Phillips, a veteran journalist who has covered much of Brazil’s most marginalized groups and the devastation that criminals are wreaking on the Amazon, accompanied indigenous affairs expert Pereira to study conservation efforts in the remote Javari Valley.
Although officially protected by the government, the wild Javari Valley, like other designated indigenous lands in Brazil, is plagued by illegal logging, logging, hunting, and trafficking. international drug trade – places that often cause violence when perpetrators clash with environmentalists and indigenous rights activists.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), between 2009 and 2019, more than 300 people were killed in Brazil amid land and resource conflicts in the Amazon, citing figures from the Pastoral Lands Commission, a non-profit organization affiliated with the Catholic Church.
Indigenous people in Brazil are frequent targets of such attacks, as well as harassment campaigns. In early January, three environmentalists from the same family developed a project to regenerate a local water source with baby turtles found dead in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. A police investigation is ongoing.
A long-standing problem
Earlier this month, Bolsonaro signed an environmental decree setting higher penalties for deforestation, illegal logging, burning, fishing and hunting, with the government calling it “a step forward” important in environmental law.”
And although Bolsonaro’s administration has previously deployed the country’s military to protect the Amazon from illegal logging and clear the land, Munoz says the move ultimately removed employees from the agency. environment of the IBAMA country, resulting in the loss of environmental expertise.
IBAMA and the President’s office did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Roberto Liebgott, southern regional coordinator for the Brazilian Council of Indigenous Missions, an indigenous rights advocacy group affiliated with the Catholic Church, points to cultural biases and stereotypes at the root of criminal activity in the Amazon.
At least two stories are fueling violence, Liebgott told CNN, “The first story has to do with the idea that indigenous peoples don’t enjoy the same rights as others, perpetuating the story of ‘barbarism’. and as such, may be assaulted, assaulted, deported or killed.”
The latter, he said, “is linked to the story that the natives don’t need land and everything is done for them.”
It’s one of many reasons why his and Pereira’s work is so important, says Munoz, and why their disappearance is so heartbreaking.
