New Data Points to Staggering Violence in the Amazon
BY ROBERT MUGGAH AND JÚLIA FRANCIOTTI | DECEMBER 5, 2019
A study shows 2,500 separate violent incidents targeting environmental defenders. The government, business and society must act.
Protesters gathered in Pará State to oppose a hydroelectric dam construction project in 2014.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
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They came looking for gold. Earlier this year, several dozen unauthorized prospectors, or garimpeiros as they are known in Portuguese, invaded a 1.4 million acre indigenous reserve in Brazil’s remote northern state of Amapá. Soon after they arrived, the corpse of an indigenous leader, Emyra Waiapi, was found riddled with stab wounds and discarded in a river. Tribe members sent desperate messages to local politicians and police, pleading for help. Many already had dark memories of past invasions that had almost wiped them out with infections and violence.
Brazil’s protected forest reserves and the people who inhabit them are getting little sympathy from the country’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro. He has referred to indigenous groups as “prehistoric” peoples in need of the civilizing influence of development. Bolsonaro’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, himself under investigation for violating environmental laws in São Paulo, has dismissed reported violence against indigenous groups as fiction. Since coming into power in 2019, the Bolsonaro administration has systematically deregulated protections of indigenous reserves and reduced spending on public entities like the Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) and the National Indigenous Fund (FUNAI), the primary agencies responsible for investigating and prosecuting environmental crimes and protecting indigenous lands.
The global assault on the world’s environment is not only targeting forest resources, mineral reserves, and endangered animals, but also the people defending them. That leaves environmental activists across Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia fighting to protect not just biodiversity, but their own lives. At least 1,558 of them were assassinated between 2002 and 2017, according to a study in Nature Sustainability. The numbers are increasing. Roughly three environmental defenders – people who take peaceful action to protect the land and associated rights – are murdered every week, according to Global Witness. The problem is spread across dozens of countries, but few are as bloody as Brazil.
Brazil has been a dangerous place for environmental activists and investigative journalists for as long as anyone can remember. Although the current administration is dismissive of indigenous groups, the culture of impunity – less than 10% of all assassinations result in a conviction – precedes it. There are signs the campaign of violence could accelerate. As the country's authorities aggressively push to open up tropical forests to everything from gold mining to palm oil production, Bolsonaro has levied increasingly outlandish accusations against NGOs, accusing “radical" environmentalism of setting fires to the Amazon in an effort to deflect criticism from his government without offering a shred of evidence.
More:
https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/new-data-points-staggering-violence-amazon
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