On the Amazons lawless frontier, murder mystery divides the locals and loggers

[Judi Lynn]

The violent murder of Sairá Ka’apor, in a logging town in Brazil’s Maranhão state, is still unsolved. But the story is all too familiar for the indigenous people fighting to protect the forest

Jonathan Watts in Mananhão, Brazil

Sat 20 Jan 2018 19.05 EST

Sairá Ka’apor patrolled one of the most murderous frontiers in the world, a remote and largely lawless region of the Brazilian Amazon where his indigenous community has fought for generations to protect their forest land.

Armed with clubs, bows and arrows, GPS trackers and crude guns, he and fellow members of Ka’apor Forest Guard drove off – and sometimes attacked – loggers who intruded into their territory, the 530,000-hectare Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Land, which is roughly three times the area of Greater London and contains about half of the Amazon forest left in Brazil’s northern Maranhão state. That vigilante role came to an end last April when Sairá was stabbed to death in Betel, a logging town close to Ka’apor territory.

This was a murder that took place in a fragile, dangerous world, balanced precariously between values of conservation and consumption, tradition and modernity. The death has gone uninvestigated by police and unreported by the Brazilian media, but it highlights the violent pressures driving forest clearance.

For decades, loggers have cut dirt tracks into the forest that allow them to selectively fell valuable timber such as ipê (Brazilian walnut), which can fetch almost £1,000 per cubic metre after processing and export. This is followed by fires – often set deliberately – that destroy the remaining trees so land can be used for cattle ranching or soy farming.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/21/amazon-forests-maranhao-state-loggers-kaapor-tribe-murder