Forest Fuels will be based in Brazil’s North West Acre state – where inhabitants are threatened by illegal logging, natural gas and oil exploration and major infrastructure works.
The resulting oil will be used to power vehicle and canoe engines. It has been set up by Commissao Pro Indio do Acre, a Brazilian charity that works to support indigenous communities.
It will benefit more than 650 Yawanawan people living in remote areas where they are a two-day canoe journey from the nearest road. The idea is that by reducing their dependency on fossil fuels they will become more self sufficient and more mobile.
It is the first tree oil pilot to be carried out in an indigenous community, where the local people are in control. The project will promote exchange between communities in Brazil and Honduras and hopefully providing a new model for the responsible use of natural resources, which can be extended to other areas. Its results will be included in the Land and Environment Managements Plans of Indigenous Areas in Brazil.
It will be based at the Training Centre for People of the Forest and will benefit 6 indigenous groups living across 17 regions, 126 local forestry agents and 30 representatives of local people who are trained at the centre each year.

About the winner
Tashka left the Yawanawá community in the Brazilian Amazon in 1998 to learn languages and skills that would help his people deal with the encroaching forces of the “modern” world. He won a scholarship from Aveda Corporation to study at the University of California in Santa Barbara and then in Taos, New Mexico (USA) where he studied business and computer graphics. Since then he has earned a degree in computing science and graphic design from the Universidad Federal Fluminense de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He served as the Vice Coordinator for the Centro de Investigación Indigena in Acre, Brazil and was the editor of the indigenous newspaper YUMAKI as well as other publications used for indigenous education in the Brazilian Amazon.

He has spoken at conferences throughout the Americas and in Europe addressing the issues of indigenous peoples. He co-founded the Nawa Institute to serve indigenous peoples and also INIYA (Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth Alliance). Four years after leaving the Amazon to live and study in the US, Tashka returned after receiving a request from his people to be Chief of the Yawanawa and its government.