Social Justice News

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…

BOA VISTA, Brazil — When she was 24, Ariene dos Santos Lima adopted the Indigenous name Susui. In her ancestral Wapichana language, it means “flower” — the ornament that Ariene…

In the wake of George Floyd's killing last year, long-running concerns about discrimination, colonial legacy, privilege, and power dynamics in conservation have gained prominence, forcing many organizations in the sector…

Oral tradition is one of the main means of transmitting knowledge between generations in Indigenous society. The elders know the specific songs for each of life’s milestones, like death, marriage,…

It was not easy for Munduruku Indigenous leaders to leave their reserve in Jacareacanga, in northern Pará state, and get to Brazil's federal capital, Brasília, to join a huge protest…

In São Gabriel da Cachoeira, a municipality in northern Amazonas state, the traditions and culture of 32 ethnic groups are the hallmarks of a daily life rich in diversity. But even here, traditional peoples face discrimination.

Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 where an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were freed, marking the official end of slavery in the Confederacy – two years after the…

As lawmakers tussle over the future of Indigenous land rights in Brazil’s capital, Indigenous people in a municipality in Rio de Janeiro state are fighting off attacks and threats by…

This piece was originally published on Atmos as Paid in Blood on June 7, 2021. It has been republished here with the permission of Atmos. Fernando dos Santos Araújo woke…

On March 25, water from a pond owned by Canadian miner Equinox Gold spilled over its embankments in the Brazilian state of Maranhão amid heavy rain. The water flowed into…

Twenty-four years ago, an Indigenous leader was set on fire and killed in Brazil’s capital as a “joke.” Today, little seems to have changed, say Indigenous people living in Brasília.

After a week of violent clashes with illegal gold miners in Roraima state, the Yanomami people’s calls for federal help have remained unanswered. The government will incur daily fines of 1 million reais ($189,000) if the delay exceeds June 5.

Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado traveled the Amazon for six years to capture nature and the people of the world’s largest rainforest, now depicted in his new book, Amazônia.

A week after Brazil’s Lower House of Congress approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has been named in a probe for alleged illegal exports of Amazon timber, following a Federal Supreme Court ruling on May 19.

While Yanomami people were under attack by illegal gold miners with automatic weapons for the third time this week in northern Roraima state, Brazil’s Lower House approved a bill that exempts environmental impact assessments and licensing for development projects, further endangering the country’s ecosystems and traditional communities.

During 18 months, Mongabay investigated allegations challenging the “sustainable” status of the Brazilian palm oil supply chain, unveiling the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.

On the land where their ancestors once lived, Indigenous and Afro-Brazilians band together in the face of hostility to preserve their cultures and traditions in the capital of Bahia state

“I’m the one who called the meeting; I’m going to set the tone,” says Viviane Aguiar, a lawyer representing the Renova Foundation, interrupting Valeriana Gomes de Souza, a cattle farmer…

An unprecedented lawsuit by an Indigenous group that was once nearly wiped out seeks $8.2 million in damages for continued invasions and destruction of their territory

At least two top Indigenous leaders in Brazil, Sônia Guajajara and Almir Suruí, were recently summoned for questioning by the federal police over allegations of slander against the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.

In Brazil's biggest city, descendants of the original inhabitants live in invisibility and struggle to keep their traditions despite São Paulo’s celebrated cultural diversity

In a ruling that could strengthen Indigenous land rights claims across Brazil, the nation’s Supreme Court has sided with the Guarani Kaiowá, allowing the possible reopening of a case involving their territory claim.

Shortly ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Mongabay spoke with Antha N. Williams, the head of the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, the foundation launched by businessman and former…

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.

Three Guarani men were assaulted last week in Mato Grosso do Sul state allegedly over an ongoing land dispute between ranchers and Indigenous people; one expert accuses the Bolsonaro government of “restriction of the rights of Indigenous peoples.”

In the past decade, the term “Just Transition” has gained more widespread understanding among climate campaigners and environmental advocates. A Just Transition is the idea that the shift toward low-carbon…

I’ve lost count of the number of times, working as a journalist across Latin America, that I’ve met, spoken to, or heard from or about Indigenous peoples and other local…

The Amazônia Minada reporting project has revealed 1,265 pending requests to mine in Indigenous territories in Brazil, including restricted lands that are home to isolated tribes.