Georeferencing, a digital process for registering land ownership, is now widespread in South America, but it is high-tech that can be used by landgrabbers and companies to obtain deeds to collective ancestral lands.
The historical record shows that Indigenous reserves are only safe from invasion by illegal deforesters once fully protected by government — protections rapidly eroding in Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
A federal judge has issued an emergency order giving the Bolsonaro administration just days to evict all illegal miners, and keep them out until the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic is over.
More than 3,660 indigenous people are infected, with many elders dead. Analysts suggest the rising toll may be driven by deep poverty, and the undermining of traditional cultures and overall health by modern intrusions.
Forest peoples in the Brazilian Amazon rely on their elders as key decision makers and culture keepers; COVID-19 is already killing indigenous elders at a high rate. All fear worse lies ahead.
Ethnos360 missionaries have purchased a helicopter as part of a plan to contact and convert isolated Amazon indigenous groups, putting them at grave risk of deadly infectious disease.
At a UN event, Brazil was accused of Amazon deforestation policies leading toward “ethnocide” against indigenous peoples, and “genocide” against uncontacted indigenous groups.
Major investors with $16.2 trillion in assets warn hundreds of companies to either meet supply chain deforestation commitments or risk economic consequences.
Brazil’s Congress and 400 staff within IBAMA, the nation’s environmental agency, have expressed serious concern at the administration’s anti-environmental actions.
The anti-indigenous policies of the Bolsonaro government appear to be emboldening well-funded illegal mining operations in Northern Brazil. To date, law enforcement has not stepped in.
The president’s coercive methods are meeting with fierce opposition from NGOs, indigenous groups, scientists, Brazil’s Congress, high court and the international community.
Newly appointed Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Freitas is resolved to build new Amazon roads and railroads, but expresses limited patience for environmental or indigenous concerns.
FUNAI moved rapidly before Christmas to safeguard the isolated Kawahiva indigenous group from intruders into their territory – two weeks before Pres. Bolsonaro took office.
The Legislative Assembly of Rondonia state has voted to abolish 11 newly created protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon; a vote forced by the ruralist agribusiness lobby.
Some ruralist politicians, up for election next month, own or associate with firms guilty of crimes; push attacks on the environment and indigenous groups; sell goods to U.S. / EU.
Current Brazilian government policies could increase deforestation and carbon emissions, costing the nation $2-5 trillion dollars more to meet its Paris Climate Agreement pledge.
Indigenous and traditional groups united in a protest last week in Brazil’s capitol seeking territory demarcation, consultation on infrastructure projects, and an end to violence.
In an hugely important decision, the Brazilian Supreme Court Thursday upheld the constitutionality of the 2012 New Forest Code, a weaker body of environmental regulations than the 1965 Forest Code.
In a major policy shift, the Brazilian government says it is abandoning plans for new mega-dams in the Amazon basin, a victory for conservationists and indigenous groups.
Parts of the EU-Mercosur trade deal, leaked by Greenpeace, reveal incentives to radically push Latin American soy and beef production and exports, putting rainforests and global climate at risk.
Representatives of more than 150 civil society organizations gathered in Brasilia on Tuesday (19 September) to protest over the speech made by Brazilian president Michel Temer on Monday (18 September)…
Brazil last week established the Indigenous Territory of Turubaxi-Téa, covering 1.2 million hectares along the Middle Negro River in Amazonas state.
Court decides against claims of Mato Grosso state, which wanted compensation for land lost to Indian reserves set up in that Amazonian state by federal government.
Indians decry Temer’s backing of “marco temporal,” which could negate legal indigenous claims to millions of hectares in the Amazon and elsewhere, protestors say.
Mining of vast diamond reserves, plus three new dams which could power the mines, would likely harm Indians on Roosevelt and Aripuanã rivers.
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read this Mongabay article in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil) he Amazon is the sort of wild place where…
Sometimes a single person can change history. One such individual is José Porfirio Fontenele de Carvalho, who died on 13 May from cancer, aged 70. Without him, the Waimiri-Atroari, an…
With Brazil in political turmoil, the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby that dominates Congress has quietly set in motion measures to dismember some of the country’s most important conservation units in…
On Thursday 13 October, Luiz Alberto Araújo, 54 years old, who headed the environment department for the municipal government of the town of Altamira in the Amazonian state of Pará,…
n early August, the Brazilian government unexpectedly cancelled the São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric power station, the largest of a series of major dams planned along the Tapajós River and…
Sue Branford began her journalistic career in Brazil, where she worked for five years for the Financial Times and the Economist. She returned to London to work for the BBC as a Latin American editor for 15 years. Since then she has returned frequently to Brazil on reporting trips for the Times, the Guardian and Mongabay. She has specialised in environmental reporting, particularly on the Amazon.
