meanwhile, in brazil's maranhao state, indigenous communities have formed citizen patrolso protect the forest from tree poachers. [indistinct chatter] @@ announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by a grant from anne ray foundation, a margaret a. cargill philanthropy; the orange county community foundation; and the farvue foundation. awcfvv [waves crashing] - at the beginning, before non-indians came here, we had a recorded population of about 10,000 people around here. by the turn of the century, we had 123 people listed on the census rolls. so as a kid growing up, i learned all this. and i thought, "well, what happens to that knowledge when someone dies?" it goes with them. you can't teach someone after you're dead. [mellow string music] i feel it's a travesty if we don't share.