact. Some events and dates have been altered for dramatic license."Yah, no kidding.How about this alteration of historical fact: there are no bayonets present at the signing of the Bayonet Constitution. (There's very good reason why the constitution was named after a weapon...)Or these "alterations"...The Royal Hawaiian Band plays Hawai'i Ponoi at the ceremony for the declaration of the Republic, but then shows them walking off. There's no explanation as to why they walked off...if I didn't know Hawaiian history, I wouldn't understand this move at all. There's no way for the audience to know that they were protesting.The narrator at the end talks about the 1993 Apology Bill for the ILLEGAL overthrow of the kingdom, but there's not one single thing within the movie to illustrate that. I mean, how is the audience supposed to understand why it is illegal? The only mention made is when Thurston sends a message to Stevenson...but you're expected to figure out for yourself why he did that or what it meant, and what happened as a result? There's no way John Q. Public could figure out what all of this means without doing research on his own... and how likely is that?How about the portrayal of Thurston as some idiotic hot-head who can't keep his mouth shut and his gun in its holster? While the thought of this is entertaining, I think this portrayal is more accurate of his descendants, and not necessarily of him. I mean, do we really want the world thinking that someone that stupid was able to take away our kingdom? It makes us out to be idiots as well.Or what about the sympathetic Dole, who wasn't sorry that he had a role in stealing our kingdom, but who was sorry that we couldn't vote once American law took over. Poor thing, yah...? He feels so guilty...I think the most damaging part, however, is at the end when Ka'iulani says that "...an entire nation died..." Then Dole tells Ka'iulani that the nation, "...lives in you." And then the next thing you see is Ka'iulani dying.Yes, lets just tell the entire world through illustration that we believe our nation is dead, and that the Princess who fought so hard for that nation believed it too. Obviously the writer of this movie believes that, or he wouldn't have structured the script that way.Of course, filmmakers have always used that "dramatic license" disclaimer to create wildly inaccurate fantasies about actual events...Hawai'i is not the first to fall victim to it, nor will we be the last. Unfortunately the film is still being made. And at some point, an audience somewhere will walk out of a theater thinking, "that's a shame about what happened to Hawai'i," then never think about it again.Thanks to Maoliworld for posting the script.

Historical (2)

Brazil sets aside vast tracts for new indigenous reserves

My thoughts on the Ka'iulani Script

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