The relationship between the natural environment and the armed conflict in Colombia is deeply interwoven and complex, and the issue of governance is at the root of the environmental challenges Colombia faces. Exploitation of the country’s natural resources sustained the operations of armed groups, while acts of sabotage to oil and mining operations were used to...
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 — are increasingly under...
26 April 2019
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
Patricia Gualinga, a Sarayaku Kichwa activist from Ecuador, in New York for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She is holding a copy of Voices at an Amazonwatch event
The shocking suicide of former President...
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 than ever,...
As mentioned in Sue Branford & Thais Borges' article (Brazilian Amazon, 3 massaces in 12 days)Brazil's Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) has launched a a new website: Massacres in the Countryside. That page will be updated with newly confirmed reports of massacres — a killing involving three or more people. Between 1985 and 2017, CPT...
The Amazon has seen 3 probable massacres in 12 days — likely a record for the region — as violence has exploded in areas of heavy deforestation where the building of large dams has brought a capital infusion, sent land prices soaring, and invited land speculation by land grabbers, loggers and ranchers.A ...
Dear LAB Supporter and Friend,
27
March 2019
Voices versus the new
populism
Alzira de Fátima Venâncio Barbosa, who lives by the Paraopebas River. Alzira’s income was dependent on the river, as she would fish and cook for fisherman. Photo: Rodrigo Zaim/Christian Aid
Voices of Latin
America:...
New Minister of Mines and Energy Admiral Bento Albuquerque announced on 4 March that he plans to permit mining on indigenous lands in Brazil, including within the Amazon. He also said that he intends to allow mining right up to Brazil’s borders, abolishing the current ban along a 150-kilometer (93-mile)-wide swath at ...
The Brazilian state of Roraima is currently dependent for 70 percent of its power on Venezuela’s Guri hydroelectric dam. But socioeconomic chaos in Venezuela, and deteriorating political relations between the two nations, have caused Brazil to fast-track a 750-kilometer transmission line to replace the imported energy.General Otávio Rêgo de Barros, using a...
The Belo Monte dam, now under construction in the Amazon, is heralded as an abundant power source for Brazil’s burgeoning economy. But critics contend the project’s benefits are outweighed by the environmental and social costs. In a Yale Environment 360 video report, Charles Lyons explores both sides of this controversial project. Full video...