Amazonas State AMAZON REGION In recent years there has been a steep increase in the number and frequency of invasions of indigenous lands in the areas surrounding the municipality of Boca do Acre, in the state of Amazonas. The Valparaíso Indigenous Land, of the Apurinã people, is located on the right bank of the Purus…
Mato Grosso State AMAZON REGION Projeto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável [Sustainable Development Project] (PDS) Boa Esperança[1] is located in northern Mato Grosso state, in the municipality of Novo Mundo, within Amazonian territory. Since 2005, PDS Boa Esperança has been home to one hundred families claiming the right to land. They call for a segment of Araúna…
Maranhão State CERRADO AND AMAZON REGIONS The community puts up the fight of a lifetime we will keep on fighting, we will fight until the end. (Gilberto, member of the quilombola community of Cocalinho, Maranhão state) The Cocalinho quilombola community[1] is located in eastern Maranhão State, 500 km from its capital, São Luís, and 44…
Mato Grosso do Sul State PANTANAL REGION In 2020, the Pantanal, the largest continuous wetlands in the world, was prominently featured in the news when large forest fires swept through the region, destroying almost a third of its total area. In the state of Mato Grosso do Sul alone, 1.7 million hectares turned to ashes.…
The territory comprising the Kadiwéu Indigenous Land is located in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), in the municipality of Porto Murtinho, 60 km from the town of Bonito and 425 km from the capital Campo Grande. This Indigenous Land covers 539,000 hectares and is home to approximately 2,000 indigenous Kadiwéu people. The…
In September 2020, a huge fire raged for days in an area known as Mata do Mamão, located in the interior of Bananal Island, in the state of Tocantins. With an area of about 19,000 km², Bananal Island is considered the largest inland river island in the world. It is located between two large rivers…
Located in the Pantanal wetlands region of Mato Grosso, at the confluence of the Cuiabá and São Lourenço river basins, the Baía dos Guató Indigenous Land covers 19,000 hectares, most of it in the municipality of Barão do Melgaço, and a smaller part in the neighboring municipality of Poconé. It is home to 202 Guató…
Tauá is a large traditional territory in the state of Tocantins, occupied for over 100 years by peasant families who migrated to the region from the states of Maranhão and Piauí. The territory is located between the Tocantins, Ouro, and Tauá rivers, in the municipality of Barra do Ouro, in the northeast region of the…
Brazil’s Federal Highway BR-319 runs through the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Officially inaugurated in 1976, it was in constant use until 1988. Due to high maintenance costs, considered unprofitable because of its limited traffic, the road was abandoned by the government in the late 1980s. 63 indigenous peoples live along its 885 kilometers, and…
