Brazilian indigenous speak out as Amazon fires rage

[mfcorey1]

In this Aug. 27, 2019 photo, members of the Kayapo indigenous group attend a meeting to discuss community issues in their village Bau, located on Kayapo indigenous territory in Altamira in Brazil’s Amazon. About 98% of all Brazil’s indigenous lands lie within the Amazon. “Just outside, our reserve is being heavily deforested. It’s being badly destroyed,” a Kayapo leader said. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
ALTAMIRA, Brazil (AP) — As fires raged in parts of the Amazon, Mydje Kayapo sat in a small boat looking out over the Curua River in the Bau indigenous reserve. The smell of smoke filled the air, and Kayapo was worried.

“The fire is coming closer and closer to our reserve,” he told a visiting news team from The Associated Press. “Now it is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.”

Kayapo, one of the Bau people’s leaders, helps organize a village watch group to protect the community’s lands from encroaching flames as well as illegal loggers, miners and others seeking to exploit the area. With fires spreading quickly to wide swaths of indigenous territories in recent weeks, his task has grown more critical.


So far in 2019, Brazil reported 83,000 fires, a 77% increase from the same period last year. Many of those were set in already deforested areas by people clearing land for cultivation or pasture.

https://www.apnews.com/7e5d079367104a74b2bb3c7f76d960e7

With over 98% of Brazil’s indigenous lands within the Amazon, the threat to groups like Kayapo’s are particularly exposed.

According to Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, an estimated 3,553 fires are now burning on 148 indigenous territories in the region.

“Just outside, our reserve is being heavily deforested. It’s being badly destroyed,” Kayapo said. “We indigenous people need to be united.”

[mr_lebowski]

1. I'm sure that to Bolsonaro and his cronies, burning out the indigenous peoples from their homeland

and/or enveloping them in choking smoke to kill them off ... is what they would call a 'feature', not a 'bug'.