- Title: Brazil renews protection of little-seen Amazon tribe for six months
- Date: 17th September 2021
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND (FILE - AUGUST 13, 2021) (PORTRAIT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) RESEARCHER OF SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL, SARAH SHENKER, SAYING: "Big ranches are operating in these territories; there are loggers, there are land grabbers. In the case of one indigenous territory, the land protection order expires in January 2022, the Ituna-Itata indigenous territory, that one's very close to the Belo Monte mega-dam, which was a big hydroelectric dam project, which was built in the region without the consent of the local indigenous peoples. Now the uncontacted tribes in the region, including the uncontacted people living in this territory Ituna-Itata, face genocide and extinction as a result of all of the devastation and deforestation that has resulted from the massive dam project."
- Embargoed: 1st October 2021 16:30
- Keywords: Indigenous people President Jair Bolsonaro Survival International
- Location: AMAZONAS, BRAZIL + LONDON, ENGLAND
- City: AMAZONAS, BRAZIL + LONDON, ENGLAND
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: South America / Central America,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA004EV3WG1Z
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: WARNING: CONTAINS NUDITY
EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL ORIGINALLY FILMED IN PORTRAIT / ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Indigenous Brazilians and their supporters are concerned about the fate of tribes living in the country's Amazon, as President Jair Bolsonaro looks to ease protection laws in the region.
Brazil's indigenous affairs agency Funai renewed a protection order on Friday for a 242,500-hectare (599,230-acre) area in western Mato Grosso state, the ancestral lands of the Piripkura tribe.
The only two known male members of the Piripkura tribe live in isolation in the Amazon rainforest, resisting decades of invasion by loggers and cattle ranchers.
The Piripkura's fate has become a test of indigenous rights under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has criticised reservations for giving too much land to too few people and blocking the expansion of mining and farming.
Indigenous rights advocates had pressed for a three-year extension as in previous renewals.
The Piripkura men, Baita and nephew Tamandua, have only been seen in recent years in sporadic encounters with Funai staffers. Unshaven, long-haired and naked, they quickly disappear back into the forest, where other Piripkura are believed to live.
Baita's sister Rita Piripkura has been the men's contact with the outside world since she emerged to marry into another tribe on the nearby Karipuna reservation.
Anthropologists say the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon cannot survive without their land and are increasingly pitted against armed invaders interested in poaching, farming and mining in their territory.
The invaders have become bolder since the 2018 election of Bolsonaro, who once praised Colonel George Custer in a speech for his role in clearing the U.S. prairies of indigenous people.
He is backing a bill in Congress that would limit indigenous land claims and help to open tribal reservations for commercial mining and plantations.
(Production: Sebastian Rocandio, Liamar Ramos, Paul Vieira) - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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