Thaís Borges

Extraordinary history of groups of former slaves, indigenous and others in the Cerrado who have forged a sustainable lifestyle from gathering sought-after sempre-vivas flowers and selling them, with enormous care to preserve the environment. Now rewarded by the UN's FAO, they face encroachments from mining and a national park

by Thaís Borges & Sue Branford Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN), the world’s fourth largest bauxite producer, encroached on riverine communities beside the Trombetas River in the Brazilian Amazon in the 1970s. Over the years, MRN became notorious for its contamination of local waters with bauxite mining waste, residents say. To resolve that problem, the company built 26 tailings dams. The...

by Thaís Borges & Sue Branford Nearly 25,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Brazil, with 1,378 deaths as of April 15, though some experts say this is an underestimate. Those figures continue growing, even as President Jair Bolsonaro downplays the crisis, calling it “no worse than a mild flu,” and places the economy above public health. Scientists warn that the...

by Thaís Borges & Sue Branford Forest degradation nearly doubled in the Brazilian Amazon last year, rising from 4,946 square kilometers in 2018, to 9,167 square kilometers in 2019. Experts say this is likely due to soaring illegal timber harvesting and export under President Jair Bolsonaro. To facilitate illegal harvesting of rare and valuable timber, like that...

Potássio do Brasil, a mining company; Autazes municipal authorities; the federal and Amazonas state governments; and large-scale soy growers all want one thing: to open a potash mine in the town of Autazes that would supply soy producers with Brazilian fertilizer, so as not to buy and pay for imported potash. All stand to profit.

by Thaís Borges & Sue Branford A new manifesto by eight of Brazil’s past environment ministers has accused the rightist Bolsonaro administration of “a series of unprecedented actions that are destroying the capacity of the environment ministry to formulate and carry out public policies.” The ministers warn that Bolsonaro’s draconian environmental policies, including the weakening of...

by Thaís Borges & Sue Branford The ancestral home of the Sateré-Mawé indigenous group is the Andirá-Marau Indigenous Reserve, an officially demarcated, heavily forested region covering 780,000 hectares (3,011 square miles) in Amazonas and Pará states, Brazil. The reserve itself — along with indigenous villages around it that were not included in the demarcated area —...

by Thaís Borges & Sue Branford Parintins, site of Brazil’s big annual indigenous festival, is typical of towns in the Brazilian Amazon. The Sateré, and other indigenous groups living or working there, often endure discrimination and work analogous to slavery. Civil rights are few and indigenous populations inhabit the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Now more...