Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in November 2019 in the Brazilian Amazon. Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, who interviewed Paulo nine months before his death, returned to the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in August 2023 to talk with his family and the other guardian who survived the attack, Laércio Guajajara, and shine a light on a case that still hasn’t gone to trial after four years.
In just 72 hours this month, five Indigenous people were wounded by gunfire in violent attacks in a part of the Brazilian Amazon dubbed the “palm oil war” region, sparking outrage and claims for justice.
Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 7, security guards for a palm oil company allegedly shot and wounded five Tembé Indigenous people, in the latest flareup linked to a long-running land dispute. The incidents occurred in a part of the Amazonian state of Pará that’s been dubbed the “palm oil war” region, where Mongabay has over the past year documented the escalating tensions.
Brazilian authorities announced the seizure of almost 29 tons of shark fins this month, exposing the extent of what they described as illegal fishing in the country. It was apparently…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Karla Mendes is a fellow. A prominent Indigenous leader was shot in the head on May 14…
A new wave of land conflicts between a major palm oil company and local communities has recently broken out in the Brazilian Amazon, raising concerns about escalating violence in the…
A Mongabay investigation into land-grabbing in the Brazilian Amazon has led to the suspension of the sustainability certificate of the country's second top palm oil exporter, as shown in email correspondence…
BRASÍLIA — Célia Xakriabá recalls how, during her campaign last year for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil’s lower house of Congress, she was always asked how non-Indigenous…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — “I want to see the Yanomami and Raposa Serra do Sol territories free of invasions,” Joenia Wapichana, the first Indigenous woman named president of Brazil’s national Indigenous…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — Hell, tragic and terror. These are the main key words used by Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara to describe to Mongabay what the four years of…
The escalation of violence in Brazil’s northeastern region with the murders of two young Pataxó Indigenous leaders this week triggered the newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to set up…
BRASÍLIA — Since Jan. 8, the whole world has watched as Brazil gets to grips with a violent attack led by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro on key government…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — "We, civil servants, are reopening Funai to Indigenous peoples," anthropologist Janete Carvalho announced in a recent act at the headquarters of Brazil's federal agency for Indigenous affairs. Under former…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — In the first day of his third mandate as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, issued measures to protect the Amazon and Indigenous people, acts highly celebrated…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — “The right of those who used to live here to access the cemetery is in the [Brazilian] Constitution. … The cemetery is a sacred place,” sociologist…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — In November 2021, I went to Pará state, in the Brazilian Amazon, to investigate claims of land grabbing in traditional territories, leveled against one of Brazil's…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — With trembling hands, Raimundo Serrão lights candles for his grandmother at the Livramento Cemetery's cross on the Day of the Dead because he couldn't find her…
Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped 11.27% compared with the prior year, official data show. But the government of President Bolsonaro still accounts for the most Amazon destruction in…
In the 200-year anniversary of Brazil's independence from Portugal, Indigenous people achieved a historical milestone: the highest number of Indigenous candidates elected to the National Congress in the country's history,…
Along a northeastern stretch of the Brazilian Amazon, a palm oil war has broken out. Escalating violence triggered by land disputes between palm oil companies, on one side, and Indigenous…
A Mongabay investigation into palm oil contamination in the Brazilian Amazon has helped federal prosecutors to obtain a court decision this week to scrutinize the environmental impacts of pesticides used…
A yearlong investigation by Mongabay and Earthsight has uncovered new evidence of corrupt deals and illegal practices used by Brazil’s largest flooring exporter, Indusparquet, and its suppliers. From its headquarters…
Indigenous groups in Brazil are demanding justice after a spate of killings allegedly linked to land disputes left four people dead and two injured in the space of just 10…
Three years ago, Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in an alleged ambush by loggers in the Brazilian Amazon. He was a member of the “Guardians of the Forest,”…
Since I became an environmental journalist six years ago, my family, friends and acquaintances all labeled me “crazy”. Why? Because they were extremely scared after reading my articles and hearing…
RIO DE JANEIRO — When the Portuguese fleet led by Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil in 1500, Pero Vaz de Caminha, a knight serving as the secretary to the…
RIO DE JANEIRO — Maracanã, Ipanema, the Lapa Arches, the Church of Our Lady of Glory of Outeiro … Millions of the visitors who flock to Brazil’s most famous city…
Mongabay starts publishing today a series of data-driven multimedia stories on Brazil’s Indigenous people living in urban areas, including the metropolitan centers of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasília, showing that Indigenous people are much closer to most Brazilians than they realize
A recent Mongabay investigation into Brazil’s palm oil supply chain will be included in up to two legal actions targeting Biopalma, whose use of pesticides led to water contamination in an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
A Portuguese language version of this report is published on Mongabay Brasil TOMÉ-AÇU, Brazil — Guided by an Indigenous leader, we drove down dusty roads in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve, a…
Karla Mendes is an award-winning Brazilian journalist working as a Rio de
Janeiro-based Investigative and Feature Reporter for Mongabay and a fellow of the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network. She was elected to the board of directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) for the 2023-2026 term. Karla is the first Brazilian ever elected to the SEJ board; her election also marks the first time that Latin America has a seat on the SEJ board. She was also nominated SEJ's Second Vice President and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Chair.
Karla has been working as a correspondent for international outlets since 2015 and she specialized in covering environmental, land and property rights issues since 2017. She worked as a land and property rights correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation between August 2017 and December 2018. Prior to that, Karla was a business reporter for over 10 years in Rio, Madrid, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte, including with newspapers O Globo, O Estado de S. Paulo, Expansión and news agency S&P Global Market Intelligence. Karla has a Master in Investigative and Data Journalism from the University of King’s College, Canada, and an MBA in finance from São Paulo’s Fundação Instituto de Administração (FIA). She is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Image by Fábio Nascimento.
