In just 72 hours this month, five Indigenous people were wounded by gunfire in violent attacks in a part of the Brazilian Amazon dubbed the “palm oil war” region, sparking outrage and claims for justice.
Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 7, security guards for a palm oil company allegedly shot and wounded five Tembé Indigenous people, in the latest flareup linked to a long-running land dispute. The incidents occurred in a part of the Amazonian state of Pará that’s been dubbed the “palm oil war” region, where Mongabay has over the past year documented the escalating tensions.
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Karla Mendes is a fellow. A prominent Indigenous leader was shot in the head on May 14…
A new wave of land conflicts between a major palm oil company and local communities has recently broken out in the Brazilian Amazon, raising concerns about escalating violence in the…
A Mongabay investigation into land-grabbing in the Brazilian Amazon has led to the suspension of the sustainability certificate of the country's second top palm oil exporter, as shown in email correspondence…
ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Francineia Fontes Baniwa laughs enthusiastically as she tells of a conversation she had with her traveling companion, Nelly Marubo while on the train to Scotland: “Nelly…
BRASÍLIA — Célia Xakriabá recalls how, during her campaign last year for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil’s lower house of Congress, she was always asked how non-Indigenous…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — “I want to see the Yanomami and Raposa Serra do Sol territories free of invasions,” Joenia Wapichana, the first Indigenous woman named president of Brazil’s national Indigenous…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — Hell, tragic and terror. These are the main key words used by Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara to describe to Mongabay what the four years of…
ST ANDREWS, Scotland — This autumn, Mongabay had the opportunity to interview Nelly Marubo, friend and colleague of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who was brutally murdered in the Brazilian Amazon…
The escalation of violence in Brazil’s northeastern region with the murders of two young Pataxó Indigenous leaders this week triggered the newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to set up…
BRASÍLIA — Since Jan. 8, the whole world has watched as Brazil gets to grips with a violent attack led by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro on key government…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — "We, civil servants, are reopening Funai to Indigenous peoples," anthropologist Janete Carvalho announced in a recent act at the headquarters of Brazil's federal agency for Indigenous affairs. Under former…
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — In the first day of his third mandate as Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, issued measures to protect the Amazon and Indigenous people, acts highly celebrated…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — “The right of those who used to live here to access the cemetery is in the [Brazilian] Constitution. … The cemetery is a sacred place,” sociologist…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — In November 2021, I went to Pará state, in the Brazilian Amazon, to investigate claims of land grabbing in traditional territories, leveled against one of Brazil's…
NAVIRAÍ, Brazil — The red earth is dusty and cracked, parched from weeks without rain. Fields planted with neat rows of corn stretch for miles across this part of Mato…
Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped 11.27% compared with the prior year, official data show. But the government of President Bolsonaro still accounts for the most Amazon destruction in…
AMAMBAI, Brazil — About a dozen Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous people danced around a grave, freshly filled in, chanting a prayer as they swayed to the rhythm of a rattle. Around them,…
Along a northeastern stretch of the Brazilian Amazon, a palm oil war has broken out. Escalating violence triggered by land disputes between palm oil companies, on one side, and Indigenous…
A Mongabay investigation into palm oil contamination in the Brazilian Amazon has helped federal prosecutors to obtain a court decision this week to scrutinize the environmental impacts of pesticides used…
A yearlong investigation by Mongabay and Earthsight has uncovered new evidence of corrupt deals and illegal practices used by Brazil’s largest flooring exporter, Indusparquet, and its suppliers. From its headquarters…
It was 35 years ago that Ailton Krenak, while painting his entire face with the black dye of the jenipapo fruit, protested against violence against Indigenous peoples in one of…
Indigenous groups in Brazil are demanding justice after a spate of killings allegedly linked to land disputes left four people dead and two injured in the space of just 10…
Less than two months since the killing of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in early June, armed illegal gold miners reportedly intimidated government rangers near…
Smoke from fires in parts of the Brazilian Amazon are getting closer to cities. The combination of the highest number of forest fires in 15 years and highest ever deforestation…
Frustrated with watching agribusiness and eucalyptus plantations destroy their territory, members of several Indigenous Pataxó communities in the Brazilian state of Bahia took over a plantation, set fire to it,…
Three years ago, Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in an alleged ambush by loggers in the Brazilian Amazon. He was a member of the “Guardians of the Forest,”…
Since I became an environmental journalist six years ago, my family, friends and acquaintances all labeled me “crazy”. Why? Because they were extremely scared after reading my articles and hearing…
Authorities in Brazil have uncovered the bodies believed to be those of Dom Phillips, a British journalist, and Bruno Pereira, a prominent Indigenous rights defender. The discovery, on June 15…
