Brazil: Indigenous Rights Under Serious Threat
August 9, 2022 8:20PM EDT
Government Undermines Agency Tasked with Protecting Indigenous Peoples
Children in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, located in the Brazilian states of Roraima and Amazonas, in June 2021. © Gabriel Chaim
(São Paulo) – The Brazilian government has adopted policies that seriously threaten the rights of Indigenous peoples, Human Rights Watch said today, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro has undermined the government agency tasked with protecting those rights, issued regulations that are harmful to Indigenous people, and halted the recognition of their traditional lands. The government has also weakened the federal environmental protection agencies, the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA, its Portuguese acronym) and the Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity (ICMBio), leaving Indigenous territories even more vulnerable to encroachment.
“The Brazilian government has transformed an agency charged with promoting and protecting Indigenous rights into an agency that jeopardizes them,” said Maria Laura Canineu, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch. “The government’s anti-Indigenous rights policies and statements have emboldened miners, loggers, land-grabbers, and poachers to encroach on Indigenous territories with impunity, leading to devastating consequences for Indigenous people and the environment.”
During his electoral campaign in 2018, Bolsonaro lambasted Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency (FUNAI) for protecting Indigenous rights and pledged to “scythe” it. Once in office, he has delivered on that pledge, Human Rights Watch said.
More:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/09/brazil-indigenous-rights-under-serious-threat