A struggle to survive: how climate change is threatening the existence of small tribes in the Amazon and other traditional cultures across the globe.

• Author: Rosenthal, Elisabeth
• Position: ENVIRONMENT

As the naked, painted young men of the Kamayura tribe in the Amazon prepare for the ritualized war games of a festival, they end their fireside chant with a "whoosh, whoosh" blowing sound. It's a symbolic attempt to eliminate the scent of fish--long a staple of the Kamayura diet--which in times of war signaled their presence to their enemies.

But fish smells are not a problem for the warriors anymore. Deforestation and, many scientists say, global climate change are making the Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks and imperiling the Kamayura's existence. Like other small indigenous cultures around the globe with little money or ability to move, they are struggling to adapt to the changes.

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"Us old monkeys can take the hunger, but the little ones suffer--they're always asking for fish," says Kotok, the tribe's chief. Chief Kotok, who has three wives and 24 children and like all of the Kamayura goes by only one name, says men can now fish all night without a bite in streams where fish used to be abundant. As a result, he says his once-idyllic existence has turned into a kind of bad dream.

"I'm stressed and anxious--this has all changed so quickly, and life has become very hard," he says in Portuguese, Brazil's primary language. "As a chief, I have to have vision and look down the road, but I don't know what will happen to my children and grandchildren."

The Kamayura aren't alone in fearing for their futures. If global temperatures continue to rise, anthropologists are worried about a wave of cultural extinction for dozens of small indigenous groups.

Cultures threatened by climate change span the globe. Rainforest residents like the Kamayura face dwindling food supplies. In the Arctic, some Eskimo communities have lost their only roads--frozen rivers that are now flowing most of the year--and melting sea ice is threatening to wash away coastal communities. Residents of low-lying islands, many in the South Pacific, could lose their land altogether to rising sea levels.

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Throughout history, the response of tribes threatened by untenable climate conditions or political strife was to move. But today, moving is often impossible. Land surrounding tribes is often occupied by an expanding global population, and some once-nomadic groups have settled down, building homes and schools and even declaring statehood.

"In some places, people will have to move to preserve their culture," says Gonzalo...