Fueled by impunity, invasions surge in Brazil's Indigenous lands

[Judi Lynn]

BY ANA IONOVA ON 25 NOVEMBER 2020
Mongabay Series: Forest Trackers

After a decade-long struggle, Apyterewa was officially demarcated as a protected Indigenous territory in 2007, exclusively for the use of the Paracanã people who’ve called it home for generations.

But despite these protections, Apyterewa has lost about 5% of its forest cover since 2007 as outsiders continue to move in and clear land for pasture, mines and timber.

Deforestation seems to have picked up pace in recent months: satellites detected 83,445 deforestation alerts between Aug. 24 and Nov. 16, with several weeks registering “unusually high” levels of forest loss.

Civil society advocates blame the Bolsonaro administration for the surging deforestation in Apyterewa and other protected areas: “We have a scenario of a weakening of the environmental agencies, which has been really profound,” said Danicley de Aguiar, an Amazon campaigner with Greenpeace. “It’s as if we threw a knife in the heart of Brazil’s environmental policy.”

A thin plume of smoke rises above the lush canopy of the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory, deep in the Brazilian Amazon. A couple of men feed the flames engulfing a wooden bridge serving as a gateway into the vast territory. On the other side, uniformed agents tasked with protecting the territory look on helplessly as the fire severs their access.

Nearby, an angry mob closes in on another handful of agents, firings guns into the air and hurling insults. “We are not going to back down, no,” one man can be heard saying in a video of the incident, which took place outside an enforcement post in Apyterewa last week. “We’re going to burn your cars!”



Image from video of protest in Apyterewa Indigenous Territory courtesy of Jornal da Record:

More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/fueled-by-impunity-invasions-deforestation-surge-in-brazils-indigenous-lands/