Brazil: fears for isolated Amazon tribes as fires erupt on protected reserves
Source: The Guardian
Brazil: fears for isolated Amazon tribes as fires erupt on protected reserves
• Fires broke out in 131 indigenous reserves from 15-20 August
• Campaigners say indigenous territories easy targets for loggers
Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Thu 29 Aug 2019 18.55 BST Last modified on Thu 29 Aug 2019 21.47 BST
Fires have been reported in protected indigenous reserves of the Brazilian Amazon, raising fears that loggers and land grabbers have targeted these remote areas during the dramatic surge in blazes across the world’s biggest rainforest.
Blazes have been seen on the Araribóia indigenous reserve in Maranhão state – a heavily deforested reserve on the Amazon’s eastern fringes, which is home to about 80 people from an isolated group of Awá indigenous people, described by the NGO Survival International as the world’s most endangered tribe.
Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has been widely criticised for failing to respond quickly to the crisis, issued a decree on Thursday banning fires in the Amazon for 60 days – a move environmentalists described as largely symbolic.
The fires are often used to clear pasture and deforested areas in the Amazon during dry winter months, but there have been 28,000 this month – more than any August since 2010.
Bolsonaro has been accused of helping stoke the crisis by encouraging invasions of protected reserves with his promises to develop the Amazon, and force his vision of progress on indigenous peoples.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/brazil-amazon-wildfires-indigenous-reserves-remote-areas
= new reply since forum marked as read
