IB Topics

A new report highlights the escalating existential crisis among the 30,000 Indigenous people living in the Yanomami Territory, covering 9,664,975 hectares (37,317 square miles)...

Bolsonaro and his brand of extreme right wing politics have emerged as the big losers in Brazil’s recent local elections, but established left wing parties have not done so well either. Jan Rocha reports.

Residents of traditional communities in the Brazilian Amazon municipality of Barcarena, near the mouth of the Amazon River, say that their subsistence and commercial livelihoods, and their health, have been destroyed by an invasion of mining companies which began in the mid-1980’s. This story is the fifth in a series.

The city of Manaus made world headlines last April when a first wave of the coronavirus swept through the city. Now that city, and the entire state of Amazonas, is being swept by a second wave of the pandemic, which is shaping up to be far worse than the first.

In a letter describing pandemic conditions as “dire,” the government of Brazil’s Amazonas state is pleading for urgent medical assistance from the international community. The authenticated letter apparently bypassed the Bolsonaro administration which critics say has been ineffectual in dealing with COVID-19.

Contributions include: * El Extractivismo no está en cuarantena - Patricia Gualinga * A Força da Sucuri - Mekaron-ti Txucarramãe *Pajés e curandeiros contra o coronavirus - Thodá Kanamari * A Covid-19 na Amazônia brasileira - Lino João da Oliveira Neves * Covid-19, transmissão comunitária e óbitos. Como a Pandemia chegou aos Cintas-Largas em Mato Grosso e Rondônia - João del Pos, María Inês Hargreaves * Pandemia, racismo y genocidio de indígenas y negros en Brasil. El coronavirus y la política del exterminio - Felipe Milanes y Samuel Vida * Memoria. Morreu Artiana Yawalapíti! * Silencio, choro e luto com o Xingu - Felipe Milanes

Covid 19 will affect Brazil’s indigenous groups for many years, not only because of the number of lives it has taken but also because among those dead are many important indigenous leaders. LAB briefly profiles one important leader who recently succumbed to the disease.

While the pandemic rages and Bolsonaro and his ministers ignore or belittle its effects, indigenous communities face renewed invasion by miners, loggers and land thieves who bring infection with them

Confronted with the denial of science, racism and land-greed of the modern 'colonisers', indigenous communities decided to resist and are receiving international recognition for their work.

Kadiwéu people from Mato Grosso do Sul have survived against the odds. Now their eye-catching traditional designs are being used on fashionable bags and dresses. Will they benefit, and will they survive deforestation and the pandemic?