CARRARA, IRIGARAY, SIMMONS, WALKER – Indigenous people may be the Amazon’s last hope
Robert T. Walker, Aline Carrara, Cynthia Simmons, and Maira Irigaray
Article first published online: 27 FEB 2020 The Conversation
ABSTRACT: Brazil’s divisive President Jair Bolsonaro has taken another step in his bold plans to develop the Amazon rainforest.
A bill he is sponsoring, now before Congress, would allow transportation infrastructure to be built on indigenous territory. Such lands cover 386,000 square miles of the Brazilian Amazon – one-fifth of the jungle. Here, Native people are constitutionally entitled to exercise sovereignty over resource use.
The right-wing Bolsonaro administration says “opening” the Amazon will boost its economy. But environmentalists, indigenous leaders and other concerned Brazilians say that the move will promote mining, logging and other damaging activities.
Read the full publication at The Conversation