“Demand the Brazilian Government protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the Amazon
President Bolsonaro’s government has enabled illegal seizures of Indigenous lands in the Amazon, resulting in illegal intruders threatening and intimidating Indigenous Peoples and leading to an estimated 75,000 forest fires this year.
In May 2019 we warned that the situation for Indigenous Peoples and the Amazon forest would become untenable in the dry season unless the government changed course. Now that has become a tragic reality and the forest is being devoured by fire.
This is both an environmental catastrophe and a human rights crisis. We need to act now. Protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples is vital to protecting the Amazon.
The fires need to be put out. But President Bolsonaro’s government has deliberately cut funding and undermined civilian institutions such as Brazil’s National Indian Foundation -FUNAI- and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources -IBAMA, both of which help monitor and protect the Amazon.
We need to act NOW and demand President Bolsonaro strengthen the protection of Indigenous territories and environmentally protected areas by reinstating funding to FUNAI and IBAMA, carrying out more monitoring and patrols to stop land invasions, and holding to account those responsible for illegal fires, deforestation and illegal land seizures.
