The Awá are an endangered indigenous group of people living in the eastern Amazon forests of Brazil. Originally living in settlements, they adopted a nomadic lifestyle about 1800 to escape incursions by Europeans. During the nineteenth century, they came under increasing attack by settlers in the region, who cleared most of the forests from their land. From the mid-1980s onward, some Awá moved to government-established settlements, but for the most part they were able to maintain their traditional way of life, living entirely off their forests, in nomadic groups of a few dozen people, with little or no contact with the outside world. Indigenous peoples are: Peoples living in an area prior to colonization by a state Peoples living in an area within a nation-state, prior to the formation of a nation-state, but who do not identify with the dominant nation. ... Length 6,296 km Elevation of the source 5,597 m Average discharge 219,000 m³/ s Area watershed 6,915,000 km² Origin Nevado Mismi Mouth Atlantic Ocean Basin countries Brazil (62. ... The Federative Republic of Brazil (República Federativa do Brasil in Portuguese) is the largest and most populous country in South America, and fifth largest in the world. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ...

In 1982, the Brazilian government received a loan of nine hundred million US dollars from the World Bank and the European Union. One condition of this loan was that the lands of certain indigenous peoples (including the Awá) would be demarcated and protected. This was particularly important for the Awá because their forests were increasingly being invaded by outsiders. There were many cases of tribespeople being killed by settlers, but perhaps more significantly, the forest on which they depend was being destroyed by logging and land clearance for farming. Without government intervention it seemed very likely that the Awá and their ancient culture would become extinct. 1982 is a number and represents a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar Events January-February January 6 - William Bonin is convicted of being the freeway killer. January 8 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions January 11 - Mark Thatcher, son of the British... The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, in Romance languages: BIRD), better known as the World Bank, is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by WWII. Now, its mission has expanded to fight poverty by means of financing states. ... The European Union or EU is an intergovernmental organisation of European countries, which currently has 25 member states. ...

However, the Brazilian government was extraordinarily slow to act on its commitment. It took twenty years of sustained pressure from campaigning organisations such as Survival International and the Forest Peoples Programme before, in March 2003, the Awá's land was finally demarcated. Survival International is an organisation formed in 1969 that campaigns for rights for indigenous tribal peoples, helping them preserve their land and culture. ... The Forest Peoples Programme is a non-governmental organisation that campaigns for the rights of indigenous forest-dwellers. ... 2003 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December - → A timeline of events in the news for March, 2003. ...

During this time, encroachment on their land and a series of massacres had reduced Awá numbers to about 300, of whom only about 60 were still living their traditional, isolated, hunter-gatherer way of life. In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ...