- Almost 20% of the Kayapó Indigenous Territory has burned in this year’s Amazon drought, the worst ever recorded in Brazil.
- The land has for years been subjected to illegal mining, cattle ranching and burning of forests, degrading both the soil and rivers and significantly disrupting the way of life for the Mebêngôkre-Kayapó people.
- The Indigenous inhabitants now confront a growing crisis as wildfires and drought threaten their lands, particularly along the Riozinho River.
- According to ecologist Rodolfo Salm, who has worked with the Kayapó since 1996, fire has now surpassed illegal logging as the greatest danger to the region.
SÃO FÉLIX DO XINGU, Brazil — In the village of Tepdjàti, nestled deep within the Kayapó Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon, the air is thick with smoke and the landscape is parched. The village’s only water source is an artesian well with a solar-power pump. But the thick smoke from nearby wildfires has blocked out the sunlight, leaving the device without any power.
Even water from the nearby river, once a lifeline for the village, has become polluted and undrinkable. “It’s not suitable for bathing, drinking, or preparing our food,” Ngory Maradona Kayapó, a local leader, tells Mongabay. The situation is dire, with crops like bananas, yams and manioc, all vital to the Indigenous villagers’ subsistence, reduced to ash by a recent fire.
This village is just one of many across the Kayapó Indigenous Territory, in the state of Pará, that’s grappling with the devastating effects of Brazil’s worst drought on record. The Riozinho River, which once sustained them, is now dry, forcing them to rely on contaminated streams for water. The drought, coupled with rampant wildfires, has wreaked havoc on the Kayapó way of life. With low river levels, boats, the primary form of transportation, cannot be used for delivering food or medicine or for transporting patients to hospitals. “The medicine that comes from the health service is very little. Many children are suffering from vomiting, diarrhea and fever,” Ngory says.
The Kayapó Indigenous Territory spanning 3.28 million hectares (8.11 million acres), or an area larger than Belgium, has been hit hard by this year’s Amazon drought. Nearly 20% of the land, 571,750 hectares (1.4 million acres), has been scorched by fire. This is the highest rate of destruction since 2012. It’s also the most fire-gutted Indigenous territory in Brazil, according to a report by Greenpeace using data from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Illegal activities like mining and land grabbing have fueled the fires, which are spreading rapidly due to this year’s prolonged drought. The dry conditions and intense heat have allowed the flames to advance unchecked, consuming forest, subsistence crops, and hunting grounds essential to several Amazonian communities.
The impact of this year’s drought and fires is part of a broader crisis gripping the entire Amazon. Across the rainforest, rivers have receded to historic lows. Water levels in the mighty Madeira River, the Amazon River’s largest tributary, fell to just 79 centimeters (31 inches) in the city of Porto Velho, breaking previous records. Other rivers across the Amazon Basin, like the Negro, Solimões and Purus, have also seen unprecedented drops, leaving entire communities stranded and without access to clean water.
The 2024 crisis follows an extreme drought in the Amazon in 2023, which authorities now say has been surpassed by this year’s record-breaking dry season — the worst ever recorded. According to a report by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international team of climate scientists who analyze extreme weather events, climate change made the 2023 Amazon drought 30 times more likely. While El Niño, a natural phenomenon marked by the persistent warming of Pacific Ocean surface waters, was initially believed to be a major factor, it played a smaller role than expected. Instead, human-driven climate change — primarily driven by greenhouse gas emissions — was the dominant cause, the scientists determined, leading to unusually high temperatures and increased evaporation.
For the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, the fires have become a more pressing threat than even illegal logging. “When I first arrived, the biggest threat was the illegal exploitation of mahogany,” says Rodolfo Salm, a professor of ecology at the Federal University of Pará, who has spent decades studying in the region. “Today, fire is the main danger.” The flames aren’t just destroying trees and crops; they’re obliterating entire ecosystems and the delicate balance that Indigenous communities rely on. Hunting and fishing, crucial for their survival, have become nearly impossible in the charred landscape. Rivers that once teemed with life are now shallow, dirty and polluted.
In the north of the Kayapó territory, the situation has grown particularly grim. Fires that began in cattle pastures outside the Indigenous land have spread uncontrollably, consuming forests and crops alike. The flames, driven by scorching temperatures and dry land, have left villages blanketed in smoke. “The smoke is horrible,” Takaprim Kayiapó, chief of the village of Akrotidjam, tells Mongabay. “It’s awful here, so much smoke in the village.”
In Akrotidjam, residents have been forced to rely on emergency food baskets and bottled water sent by local authorities. Even simple tasks like traveling by river, once a daily activity, have become arduous, with boats needing to be carried through dry sections of the river.
‘Everything is burned’
This year’s fires have reached unprecedented levels. More than 1,799 hotspots were detected in September alone in the Kayapó Indigenous Territory, accounting for 62% of the total fires reported here throughout the year. Fires that often start outside the Indigenous land, deliberately set by ranchers to expand pastureland, are advancing toward its borders.
Some of the worst-affected communities are located along the Xingu River, which forms much of the territory’s western border and anchors a region typically known for its rich biodiversity and plentiful water. But the river, a tributary of the Amazon and one of the largest in the basin, has receded dramatically, leaving villages like Akrotidjam, Kubenkrãkej and Tepdjàti feeling the strain. “It’s very dry, the river is very hot, and it’s very dirty,” says Beptemexti Kayapó, a member of the Beture Cineastas Mebêngôkre Collective, an alliance of Indigenous filmmakers. “It’s really hard for us to drink water, you know? It’s very difficult, there’s no more hunting, no more fishing.”
Beptemexti, who has been documenting the crisis through his photography, explains how the fires have ravaged his community. “Everything is burned. The village is full of smoke. It’s hard to breathe,” he says. His village, at the northern end of the territory, near the municipality of São Félix do Xingu, has been cut off from regular travel routes due to the drying rivers. The community can now only be reached by plane; boat passage is no longer possible in many areas.
To the northeast, in the Xikrin do Rio Cateté Indigenous Territory, the story is much the same. The Cateté River has dried up, leaving shallow pools where villagers once fished. “This river used to rise a lot, but now it doesn’t anymore,” Beptoti Kayapó, a local resident, told Mongabay. “It’s dry, and you can cross it on foot.” While the Xikrin people rely less on fishing than their Kayapó neighbors, they still feel the effects of the drought and fires. Many residents have reported respiratory problems as a result of the constant smoke.
The situation in the Kayapó and Xikrin Indigenous territories is a microcosm of the broader environmental disaster unfolding across the Amazon. Deforestation, illegal mining and the expansion of cattle ranching have left the forest vulnerable to fires. Experts and authorities say vast areas are intentionally set on fire to make way for new pastures in the dry season. Often, these fires spiral out of control, spreading into Indigenous lands and protected areas. The smoke generated by the fires also blankets entire towns, including Ourilândia do Norte and Tucumã, which lie between the Kayapó and Xikrin territories, and where visibility on the roads and air quality have both dropped to hazardous levels.
This crisis isn’t confined to Brazil. In Bolivia, Indigenous communities are also facing the devastating return of wildfires, particularly in the Chiquitano dry forests of Santa Cruz department. Experts warn that these fires, primarily driven by slash-and-burn agricultural practices, are on track to become the worst in the country’s history. Last year, wildfires ravaged vast swaths of Bolivia, including, for the first time, the Pilón Lajas Indigenous reserve straddling the departments of La Paz and Beni. Communities are still reeling from the destruction of 2023, which saw approximately 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of Amazonian rainforest and savanna scorched between September and November.
Despite the ongoing destruction, Bolivia’s Indigenous communities have received little support from local and national authorities in their efforts to recover. Many have been left to rebuild and implement own their fire prevention measures, fearing a repeat of last year’s devastation. The Bolivian government declared a national disaster on Sept. 30 this year after fires had destroyed more than 7 million hectares (17.3 million acres) of forest and natural vegetation. This surpasses even the catastrophic losses of 2019, when 5.3 million hectares (13.1 million acres) were burned.
The smog from nearby fires has blanketed regions far from the fire’s direct path, including Indigenous communities like Asunción de Quiquibey in the northwestern Amazon Basin. The community, part of an Indigenous Mosetén village in an Indigenous reserve, remains on edge despite the absence of active fires in its immediate vicinity. Smog from distant wildfires has enveloped the area for weeks, stirring fears of another outbreak similar to the one in 2023.
Peru has also seen significant destruction from wildfires, with 383 outbreaks reported across 23 of the country’s 24 departments. As of Sept. 23, the fires had killed 20 people and injured 165. In neighboring Ecuador and Colombia, fires have also wreaked havoc. In Quito, Ecuador’s capital, schools were closed due to the dense smoke blanketing the city. Meanwhile, Colombia reported the destruction of 44,040 hectares (108,825 acres) of forest, pasture and crops in September alone.
As the fires continue to burn, the Brazilian government and local authorities have struggled to contain the damage. Emergency relief efforts, such as distributing food baskets and bottled water, have been deployed, but aren’t enough to address the root causes of the crisis.
Salm, the ecology professor, says the solution to this crisis lies in collaboration between Indigenous communities, scientists and international organizations. “It’s no use rushing between the flames when the forest is already on fire,” he says. “This moment calls for new actions and new challenges.” He stresses the importance of long-term strategies to prevent future fires and protect the remaining forest. This includes empowering Indigenous communities to defend their lands and implementing stricter regulations to curb illegal activities in the Amazon.
Extreme drought pushes Amazon’s main rivers to lowest-ever levels
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