New Data Points to Staggering Violence in the Amazon
New Data Points to Staggering Violence in the Amazon
A study shows 2,500 separate violent incidents targeting environmental defenders. The government, business and society must act.
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...
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