Brazil’s president has until 22 June to approve or veto two bills (PLC 4 and PLC 5) turning over more than 600,000 hectares (2,317 square miles) of federally protected Amazon forest to illegal loggers, illegal miners and land thieves.
The measures, initiated by Temer and already approved by Congress, are seen as a reward to the bancada ruralista...
London's La Clave Festival returns to Crouch End on Saturday June 17, with music, film and talks, three of them organised by LAB.
The three LAB events all take place in the Council Chamber at Hornsey Town Hall.
11am – 12pm BRAZIL
Brazil Post Impeachment: One year of Temer GovernmentJournalists Ali and Jan Rocha will explain the background to Dilma Rousseff's impeachment in 2016 and look at Michel Temer's controversial first year in government....
Main image: Gamela indigenous people talk to police after the brutal attack by farmers in Maranhão state, Brazil. Photo: Ana Mendes/Indigenous Missionary Congress (CIMI)
SÃO PAULO, 9 May, 2017 − A recent violent attack on a group of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest of northern Brazil is seen by environmentalists as a symptom of a new climate of hostility...
This article supplements the post in Jan Rocha's blog for LAB, written just as Ladio Veron was setting out on his European tour.
“Vamos lá”, sighs Cacique Ladio Veron, . He looks weary, understandably: he has been on the road for over a month already, during which time he has visited Spain, Greece and Italy, meeting students, academics, journalists and...
By the end of April 1977 the military dictatorship that called itself the ‘Process of National Re-organization’ had been in power in Argentina for over a year.
During that time all political and trade union activity had been suspended. The junta declared war on what it termed ‘subversives’ – mostly young people in organizations fighting to change the system either...
Indigenous groups control large reserves in the Amazon and have the constitutional right to more, but agribusiness and land thieves are working with the Brazilian Congress and the Temer administration to prevent recognition of new indigenous territories, and to defund FUNAI, the federal agency representing Indian concerns.
In response, Brazil’s Indians are launching numerous protests. Last week more...
The battle for the Amazon is being fought over two opposing viewpoints: the first, mostly held by indigenous and traditional people and their conservationist allies, sees forests and rivers as valuable for their own sake, and for the livelihoods, biodiversity, ecological services and climate change mitigation they provide. For them the forests need protection.
The second worldview holds...
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Agamenom da Silva Menezes, is typical of modern Amazonian real estate operators: he is a wealthy individual who openly works with those who make a living by illegally laying claim to, deforesting and selling public lands for a high price. Lawlessness in the region means such land theft is...
Sâo Paulo. April 19. The sheer scale and volume of the gigantic bribery operation that has been bankrolling the entire infrastructure of Brazilian politics over the last 30 years is breathtaking. The details, revealed by the declarations of over 70 executives of Brazil’s top construction company, Odebrecht, to teams of public prosecutors investigating the Lava Jato corruption scandal, would...
According to 2014 data for Legal Amazonia, 59 percent of that year’s illegal deforestation occurred on privately held lands, 27 percent in conservation units, 13 percent in agrarian reform settlements, and a mere 1 percent on indigenous lands — demonstrating that indigenous land stewards are the best at limiting deforestation.
Indigenous groups control large reserves in the Amazon...