New EarthX Special 'Protecting the Amazon' Suggests Ways to Save the World’s Greatest Rainforest
26 February
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A 3-hour special film by EarthxTV calls for protection of the Amazon and its indigenous populations. EarthxTV.org
To save the planet, we must save the Amazon rainforest. To save the rainforest, we must save its indigenous peoples. And to do that, we must demarcate their land.
<p><a href="https://earthx.org/protecting-the-amazon/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Protecting the Amazon</em></a>, the latest special film program from EarthxTV, explains the need for these actions and how to work in solidarity with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples" target="_self">indigenous peoples</a> to preserve Amazonia.</p><p>The Amazon rainforest and the indigenous tribes that call it home are in danger. The newest scientific reports predict the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-collapse-2649776959.html" target="_self">world's largest rainforest will collapse by 2064</a>, causing dangerous water shortages, catastrophic biodiversity loss and much more. As the ecosystem degrades, it will also lose its ability to store carbon, changing from a carbon sink for the planet into a carbon source. A 2020 study estimated that the Amazon is already <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-carbon-emissions-2650166673.html" target="_self">on the brink of turning into a net carbon emitter</a>. Going past that threshold would throw the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> into full swing.</p>
<p>Unsustainable development, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a>, cattle ranching and soybean production are the main culprits behind this rapid destruction. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-brazil-gold-mining-2645732733.html" target="_self">Illegal gold mining</a> plays a big part, too.</p><p>Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, president of the Leopold III Fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation and one of the co-hosts of the 3-hour special, lamented the bleak outlook.</p><p>"The current state of the Amazon rainforest is dire," she told EcoWatch. "During 2019 and 2020, deforestation continued at a frightening pace and scale. Last year, it increased by 30 percent from what was already a record-breaking year in 2019."</p><p>The conservation journalist also pointed out how <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-deforestation-bolsonaro-2649115946.html" target="_self">deforestation, invasion of indigenous lands and mining in the rainforest have skyrocketed under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro</a>, a known pro-development, anti-Amazon, anti-indigenous candidate. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Bolsonaro</a> was elected with the support of the "so-called BBB (beef, bullets and bible)," a very powerful lobby composed of militaries, Christian evangelists and meat producers, Princess Esmeralda said. She estimated that almost 20 percent of the Amazon had been lost in the last half-century.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, attempts to stop the destruction have fallen short.</p><p>According to Rob Harding, executive producer of <em>Protecting the Amazon</em>, "The international community's attempts to nurture a healthier Amazon have thus far failed... The urgency of this situation is clear."</p><p>Citing his motivations behind pitching the special project, Harding added, "There's no time like the present to help raise awareness and inspire meaningful action by instilling a sense of global collective responsibility. We believe that <em>Protecting the Amazon</em> will do all of the above."</p>
<p>The film event, a rare collaboration and amplification of indigenous voices and their allies, brings together some of the world's biggest players in conservation – including Jane Goodall, legendary indigenous rights advocates Chief Raoni Metuktire and Chief Ninawa Huni-Kui and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson – on the same virtual stage to highlight our collective responsibility to the rainforest.</p><p>All make the case for demarcating indigenous lands in the Amazon as an effective forestalling against the catastrophes forecasted above. Demarcation is the constitutionally-mandated federal process wherein indigenous territories are identified and studied to determine and mark off boundaries, explained Gert-Peter Bruch, co-host of the special and co-founder of the Alliance of Mother Nature's Guardians.</p>
<p>Satellite views of the rainforest make clear that where there are federally-recognized, demarcated and protected indigenous territories, the richest and most contiguous forests still remain, said Christian Poirier, program director for Amazon Watch, a partner in the special program.</p><p>"These are essentially islands of forests in a sea of deforestation," he told EcoWatch. "Everything around them has been degraded and deforested."</p><p>Importantly, he added, these areas remain pristine because (1) indigenous peoples are effective stewards of the rainforest, and (2) the federal government of Brazil has recognized the rights of indigenous peoples to these lands and helps to keep out destructive actors.</p><p>"The demarcation of indigenous lands is fundamental to the future of the Amazon, both in terms of its environmental conservation and in terms of respecting the human rights of indigenous peoples, who are the best stewards of the rainforest," Poirier said. Without demarcation, "the Amazon would cease to exist as we know it today."</p>
<p>In theory, once land is demarcated, non-indigenous equipment, installations and occupants would be required to leave, for good, Bruch explained. This would allow indigenous peoples to continue to act as custodians of the land as they have since time immemorial.</p><p>In the Amazon and indeed even on a global scale, indigenous peoples make up approximately 4 percent of the world's population, and yet they effectively watch over 80 percent of the planet's remaining biodiversity, Poirier explained.</p><p>"Because they are proven the best stewards of the rainforest, we need to learn from them how to keep the rainforest from reaching a tipping point," Poirier said. "The integrity of their territories is a fundamental component of that, but it goes beyond their territories. This is a worldview we need to apply to understanding how to preserve the rainforest in conjunction with its peoples ‒ its forest peoples and its indigenous peoples. We need to have their voice centered in any conversation about land conservation and their rights upheld."</p>
<p><em>Protecting the Amazon</em> calls for this critical mass and solidarity with indigenous peoples in protecting their rights and the forest, simultaneously. The film event notes the long history of fierce indigenous resistance to the many efforts to disenfranchise and evict them from their lands. All speakers also insist that indigenous peoples cannot do this work alone.</p><p>Bruch concluded with a hope that the special event would refocus the world on these pressing issues and remind everyone that the destiny of the indigenous guardians of the Amazon is linked to ours, and that their protection depends on the protection of their territories.</p><p>"Solidarity is so critical and... this event is a critical step towards raising awareness... of the work (indigenous peoples) have always done to benefit us all," Poirier said. "If they are unsuccessful in protecting their areas, all of humanity will suffer gravely."</p><p>View the film on demand on <a href="https://earthx.org/earthxondemand/" target="_blank">EarthxOnDemand</a>.</p>
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A new EarthxTV film special calls for the protection of the Amazon rainforest and the indigenous people that call it home. EarthxTV.org
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Fires, deforestation, logging and mining threaten the integrity of the Amazon rainforest. Ria Sopala / Pixabay
The future of the world's largest rainforest looks bleak. A new report for Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development concluded that the Amazon rainforest will collapse and largely become a dry, shrubby plain by 2064. Development, deforestation and the climate crisis are to blame, study author and University of Florida geologist Robert Toovey Walker found, UPI reported.
<p>Walker reviewed recent research, offering that heavy development in Amazonian nations depleted the forest and threatens to push it over the edge towards destruction.</p><p>By nature of being a rainforest, the canopy creates its own precipitation. The local environment and inhabitants rely on the freshwater created therein for survival. The ecosystem can recover from smaller, periodic droughts but longer and more severe events are already diminishing the forest's long-term resilience, <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/amazon-rainforest-will-be-decimated-by-2064-professor-claims" target="_blank">Interesting Engineering</a> reported.</p>
<p>Longer dry seasons, which the rainforest is already experiencing and which are exacerbated by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a> and the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, prevent rainforest canopies from recovering from fires. Flammable grasses and shrubs "permanently invade" and take over the landscape; the tropical rainforest dries out and transforms into a tropical savanna, the study found.</p><p>"A forest cannot survive if its canopy needs more than 4 years to recover from a yearly [drought] event," Walker wrote in the report. "Southern Amazonia can expect to reach a tipping point sometime before 2064 at the current rate of dry-season lengthening."</p>
<p>Earlier this year, a different study found that the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-ecosystem-collapse-2645458118.html" target="_self">Amazon ecosystem could collapse in less than 50 years</a> with deforestation being the primary culprit. According to UPI, Walker's latest review shaved five years off from that estimate and gave the most specific date of ecosystem demise ever provided, citing the same reason.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-fire-brazil-2646869688.html" target="_self">Fire</a>, deforestation and logging are leading causes of tree loss. Industrial-scale cattle ranching and soybean production, in particular, drive the latter. Additionally, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-brazil-gold-mining-2645732733.html" target="_self">illegal gold mining is laying the forest bare and polluting rivers</a>.</p>
<p><br>Brazil's President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a> has been criticized for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-bill-open-indigenous-land-2645088985.html" target="_self">opening the forest to exploitation</a> and inciting forest destruction. Under Bolsonaro, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-deforestation-bolsonaro-2649115946.html" target="_self">Amazon deforestation skyrocketed to a 12-year high</a>, and activists warned that he <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-amazon-deforestation-coronavirus-2645950493.html" target="_self">used the pandemic as a smokescreen</a> to undermine protections for the rainforest. Walker criticized Bolsonaro's administration for "appear[ing] intent on scrapping all remaining restraints on the unfettered exploitation of Amazonia's natural resources."</p><p>Walker also estimated that the Amazon has shrunk by about 20% since intense development began and that the dry season has already lengthened in the south by an additional 6.5 days per decade, UPI reported.</p>
<p>The study's models predict that once deforestation reaches 30-50% in southern Amazonia, rainfall in the west will decrease by up to 40%, cementing the deterioration in that environment from lush, tropical forest to arid, open savanna, <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/new-report-predicts-southern-amazon-rainforest-is-heading-for-collapse-by-2064" target="_blank">Science Alert</a> reported.</p><p>"The best way to think of the forest ecosystem is that it's a pump," Walker told UPI. "The forest recycles moisture, which supports regional rainfall. If you continue to destroy the forest, the rainfall amount drops... and eventually, you wreck the pump."</p><p>As the forest transforms into a grassland, all the benefits of the massive ecosystem will also disappear and a "multidimensional catastrophe" will ensue, Walker wrote in the study.</p>
<p>Primarily, water security will evaporate for over 35 million people living in the region, Science Alert continued. The entire continent's dependency upon Amazonia for freshwater "means that the magnitude of the catastrophe will be worse than heretofore imagined," Walker noted in the study.</p><p>Additionally, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-amazon-wildlife-criminal-networks-2646841421.html" target="_self">many plants and animals in the biodiverse ecosystem will be driven to extinction</a>. Among those could lie new medical discoveries and foods, UPI noted. Timber and other precious resources will also disappear.</p><p>Finally and perhaps most alarmingly, according to Science Alert, the forest could lose its ability to store the world's excess carbon which helps to regulate the climate and planetary temperature. In fact, some predict the world's largest forest will flip from a sink to a source around 2035, the report said.</p><p>Walker concluded that it was "doubtful" that the Amazon forest could remain resilient into the future given the layers of threats facing it.</p>
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Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
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Altamira, state of Para, north of Brazil on Sept. 1, 2019. Amazon rainforest destruction surged between August 2019 and July 2020, Brazil's space agency reported. Gustavo Basso / NurPhoto via Getty Images
According to Brazil's space agency (Inpe), deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has surged to its highest level since 2008, the BBC reported.
<p>Despite Brazil previously setting a goal of slowing the pace of deforestation to 3,900 sq km annually by 2020, deforestation increased 9.5% from last year, and a total of 11,088 sq km (4,281 sq miles) of rainforest was destroyed from August 2019 to July 2020, according to the news report. That area is just smaller than the state of Connecticut, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/world/americas/brazil-amazon-rainforest-deforestation.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> noted.</p><p>Scientists blame part of this acceleration on far-right Brazilian President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a>, who was elected on a pro-development promise and took office in Jan. 2019. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bolsonaro" target="_self">Bolsonaro</a> encourages agriculture and mining in the world's largest rainforest and has <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-bill-open-indigenous-land-2645088985.html" target="_self">actively introduced policies and bills that open up the forest to loggers, ranchers and mining operations</a>. He has also cut critical funding for federal enforcement agencies that police farmers and loggers breaking environmental laws, the BBC reported.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has simultaneously shunned outside influence from other countries, especially concerning the development of the Amazon. He has been accused of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-amazon-deforestation-coronavirus-2645950493.html" target="_self">using the coronavirus shutdowns as a smokescreen</a> to promote more deforestation and exploitation of forest resources. He has argued that he wants to develop the forest's resources to lift the area out of poverty, The New York Times reported.</p><p>As a result, deforestation and forest fires have increased under Bolsonaro's leadership. Fires are often used to clear vegetation from clear-cut areas of the forest to prepare them for illegal cattle-raising and agriculture, the report said.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bolsonaro-amazon-deforestation-court-2646172097.html" target="_self">Civil society groups and public prosecutors in Brazil filed lawsuits against the Bolsonaro government</a> to stop deforestation, taking issue with the president's reduction of inspections of exported timber and freezing of climate funds that help preserve the forests when other countries use these to offset their carbon emissions.</p><p>The trees in the Amazon are a vital component in the fight against the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> because they absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, The New York Times reported. As the Amazon is cut down, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-deforestation-carbon-emissions-2645127492.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" target="_self">it is becoming a carbon source instead of one of the world's largest carbon sinks</a>. This will have dire consequences for global temperatures.</p>
<p>The rainforest is also home to roughly three million species of plants and animals and one million indigenous people, the BBC reported. As habitat is lost, many species could be driven to extinction before they are even discovered. Protected tribal lands serve as a buffer against deforestation, and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/indigenous-tribes-drone-protect-amazon-2647584474.html" target="_self">indigenous tribes survey the land to protect the trees</a>. Their way of life and actual lives are at risk as the forest is cut down.</p><p>Despite the total size of deforested land being at a 12-year high, at least one federal official highlighted the slowing percentage-of-growth figure (9.5%) as a sign of progress because it is far lower than the 34% increase seen in 2019, The New York Times reported.</p><p>"While we are not here to celebrate this, it does signify that the efforts we are making are beginning to bear fruit," Vice President Hamilton Mourão said.</p><p>Environmentalists and scientists disagree and remain skeptical because Bolsonaro has asserted that "deforestation and fires will never end" because they are "cultural," reported <a href="https://www.axios.com/brazil-amazon-deforestation-12-year-high-0a7991c6-68e2-48f3-8a2d-715b49209cad.html" target="_blank">Axios</a>.</p><p>"The [new] figures show that Bolsonaro's plan worked, Brazilian non-governmental organization <a href="http://www.observatoriodoclima.eco.br/en/" target="_blank">Climate Observatory</a> said in a statement, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment/deforestation-in-brazils-amazon-skyrockets-to-12-year-high-under-bolsonaro-idUSKBN28A2RG" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported. "They reflect the result of a successful initiative to annihilate the capacity of the Brazilian State and the inspection bodies to take care of our forests and fight crime in the Amazon."</p>
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro meets Ronaldo Caiado, governor of the state of Goiás on June 5, 2020. Palácio do Planalto / CC BY 2.0
Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has presided over the world's second worst coronavirus outbreak after the U.S., said Tuesday that he had tested positive for the virus.
<p>The news comes after Bolsonaro has repeatedly dismissed the risk posed by the virus both to himself and others and argued against social distancing measures as a threat to the economy.</p><p>"In my particular case, because of my history as an athlete, in case I were contaminated by the virus I wouldn't need to worry. I wouldn't feel anything or it would be, at most, similar to a little flu, or a little cold," he said during a national television address March 24, as <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ap-explains-bolsonaro-downplayed-virus-fears-months-71663418" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a>.</p>
<p>His approach has earned him protests at home and worldwide criticism for allowing the virus to spread in his country, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/world/americas/brazil-bolsonaro-coronavirus.html?auth=login-googl" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. He fired one health minister in April over disagreements about how to respond to the pandemic and forced a second to quit less than a month later. The current health minister is an active-duty general with no medical experience. Brazil has now reported more than 1.6 million confirmed cases and more than 65,000 deaths, falling second only to the U.S. in both categories.</p><p>Bolsonaro took a test for the virus Monday after falling ill with fatigue, muscle pain and a fever. His illness occurred two days after he attended a Fourth of July lunch at the home of Brazil's U.S. Ambassador Todd Chapman, where Bolsonaro and other attendees were pictured sitting side by side without masks. The ambassador and his wife have since tested negative for the virus but are remaining in quarantine.</p>
<div id="30022" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e5f6f78f46c6841b83cc759e8840506"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1279475037574176768" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Na Embaixada dos EUA, celebrando o 4 de julho, dia da independência americana. https://t.co/CqtgUNxiSL</div> — Ernesto Araújo (@Ernesto Araújo)<a href="https://twitter.com/ernestofaraujo/statuses/1279475037574176768">1593885595.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>So far, Bolsonaro's diagnosis has not changed his tone. As he announced his test results, he continued to focus on the importance of reopening Brazil's economy.</p><p>"You can't just talk about the consequences of the virus that you have to worry about. Life goes on. Brazil needs to produce. You need to get the economy in gear,″ he said, according to The Associated Press.</p><p>He was also widely criticized on social media for taking off his mask while speaking to reporters about his diagnosis, <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-globally/brazilian-president-takes-off-mask-after-announcing-he-tested-positive-for-covid-19-6495517/" target="_blank">The Indian Express reported</a>.</p>
<div id="4ed4f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="512bc5e4d7e023188c02f9b493b51c16"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1280543922331123713" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Bolsonaro, who has tested positive for coronavirus, just exposed every journalist to the virus, in case you were wo… https://t.co/cuTpNEwiMd</div> — Brian Tyler Cohen (@Brian Tyler Cohen)<a href="https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/statuses/1280543922331123713">1594140437.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Bolsonaro is an ally of U.S. President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/07/888137097/brazilian-president-jair-bolsonaro-tests-positive-for-coronavirus" target="_blank">NPR reported</a>, who has also been <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/us-coronavirus-death-toll-2646357716.html" target="_self">criticized</a> for dismissing the severity of the pandemic. Like Trump, Bolsonaro has touted the benefits of hydroxychloroquine for treating the coronavirus, an anti-malaria drug that the Food and Drug Administration <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-malaria-drugs-2646183392.html" target="_self">has warned</a> against taking for COVID-19.</p><p>But Bolsonaro said his medical team was treating him with the drug on Tuesday and that he was feeling "very well," according to The New York Times.</p><p>Politicians and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-health" target="_self">public health</a> experts said that Bolsonaro's diagnosis was unlikely to change Brazil's approach to the virus unless he grew seriously ill. The country is currently in the process of reopening.</p>
<p>"My concern is that he will use this to say, 'See, I'm fine, if you catch this you will survive,'" Rio de Janeiro community activist Day Medeiros told The New York Times. "Everything that happens to him has real repercussions in how people behave here. This is really serious."</p><p>But one analyst thought the diagnosis would ultimately harm Bolsoarno's political career.</p><p>"Despite publicly shrugging off his positive test for Covid-19, it marks the beginning of the end of his administration," Robert Muggah, director of Rio-based think tank the Igarape Institute, told <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/08/coronavirus-bolsonaros-diagnosis-marks-beginning-of-the-end-for-his-administration.html" target="_blank">CNBC in an email</a>. "It is yet another visible expression of his recklessness and ineptitude."</p>
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Medical workers hug each other in an isolation ward at a hospital in Zouping in China's easter Shandong province on Jan. 28, 2020. STR / AFP via Getty Images
The world passed two troubling milestones Sunday, as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases topped 10 million and the number of deaths surpassed 500,000.
<p>This means the death toll has doubled in less than two months, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/world/coronavirus-updates.html" target="_blank">The New York Times pointed out</a>, from 250,000 in early May. In April, it topped 100,000. The number of confirmed cases, meanwhile, has doubled in 40 days.</p><p>"It's a startling number," Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles chief medical officer Richard Riggs told <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-28/global-covid-19-cases-hit-10-million-as-pandemic-gains-momentum" target="_blank">Bloomberg News</a> of the 10 million caseload. "It seems like it's going to continue for quite some time."</p>
<div id="247b3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2f78bfbbc0228338a03db0db4b37a7fc"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1277515684566765568" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">How the world reached 10 million coronavirus infections
https://t.co/4DenJ9J0Sq</div> — Alfons López Tena (@Alfons López Tena)<a href="https://twitter.com/alfonslopeztena/statuses/1277515684566765568">1593418448.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The number of confirmed cases is likely well under the real tally, according to The New York Times. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data released last week found that the case load could be as much as ten times higher than reported in some regions, and New York Times investigations revealed an underreporting of the death toll in the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries, since inadequate testing makes it hard to confirm that patients died of COVID-19.</p>
<p>The U.S. continues to lead the world in both confirmed cases and deaths, with more than 2.5 million cases and more than 125,000 fatalities, according to data from <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" target="_blank">Johns Hopkins University</a>. Brazil follows with more than 1.3 million confirmed cases and 57,000 deaths. Both U.S. President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> and Brazilian President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a> have been criticized for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-infections-trump-2645393552.html" target="_self">downplaying</a> the seriousness of the outbreak and undermining accurate scientific information about <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-coronavirus-medicine-science-2645823308.html" target="_self">its treatment</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-coronavirus-death-statistics-2646163006.html" target="_self">spread</a>. Together, the two countries account for 49 percent of new infections, according to World Health Organization data reported by Bloomberg News.</p><p>The U.S. accounts for more than a quarter of all known deaths, according to The New York Times. And infections are increasing in 29 of 50 states, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/28/global-report-covid-19-cases-exceed-10m-as-anxieties-rise-over-us" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported. The country reported 44,000 new cases by 4 p.m. on Friday, the highest daily increase since the pandemic began. While the U.S. outbreak was initially centered in the Northeast, with New York City emerging as an early epicenter, cases have now shifted to states in the South and West, The New York Times reported. Texas, Arizona and Florida are especially hard-hit and have been forced to pause reopening plans, according to Bloomberg.</p>
<p>Administration officials including Vice President Mike Pence have attributed the surge in U.S. cases to an increase in testing, The New York Times reported, but <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-health">public health</a> experts say this is not the case. One of the reasons is that the percentage of tests turning up positive results is also on the rise. The positivity rate in Los Angeles rose from 5.8 percent two weeks ago to nine percent Saturday, while the rate in Texas nearly doubled from seven percent two weeks ago to 13 percent Friday.</p><p>Worldwide, Brazil and India are both battling significant outbreaks, with each reporting more than 10,000 new cases a day, according to The Guardian. And China, where the outbreak began, has put a province near Beijing under strict lockdown to control an outbreak there.</p>
<p>The current global caseload dashes hopes that the outbreak would weaken in the summer, Bloomberg News pointed out, but health experts warn that things could still worsen in the fall, especially in Northern countries that will also have to contend with flu season.</p><p>"We haven't seen the end of Covid-19, and we haven't seen the full scope of it yet, either," professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington Ali Mokdad told Bloomberg News. "This will be as dangerous as the Spanish flu in many ways."</p>
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Brazil Passes 50,000 Coronavirus Deaths as Global Cases Top 9 Million
23 June 2020
Health + Wellness
Artists pay homage to the fatal victims of COVID-19 during the performance "Whoever left is someone's love" at Brasília's Catedral on June 15, 2020 in Brasília, Brazil. Andressa Anholete / Getty Images
Brazil officially surpassed 50,600 COVID-19 deaths on Sunday, making the South American nation the second largest coronavirus hot spot after the U.S.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Recent figures put the total number of confirmed cases at more than 1,086,990 and 50,659 deaths. The recovery rate is just above 53 percent, according to <a href="https://www.coronatracker.com/country/brazil/" target="_blank">CoronaTracker</a>. Reuters <a href="https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23S0UB" target="_blank">reports</a> that officials expect the actual numbers to be much higher because of a lack of nationwide testing – typically the country has recorded more than 1,000 deaths per day but registers less over the weekend.</p>
<p>On Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) also announced the largest single-day increase of cases around the world, with more than 183,000 new cases of COVID-19 having been reported to the WHO in what Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described as "easily the most in a single day so far." More than 9 million cases have been reported since the health agency <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen" target="_blank">declared</a> the severe respiratory disease a global pandemic in March.</p><p>"Some countries are continuing to see a rapid increase in cases and deaths. Some countries that have successfully suppressed transmission are now seeing an upswing in cases as they reopen their societies and economies," said Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Monday's <a href="https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---22-june-2020" target="_blank">press briefing</a>.</p>
<p>"All countries are facing a delicate balance, between protecting their people, while minimizing the social and economic damage. It's not a choice between lives and livelihoods. Countries can do both."</p><p>The BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-latin-america-53132225" target="_blank">reports</a> that São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have seen the largest spikes at 12,500 and 8,800 deaths, respectively. More than 12,000 additional deaths have been reported in the northern states of Amazonas, Pará and Ceará.</p><p>A report <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/brazil-coronavirus-cases.html" target="_blank">conducted</a> by the New York Times largely faults government responses and measures for the increase in cases. Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro previously dismissed dangers of COVID-19, calling the virus a "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/world/americas/brazil-bolsonaro-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">measly cold</a>" and has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/world/americas/virus-brazil-deaths.html" target="_blank">stalled</a> quarantine measures with unclear responses and a chaotic approach. Additionally, the Ministry of Health has not put forth a comprehensive plan and the nation has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/brazil-coronavirus-cases.html" target="_blank">unsuccessful</a> in importing coronavirus tests, ventilators and other potentially lifesaving equipment.</p>
<p>Brazil is second in cases only to the US, which has reported more than 2.2 million – a 32,411 increase in just one day. There have been over 119,000 deaths across the nation, according to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html" target="_blank">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>. According to data compiled by <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" target="_blank">Johns Hopkins University of Medicine</a>, over 9 million people have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 with more than 469,000 deaths across the globe. Experts caution that those numbers are likely to be much higher given a lack of worldwide testing, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-cases-daily-record-world-health-organization/" target="_blank">reports</a> CBS News.</p>
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As Amazonian Wildfire Season Approaches, We Must Protect the Vulnerable Forest
15 June 2020
Insights + Opinion
NASA satellite image showing fires raging across the Amazon rainforest on Aug. 11, 2019. NASA
By Daniel Ross
The wildfires that tore across Australia were as devastating as they were overwhelming, scorching some 15 million hectares of land, killing 34 people and more than 1 billion animals. In terms of its apocalyptic imagery — sweeping infernos torching great swaths with unerring speed — Australia's wildfires were hauntingly reminiscent of the fires that roared through the Amazon rainforest over the past year. Indeed, more than 80,000 fires hit the region during 2019, according to the Brazilian government.
<p>Though many months have now passed since global media focused on the unfolding disaster in the Amazon — one of the world's most <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-11-forests-amazon-important-carbon.html" target="_blank">important carbon sinks</a> — the problem has far from disappeared. Indeed, as the region gears up toward its next Amazon wildfire season, the causes underpinning the problem — like illegal logging, encroachment from agribusinesses and profit-driven government policies — remain very much at play.</p><p>And though uncertainty surrounds some of the short- and long-term impacts of increased commercial activity in the Brazilian Amazon, the consequences on a rapidly warming planet are stark indeed. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51464694" target="_blank">New research</a> suggests that some <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation">deforested</a> regions of the rainforest are exhaling more carbon dioxide than they're taking in.</p>
<p>What's more, experts and environmentalists are quick to point the finger of blame toward a principal factor: a government presided over by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose tenure has been characterized by aggressive deregulation and increased commercial exploitation of the Amazon's resources.</p><p>"The impact is obvious: We have much more deforestation," said Philip Fearnside, an ecologist at the National Institute for Research in Amazonia in Brazil, earlier this year. Even before Bolsonaro took office officially, Fearnside <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-brazils-new-president-poses-an-unprecedented-threat-to-the-amazon" target="_blank">sounded the alarm</a> about the Brazilian president's intentions in the Amazon. And with Bolsonaro well into the second year of his tenure, "he's made good on those promises," Fearnside added.</p><p>Indeed, in the year ending on July 30, 2019, more than <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/brazil-revises-deforestation-data-amazon-rainforest-loss-topped-10000-sq-km-in-2019/" target="_blank">10,000 square kilometers</a> of Brazilian Amazon rainforest were lost through deforestation — an amount last topped in 2008, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. The number of active fires in August 2019 was three times higher than in 2018 and the highest number since 2010. The broad ramifications of these trends are far from clear-cut.</p>
<p>According to Jos Barlow, a professor of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation">conservation</a> science at Lancaster University, England, "<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14872" target="_blank">different fire types have very different behaviors</a>," with varying severities of impact. While "understory" forest fires have the smallest flame heights and burn slowly across the forest floor, for example, "they also have long-lasting impacts, killing around 50 percent of all trees, with mortality occurring for many years after the fire," Barlow wrote in an email.</p><p>And so, "How long will it take for forests to recover biomass and primary forest species composition?" Barlow asked. "Will they fully recover, or will they be locked into a lower biomass state?"</p><p>Then there's the potential impact on the climate. For the first six months of 2019, deforestation and fires in the Brazilian Amazon released as much as <a href="https://whrc.org/new-data-brazilian-amazon-fires-have-released-104-141-million-metric-tons-of-co2/" target="_blank">141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide</a>, according to research led by the Woods Hole Research Center. As César Terrer, a postdoctoral scholar in Earth system science at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, explains it, the destruction of the Amazon through logging and wildfires means "we're also limiting the potential of current plants to continue storing CO2."</p>
<p>Terrer led a <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/press/view/29425" target="_blank">study</a> using anticipated carbon dioxide levels for the end of the century and found that plant biomass should increase by 12 percent as a result — an increase that would help enable plants and trees to store more carbon dioxide. "A 12 percent increase is huge," Terrer said in a phone interview. "For the Amazon in particular, that's more than 15 billion tons of carbon," he added, explaining that this amount is equivalent to "all the carbon stored in all the trees in all the forests" in the United States. "They could store all that additional carbon for free, if we let them be."</p><p>The problem? That 12 percent increase is predicated upon current plant biomass levels remaining as they currently are. Instead, "we're increasing deforestation rates in the Amazon, which is hugely important for the climate," Terrer said. "I'm strongly concerned."</p>
<p>After the turn of the century, Brazil appeared to be wrestling the problem of a shrinking Amazon. Between 2004 and 2012, Brazil employed an action plan instituting a number of key provisions, including an expanded network of protected areas alongside market incentives and disincentives, like a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/194008291300600308" target="_blank">successful deforestation moratorium</a> agreed to by nearly all soybean processors and exporters in Brazil. Deforestation rates during that time <a href="https://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/deforestation_calculations.html" target="_blank">plummeted</a>.</p><p>But 2012 marked a turning point. Since then, deforestation has been ticking upwards — 2016, for example, saw a <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/business-as-usual-a-resurgence-of-deforestation-in-the-brazilian-amazon" target="_blank">29 percent increase</a>.</p><p>The administration under Bolsonaro has used that fact to justify its policies in the Amazon, said Fearnside. "There were lots of things happening before Bolsonaro took office, but Bolsonaro has certainly increased that [deforestation] substantially," Fearnside said, pointing to the myriad ways his actions have played out.</p>
<p>The current Brazilian president has taken various measures to weaken the country's environment ministry — the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) — not least of all by tapping Ricardo Salles to lead it. Salles has called <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a> an "innocuous" and "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/10/environmental-fines-are-ideological-says-brazil-minister-ricardo-salles" target="_blank">secondary</a>" issue, and has characterized the rate of illegal deforestation in the Amazon as near "<a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ambiente/2019/07/ricardo-salles-afirma-que-amazonia-ja-tem-desmatamento-relativo-zero.shtml" target="_blank">zero</a>." The director of Brazil's Space Research Institute was fired when the agency's own calculations — which illustrated a <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhealth/2019/08/amazon-deforestation-in-july-increased-278-over-same-period-in-2018.shtml" target="_blank">278 percent increase in deforestation</a> last July — disproved Salles's claims.</p><p>The environment ministry has also stepped back its regulatory oversight. Though <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environmental-conservation/article/brazils-new-president-and-ruralists-threaten-amazonias-environment-traditional-peoples-and-the-global-climate/F5C1E42BF9F6E6BDDB957B87601FC4F7/core-reader" target="_blank">95 percent of the deforestation</a> that occurred in the first three months of Bolsonaro's tenure was illegal, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/environmental-conservation/article/brazils-new-president-and-ruralists-threaten-amazonias-environment-traditional-peoples-and-the-global-climate/F5C1E42BF9F6E6BDDB957B87601FC4F7" target="_blank">no offenders</a> were punished. Indeed, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/28/world/americas/brazil-deforestation-amazon-bolsonaro.html" target="_blank">New York Times analysis</a> found that IBAMA's enforcement actions fell by 20 percent during the first half of 2019, as compared with the year prior. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/02/war-for-survival-brazils-amazon-tribes-despair-as-land-raids-surge-under-bolsonaro" target="_blank">Increased land</a> raids have impacted Indigenous populations in particular.</p><p>"President Bolsonaro of Brazil is encouraging the farm owners near our lands to clear the forest," <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/02/amazon-destruction-earth-brazilian-kayapo-people" target="_blank">wrote</a> Raoni Metuktire, chief of the Indigenous Brazilian Kayapo people. "And he is not doing anything to prevent them from invading our territory."</p>
<p>Some of Bolsonaro's actions have been met with opprobrium among certain sectors of Brazil's corporate class. Blairo Maggi, a billionaire soybean producer and former agriculture minister, has warned of international condemnation of the government's excursions into the Amazon. "The farmers, associations and industry will have to redo what has been lost," he told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/world/americas/amazon-fires-bolsonaro-photos.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. "We retreated 10 steps; we will have to work to get back to where we were."</p><p>Nevertheless, "there are large parts of the agribusiness that are on the other side," said Fearnside, pointing to the <a href="https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1415-43662020000100008&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en" target="_blank">thriving soybean industry</a> in Matopiba, a vast region spanning four Brazilian states. And where is this produce going? In 2017, <a href="https://www.globalcanopy.org/sites/default/files/documents/resources/Brief_DM_soy_final.pdf" target="_blank">92 percent</a> of the soybeans grown for the domestic market in Brazil were used to feed livestock to supply the world's demand for meat.</p><p>"The soy farmers there are all on the bandwagon of denying climate change, which is incredible given that climate change is likely to wipe out their soybean business there," Fearnside said.</p><p>With Bolsonaro only about one year and a half into his presidency, Fearnside is understandably concerned about his remaining tenure and describes the actions already undertaken as having opened up a Pandora's box. This includes the <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2020/01/wildfire-pollution-worsens-air-quality.aspx" target="_blank">human health impacts</a> from wildfire-created air pollution on both nearby and <a href="https://www.enn.com/articles/61766-brazilian-wildfire-pollution-worsens-air-quality-in-distant-cities" target="_blank">distant</a> urban centers — even intensifying <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50573623" target="_blank">glacier melt in the Andes</a>.</p><p>Other experts agree with Fearnside. According to Jos Barlow earlier this year, all indications suggested that 2020 would be "even worse." That prophecy is proving true, with deforestation <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/brazil-revises-deforestation-data-amazon-rainforest-loss-topped-10000-sq-km-in-2019/" target="_blank">rates currently on pace</a> to surpass last year's.</p>
<p><em>An earlier version of this article first appeared on </em><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/as-amazonian-wildfire-season-approaches-we-must-protect-the-vulnerable-forest/" target="_blank"><em>Truthout</em></a><em> and was produced in partnership with </em><a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank"><em>Earth | Food | Life</em></a><em>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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In 'Totalitarian' Move, Brazil's Bolsonaro Removes Death and Case Totals From Coronavirus Website
08 June 2020
Politics
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro speaks with supporters at Alvorada Palace on June 05, 2020 in Brasilia, Brazil. Brazil has over 614,000 confirmed positive cases of Coronavirus and OVER 34,000 deaths. Andressa Anholete / Getty Images
President Donald Trump isn't the only world leader who has been criticized for sidelining science in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/brazil" target="_self">Brazil's</a> Health Ministry removed the total number of coronavirus cases and deaths from a government <a href="https://covid.saude.gov.br/" target="_blank">website</a> Saturday, <a href="https://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKBN23D0Q4" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>. And health ministry employees told local media that the scrubbing was ordered by far-right President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a>, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/07/brazil-stops-releasing-covid-19-death-toll-and-wipes-data-from-official-site" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>"The manipulation of statistics is a manoeuvre of totalitarian regimes," Supreme Court Judge Gilmar Mendes tweeted in response. "The trick will not exempt responsibility for the eventual genocide."</p>
<div id="9ad4a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cf371bf78165edee6d4a710071db85b9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1269399102242119686" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">A manipulação de estatísticas é manobra de regimes totalitários. Tenta-se ocultar os números da #COVID19 para reduz… https://t.co/ykIvshjy6m</div> — Gilmar Mendes (@Gilmar Mendes)<a href="https://twitter.com/gilmarmendes/statuses/1269399102242119686">1591483304.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The government coronavirus tracking website was taken down Friday and reloaded Saturday with only data on cases, deaths and recoveries in the past 24 hours, according to Reuters.</p><p>"The cumulative data ... does not reflect the moment the country is in," Bolsonaro tweeted, as Reuters translated. "Other actions are underway to improve the reporting of cases and confirmation of diagnoses."</p>
<div id="1c66b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="587ff3ba139eb9b2467a3df02021dfbc"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1269241529387888640" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">3- Ao acumular dados, além de não indicar que a maior parcela já não está com a doença, não retratam o momento do p… https://t.co/zBWryV5IDl</div> — Jair M. Bolsonaro (@Jair M. Bolsonaro)<a href="https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/statuses/1269241529387888640">1591445736.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>However, the website change comes as Brazil battles one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-latin-america-52952686" target="_blank">BBC News reported</a>. It has more than 640,000 confirmed cases, behind only the U.S., and more than 35,000 deaths, the third largest death toll after the U.S. and the UK. The move also came after the country reported more than 1,000 deaths for four days in a row.</p><p>The website change was widely condemned by journalists, members of Congress and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-health" target="_self">public health</a> officials.</p><p>"The authoritarian, insensitive, inhuman and unethical attempt to make those killed by Covid-19 invisible will not succeed. We and Brazilian society will not forget them, nor the tragedy that befalls the nation," the president of Brazil's national council of state health secretaries Alberto Beltrame said in a statement reported by The Guardian.</p>
<p>Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the pandemic, calling it a "little flu" and arguing against lockdown measures, according to BBC News. On Friday, he threatened to exit the World Health Organization.</p><p>Before the website change, the government was also criticized for pushing back the publication of its daily virus update from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., according to Reuters.</p><p>In response, head of the Brazilian Press Association Paulo Jeronimo de Sousa accused the government of "trying to silence the press at this late hour."</p><p>"Transparency of information is a powerful instrument for combating the epidemic," he wrote, according to Reuters.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-dismantles-environmental-protections-under-cover-of-coronavirus-2645989316.html" target="_self">Also like the Trump administration</a>, the Bolsonaro government has used to coronavirus crisis to accelerate its deregulatory environmental agenda.</p><p>Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said in April the pandemic was a good time to loosen protections.</p><p>"We need to make an effort here during this period of calm in terms of press coverage because people are only talking about Covid," he said, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/world/americas/amazon-deforestation-brazil.html?campaign_id=51&emc=edit_MBE_p_20200608&instance_id=19175&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=88631294&section=longRead&segment_id=30326&te=1&user_id=d8eb7cee9d3c5ab39515239b6ec54d19" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>.</p>
<p>Lax law enforcement because of the outbreak has led to increased <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a> in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/amazon-rainforest" target="_self">Amazon rainforest</a> in recent months, The New York Times reported Monday. This is likely to lead to even worse <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_self">wildfires</a> than the ones that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-wildfires-2639934452.html" target="_self">devastated</a> the forest last summer.</p><p>"The trend line is shooting upward compared to a year that was already historic in terms of a rise in deforestation," Brazilian federal prosecutor Ana Carolina Haliuc Bragança told The New York Times. "If state entities don't adopt very decisive measures, we're looking at a likely tragedy."</p>
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Paula Kahumbu attends the TDI Awards during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studios on April 25, 2017 in New York City. Rob Kim / Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival
Women have long been at the forefront of the effort to protect the earth and its creatures. Some of them, like Greta Thunberg and Jane Goodall, are household names.
<p>Others, like <a href="http://www.drfisher.umd.edu/PCM_PreliminaryResults.pdf" target="_blank">around 55 percent of the people who hit the streets for 2014's People's Climate March</a>, are anonymous (s)heroes. In between these extremes are many women who have made a significant individual difference as scientists, inventors or activists and who deserve more recognition for their inspiring efforts.</p><p>Here are five women using their unique talents to protect the planet that we at EcoWatch think you should know about.</p>
<p><strong>1. Miranda Wang, Inventor and Entrepreneur, Canada and U.S.</strong></p>
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<p>Only nine percent of the world's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_self">plastic</a> is actually recycled. The rest is landfilled, burned or discarded into the environment, where it risks joining the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/8-million-metric-tons-of-plastic-dumped-into-worlds-oceans-each-year-1882012563.html" target="_self">eight million metric tons</a> that pollute the world's oceans every year. But Miranda Wang is working to change that.<br></p><p>Together with her high school friend Jeanny Yao, Wang developed a method of using chemicals to break down unrecyclable polyethylene film plastics — such as the infamous plastic bag — into reusable compounds, <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/28/recycling-pilot-program-with-local-start-up-in-final-phase/" target="_blank">The Mercury News explained</a>. In 2015, the pair co-founded the company <a href="https://www.biocellection.com/" target="_blank">BioCellection</a> when they were just 21 to put their invention into practice.</p><p>Wang and Yao first met in their Vancouver, B.C. high school's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/recycling" target="_self">recycling</a> club, where they visited waste plants.</p><p>"[W]hen I visited my first waste plant, the scale of the problem hit me," Wang told <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/youngchampions/news/story/young-champion-earth-winner-north-america" target="_blank">UN Environment</a>. "All that waste."</p><p>She is now tackling the problem full time as CEO of BioCellection, which is based in Menlo Park, California. She is working on a pilot program with the city of San Jose and its waste handler GreenWaste to integrate her and Yao's innovation into its preexisting system.</p><p>"The long-term goal is to be able to recycle all of the city of San Jose's — and other cities' — polyethylene plastic," Wang told The Mercury News.</p>
<p><strong>2. Dr. Paula Kahumbu, Conservationist, Kenya</strong></p>
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<p>Dr. Paula Kahumbu, who has been called the "life force" behind Kenya's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> movement, has been working to protect <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/elephants" target="_self">elephants</a> since she was in her early 20s. She and a group of friends measured every piece in Kenya's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ivory" target="_self">ivory</a> stockpile to create an ivory "bonfire" in 1989, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/campaigns/elephant-campaign/dr-paula-kahumbu-interview-africans-must-be-equal-partners-in-a-war-on-elephant-poachers-9123089.html" target="_blank">The Independent reported</a>.</p><p><a href="https://paulakahumbu.org/about/" target="_blank">Since then</a>, she has gone on to earn a Ph.D. at Princeton in ecology and evolutionary biology, to serve as the CEO of Kenyan conservation nonprofit <a href="https://wildlifedirect.org/" target="_blank">WildlifeDirect</a>, and to launch the successful <a href="https://wildlifedirect.org/hands-off-our-elephants/" target="_blank">Hands Off Our Elephants Campaign</a> with Kenyan first lady Margaret Kenyatta in 2014.</p><p>"From spending so much time with [elephants], I know they are not just another animal," she told The Independent. "They are beings with personalities; with families; with feelings. It is such a horrendous injustice to allow them to be slaughtered."</p><p>Hands Off Our Elephants works to tackle the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/poaching" target="_self">poaching</a> crisis in Kenya by enacting new laws and making sure they are enforced, working directly with communities to develop conservation strategies that benefit humans and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and building public support in Kenya for elephant conservation. Since it was launched, elephant poaching in the country has decreased by 80 percent and rhino poaching by 90 percent. One of Kahumbu's key insights has been the importance of engaging Africans, and particularly African women, in protecting their continent's unique animals.</p><p>"It can be hard for Africans, and especially African women, to be heard in this male-dominated world of Western scientists and academics," she told The Independent. "Maasai women, who have been studying elephants for 20 to 40 years each; should have Ph.D.s [by now], but they don't. There has been a real failure to develop the capacity of the people who are instrumental on the ground."</p>
<p><strong>3. Artemisa Xakriabá, Indigenous Activist, Brazil</strong></p>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-amazon-climate-2616170023.html" target="_self">election</a> of right-wing Brazilian President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/jair-bolsonaro" target="_self">Jair Bolsonaro</a> was a blow to climate action and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-rights" target="_self">indigenous rights</a>. So far, he has overseen <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/amazon-rainforest-wildfires-2639934452.html" target="_self">historic wildfires</a> in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/amazon-rainforest" target="_self">Amazon rainforest</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-bolsonaro-bill-open-indigenous-land-2645088985.html" target="_self">pushed</a> to open indigenous forest reserves to the mining and fossil fuel industries. But indigenous women are fighting back.</p><p>Among them is 19-year-old Artemisa Xakriabá, a member of Brazil's Xakriabá tribe. In August, she participated in the first Indigenous Women's March in Brasilia to protest Bolsonaro's anti-environment and anti-indigenous policies, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/indigenous-activist-bolsonaro-amazon-brazil_n_5db31aece4b079eb95a2d409?ri18n=true" target="_blank">HuffPost reported</a>. She was then chosen by a coalition of South American and East Asian indigenous youth groups to represent their cause at youth climate strikes in New York and Washington, DC last September.</p><p>"We, the indigenous peoples, are the children of nature, so we fight for our Mother Earth, because the fight for Mother Earth is the mother of all other fights," she said in New York, as <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/23/brazil_indigenous_climate_activist_artemisa_xakriaba" target="_blank">Democracy Now reported</a>. "We are fighting for your lives. We are fighting for our lives."</p><p>Xakriabá's activism predates Bolsonaro, however. When she was only seven, she helped her classmates reforest 15 riverside areas near their traditional territory in Minas Gerais in southeast Brazil, according to HuffPost.</p><p>In New York, she spoke of the common struggle of all women to protect the earth.</p><p>"I am also here as a young woman," she said, as Democracy Now reported, "because there's no difference between an indigenous young female activist like myself and a young indigenous female activist like Greta. Our future is connected by the same threads of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>."</p>
<p><strong>4. Dr. Maria Caffrey, Scientist and Whistleblower, U.S.</strong></p>
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<p>Dr. Maria Caffrey is another woman who stood up to a climate denying administration.</p><p>In 2012, the National Park Service (NPS) funded a project she had designed to estimate future <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea levels</a> and storm surges at 118 coastal <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/national-parks" target="_self">national parks</a> based on different levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as Caffrey wrote for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/25/trump-administration-climate-crisis-denying-scientist" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. She completed the first draft in the summer of 2016, but then President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> took office, and the report was delayed. Finally, a colleague told her that all mentions of climate change had been edited out of her report. Senior officials wanted her to approve the changes, and, if she refused, threatened to release the report without climate references, to delete her name or not to publish it at all.</p><p>"Each option would have been devastating to my career and for scientific integrity. I stood firm," she wrote. "And I prevailed."</p><p>The report was published, but Caffrey paid for her persistence. She received pay cuts and demotions and then, in February 2019, NPS refused to renew her funding, leading Caffrey to file a whistleblower complaint against the administration.</p><p>Caffrey also sued the administration and testified before Congress in an attempt to raise awareness about the silencing of scientists.</p><p>"Money was never really the point of the lawsuit," Caffrey told <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2019/07/29/boulder-climate-scientist-sues-trump-administration-over-matter-of-scientific-integrity/" target="_blank">Colorado Matters</a>. "The point of the lawsuit is to get on the record and show what the Trump administration is doing to scientists and that that's not OK. And so I think it's important that we stand up and we fight back."</p>
<p><strong>5. Nirupabai, Activist, India</strong></p>
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<p>In India, the expansion of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal</a> doesn't just hurt the global climate. Government-owned Coal India and its subsidiaries have bypassed local and international law in evicting people from their homes in order to expand mines in the states of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, according to a 2016 Amnesty International report publicized by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jul/13/coal-india-accused-of-bulldozing-human-rights-mining-operations-amid-production-boom-amnesty-international" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. These evictions particularly target indigenous Adivasi communities, including a woman named Nirupabai whose home was bulldozed in 2014.</p><p>"I cried, I screamed, trying to save it," she told The Guardian of the eviction. "All my things, my son's school books, a year's worth of rice, everything was scattered, everything in ruins."</p><p>But Nirupabai has gone on to fight the coal company with every means at her disposal, <a href="https://elle.in/article/nirupabai/" target="_blank">Elle reported</a>. She has picketed company offices, spoken at environmental hearings and she spoke in <a href="https://amnesty.org.in/news-update/cost-coal-using-virtual-reality-tell-story-indias-coal-mining-affected-communitie/" target="_blank">The Cost of Coal</a>, India's first VR film to be acquired by the UN. What she wants is for Coal India to stop expanding until people like her are compensated for the land they have lost.</p><p>"You tell me what will grow on this poor land? Coal is the heart of the earth, but they remove it and say we are the sarkar. What is it that you have in your pocket that you didn't take from our land?" Nirupabai said, according to Elle.</p><p>Nirupabai has won one important victory. Coal India usually does not let women who have been displaced by its activities work in the mines because it deems the work unsafe. But a court order filed by another woman, Ratthobai Rathia, has given her the right to work for the land she has lost. Nirupabai isn't done fighting, however.</p><p>"I will fight for every last inch," she told Elle.</p>
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Trending
Brazil's Bolsonaro Unveils Bill to Open Indigenous Lands to Mining, Oil and Gas Exploration
10 February 2020
Politics
Uncontacted indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon. © G. Miranda / FUNAI / Survival / Mongabay
By Jan Rocha
President Jair Bolsonaro pressed forward with a "dream" initiative sending a bill to the Brazilian Congress on Wednesday that would open indigenous reserves in the Amazon and elsewhere to development, including commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism — projects that have been legally blocked under the country's 1988 Constitution.
<p>Justifying the legislation, Bolsonaro explained that "The Indian is a human being exactly like us. They have hearts, feelings, a soul, desires, needs and they are just as Brazilian as we are," so they will welcome economic exploitation inside their territories. Bolsonaro and the <em>bancada ruralista</em> agribusiness and mining lobby, which is very strong in Congress, have eyed the off-limits indigenous lands for decades. Indigenous territories have the best record for forest conservation and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/indigenous-groups-amazons-best-land-stewards-under-federal-attack/" target="_blank">land stewardship</a> in Brazil.</p>
<p>Marcio Santilli, a former head of FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous affairs agency, sees Bolsonaro's "dream" legislation very differently. It will "not promote the economic development of the Indians, but guarantee the exploitation by third parties of their natural resources. It would encourage Indians to live from royalties while watching the dispossession of their lands."</p><p>While the legislation would allow impacted indigenous populations to be consulted, they would lack the power of veto, except in cases of <em>garimpo</em> or wildcat mining. The right of consultation on development projects is assured under the International Labour Organization <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/indigenous-tribal/lang--en/index.htm" target="_blank">Convention 169</a>, of which Brazil is a signatory.</p><p>Though the <em>bancada ruralista</em> is strong in Congress, it remains to be seen whether the bill will gain passage. House of Deputies leader Rodrigo Maia has <a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/content/how-weigh-bolsonaros-play-environmental-redemption#.XjwYpIptvq1.facebook" target="_blank">said</a> he will not bring the legislation to a vote.</p><p>Conservationists are convinced that the opening up of indigenous lands to economic exploitation would inevitably lead to extensive deforestation of what are the most densely forested areas of the Amazon, and to the contamination of Amazonian rivers. That sort of wholesale deforestation could lead to far greater Amazon drought and to a rainforest-to-savanna <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/impending-amazon-tipping-point-puts-biome-and-world-at-risk-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">tipping point</a> that would greatly endanger Brazilian agribusiness as a driver of Brazil's economy.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2OTU4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NjE5NjE2N30.hWHW9b3FvAvI0ekHLvEePtmK1nAWkYplIkPiDOYS9xY/img.jpg?width=980" id="6a7f2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="056a9ddd168e2d811e3a77524f066e8b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A map showing indigenous reserves and conservation units in the Amazon, as well as deforestation. Mauricio Torres / Mongabay
<p>Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro's chief of staff, praised the bill, claiming it was a "Lei Aurea" for indigenous people — a reference to the 1888 royal decree which freed the slaves in Brazil. From the government's point of view, the legislation is freeing indigenous people, allowing their lands to be invaded by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mining" rel="noopener noreferrer">mining</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil-and-gas" rel="noopener noreferrer">oil and gas</a> companies; <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cattle" rel="noopener noreferrer">cattle</a> ranchers; soy farmers and dam builders, while compensating indigenous communities monetarily.</p><p>Under the Brazilian constitution, demarcated indigenous territories belong to the state, and are for the permanent possession and exclusive use of the indigenous people who have always lived there. Only they can decide what activities are allowed on their lands.</p><p>Bolsonaro's new law is therefore an attempt to override the Constitution, say legal experts. It is almost certain to be greatly modified in Congress, if it passes at all. But, say analysts, the message contained in the bill — that indigenous lands are up for grabs — is what matters.</p><p>Since Bolsonaro's election, conflicts between ruralists and indigenous people have soared. The latest report from CIMI, the Indigenous Missionary Council, shows a steady growth in the number of invasions of indigenous areas, up from 111 in 2018 to 160 in 2019; indigenous leaders say Bolsonaro's speeches and comments have contributed to the increase. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/five-murdered-in-2020-brazilian-amazon-land-conflicts-adding-to-2019-surge/" target="_blank">Five murders</a> due to indigenous and traditional land conflicts occurred in the first weeks of 2020.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2OTY2My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NzM3MzExNn0.pGB-LeliNySAQ7cgBaC32B07qX-Vs87cySA5PUZpZsU/img.jpg?width=980" id="a144b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="94f65ab1124e110995ec099a565d3919" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Uncontacted indigenous group in the Brazilian state of Acre. Gleilson Miranda / Governo do Acre / Mongabay
Uncontacted Indigenous Groups at Risk
<p>The new bill as written would allow economic projects even in areas where there are known to be uncontacted Indians. The existence of 28 such groups in the Amazon region has been confirmed, out of 115 believed to exist.</p><p>But the bill isn't the only potential threat to uncontacted tribes. The day before Bolsonaro announced his legislation, FUNAI appointed an evangelical preacher and agency outsider to head the Department for Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (CGIIRC). To accomplish this, FUNAI had to revoke its own long-established rule that only a qualified staff member could be chosen to head such a sensitive bureau.</p><p>The new head, Ricardo Lopes Dias, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/05/brazil-indigenous-tribes-missionary-agency-ricardo-lopes-dias-christianity-disease" target="_blank">strong views</a> regarding the conversion of indigenous people to Christianity. He is a former missionary for the controversial New Tribes Mission, a Florida-based evangelical organization, and worked from 1997 to 2007 in the Vale do Javari indigenous reserve, in Amazonas state. There, according to Matsés indigenous leaders — who protested his presence — he "manipulated part of the Matsés population to found a new village" where an evangelical church would be built. The New Tribes Mission has been accused of causing death and disease among the tribes it worked with in the 1970s, subjecting them to enforced conversion to evangelical Christianity. Lopes Dias has a degree in anthropology.</p><p>Isolated or uncontacted indigenous peoples are usually survivors of larger groups which were decimated by disease or violence when the military dictatorship (ruling from 1964-1985) forced roads through ancestral lands in the Amazon during the 1960s and 70s. In some cases up to 90 percent of local populations died. This led FUNAIi, in the 1980s, after the dictatorship ended, to introduce a policy of non-contact, designating a "no go" zone protecting the survivors, who became known as "isolated Indians."</p><p>The choice by the Bolsonaro administration of an evangelical missionary to head the department, according to experts, indicates a shift in this policy, and has been greeted with dismay by indigenous organizations, who regard it as a means of opening up uncontacted tribes under the protection of FUNAI, and putting their cosmological and ethical belief systems at risk from religious fundamentalism.</p><p>Well known anthropologist Manuela Cunha said, "the mission of the CGIIRC is to protect these peoples from invasions of loggers, miners, drug traffickers and any others, like missionaries, who do not respect their way of life. To choose a missionary — above all one who has tried to convert indigenous people — to head the CGIIRC is totally contradictory to what the law says."</p><p>However, the choice of Lopes Dias is only the latest example in what seems to be FUNAI's deliberate policy over the last year of replacing experienced, qualified staff with military officers and evangelical preachers. Twenty of FUNAI's 39 regional coordinators have been removed under the new administration — almost all were replaced with serving or retired military officers.</p><p>Bolsonaro, this week decided to enlarge his "dream" world even further, extending it to fishing. Apparently still smarting from the fine he received in 2012 (and which he never paid) for being caught illegally sport fishing in a protected reserve in Rio. Police Colonel Homero Cerqueira, head of ICMBio, the agency in charge of Brazil's 334 conservation units, has just authorized "recreational fishing" in all of them, including the most environmentally sensitive preserves.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY2OTY2MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODI1ODg1MX0.ihnZ3S0Kb_5xGOl4b1k8XT92kBLs1JxS2A-OlGUrLlk/img.jpg?width=980" id="cf2d6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4bb9ea8afed9c5b1342e5f674222f72d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/bolsonaro-sends-congress-bill-to-open-indigenous-lands-to-mining-fossil-fuels/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Evidence photo of Jair Bolsonaro upon his 2012 arrest for illegal fishing in a conservation area; he never paid the fine and after becoming president had the IBAMA employee who arrested him sacked. IBAMA / Mongabay
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Indigenous people of various ethnic groups protest calling for demarcation of lands during the closing of the 'Red January - Indigenous Blood', in Paulista Avenue, in São Paulo, Brazil, Jan. 31, 2019. Cris Faga / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Raphael Tsavkko Garcia
Rarely has something so precious fallen into such unsafe hands. Since Jair Bolsonaro took the Brazilian presidency in 2019, the Amazon, which makes up 10 percent of our planet's biodiversity and absorbs an estimated 5 percent of global carbon emissions, has been hit with a record number of fires and unprecedented deforestation.
<p>At the same time, those who have proved the most responsible guardians of the forest, are under increasing pressure and threatened by escalating violence. Since Bolsonaro came to power, there has been an increase in invasions of indigenous lands by loggers and miners, and seven indigenous leaders have been killed in land disputes.</p>
<p>In November, a group of Brazilian lawyers and human rights groups asked the International Criminal Court to indict Bolsonaro for inciting genocide against Brazil's indigenous people.</p><p><a href="https://apublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/e-muito-triste-levar-um-brasileiro-para-o-tribunal-penal-internacional-diz-co-autora-da-peticao.pdf" target="_blank">They argue</a> that these communities are at increased risk of violence because "the means of existence of the indigenous peoples are grounded on their relationships to the land, the forest, wildlife and water," and that threats to the forest put them "at risk of falling victim to crimes against humanity."</p>
'Bolsonaro Is Taking Away Our Future'
<p>Bolsonaro, who has compared indigenous people to zoo animals and accused indigenous leaders of working to promote foreign interests in the Amazon, has repeatedly threatened to end the policy of land demarcation, whereby indigenous communities are granted the right to clearly defined territories.</p><p>He has also attacked the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) — the governmental agency for indigenous interests — cutting its funding and powers and forbidding its employees from speaking to the press.</p><p>At the same time, the right-wing president has scrapped environmental regulations and is set to legalize 300,000 illegally occupied rural properties — 86 percent of them in the Amazon territory and many of them commercial farming or logging operations.</p><p>"Bolsonaro is taking away our future," indigenous conservationist Olinda Muniz told DW. "A president who encourages genocide and does nothing to curb environmental disasters is a person who should never represent this country."</p>Indigenous Lifestyles vs. Economic Development
<p>A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1462901119301042" target="_blank">recent study</a> comparing Brazil, Australia and Canada pointed to greater biodiversity in areas administered by indigenous peoples and is just the latest research to suggest these communities are exceptionally good at preserving the land they live from.</p><p>Yet in Brazil, as elsewhere, their way of life has been under threat since colonialists first arrived from Europe and began exploiting the land's natural resources and imposing foreign ways of life on its people.</p><p>Now, the lawyers argue in their action against Bolsonaro that indigenous lifestyles are being portrayed as a problem in themselves, "hampering the national development plans," and "infrastructure projects, mining enterprises, logging activities and agribusiness ventures in forested regions."</p><p>Muniz and her husband Samuel Wanderley, both of the Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe ethnic group, founded the Kaapora project in the Caramuru Paraguaçu indigenous territory in the Brazlian state of Bahia. They are restoring grazing land back to forest, protecting remaining trees and growing new ones, so the land can once more be a refuge for wildlife.</p><p>Now she fears that efforts like hers are under threat. "We have no guarantee of compliance with our constitutional rights," Muniz said. "Social movements are being attacked head-on, indigenous, black, environmentalists, landless workers, fishermen, etc."</p><p>The Kaapora project is one of many in Brazil through which indigenous communities, independently or in partnership with NGOs, are helping revive the forest and maintain traditional ways of life in the midst of modernity — combining traditional knowledge with new technologies and increasing independence from markets and governments that have rarely worked in their interests.</p><p>The Ashaninka in Acre state, for example, have established cooperatives to grow food and provide for their community. They, and groups like the Pataxó in Minas Gerais state, are also teaching non-indigenous communities about sustainable agriculture. By creating a space for dialogue with the external community, and young people in particular, they hope to pass on their respect for nature.</p>
Staking out Their Own Land
<p>Meanwhile, in southern Brazil, the Kaingang are working to reforest their land with araucaria, an indigenous tree which produces a fruit they can eat and sell, and that supports indigenous wildlife. For Marcio Kokoj of the Kaingang Guarani Indigenous Environmental Association, the Bolsonaro government feels like a throwback to Brazil's military dictatorship that murdered thousands of indigenous people, drove thousands more from their lands, and tortured many and enslaved others between 1964 and 1985.</p><p>"The greatest concern today is with the attacks on the demarcations of our lands, we therefore need to make self-demarcation," Kokoj said. "If it depends on Bolsonaro, he will open up areas for large-scale agricultural production, multinationals, mining. That worries us a lot."</p><p>Self-demarcation is when indigenous communities draw the boundaries of their own territory, often expelling illegal occupants, such as loggers.</p><p>Last July, the indigenous Munduruku from the Tapajós region in the Amazon state of Pará, kicked out illegal loggers who had invaded their territory which they began to self-define in 2014.</p><p>The Munduruku were armed with arrows, songs, war paint and "the wisdom of our ancestors," they said in a <a href="https://cimi.org.br/2019/07/povo-munduruku-expulsa-madeireiros-territorio-durante-autodemarcacao/" target="_blank">note</a> to the Indigenous Missionary Council that made clear their intention to continue defending their own land if governmental institutions fail to do so.</p>Calling on the International Community
<p>Kokoj too says the Bolsonaro government should not expect the forest's guardians to step aside without a fight. "We indigenous peoples, over the years and the governments, have created resistance that is still effective today," he said.</p><p>In defense of their land and culture, Brazil's indigenous communities have long allied with broader social movements, called out violations of their rights to international bodies, and above all, insisted on remaining in their territories despite threats and violence. Since Bolsonaro came to power, indigenous activists have taken the streets to assert their land rights and protest their treatment by the right-wing government. </p><p>But Kokoj stresses that support from the wider population of Brazil and the international community is vital.</p><p>The group of Brazilian lawyers lobbying the International Criminal Court says the prosecutor at the international tribunal in the Hague is expected to investigate their complaint. It remains to be seen if this will lead to an indictment of Jair Bolsonaro — and amount to the kind of international pressure Brazil's indigenous communities hope for.</p><p><span></span><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-indigenous-communities-resist-bolsonaro/a-51909742">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>
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Aerial view of Ruropolis, Para state, northen Brazil, on Sept. 6, 2019. Tthe world's biggest rainforest is under threat from wildfires and rampant deforestation. JOHANNES MYBURGH / AFP via Getty Images
By Kate Martyr
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest last month jumped to the highest level since records began in 2015, according to government data.
A total of 563 square kilometers (217.38 square miles) of the world's largest rainforest was destroyed in November, 103% more than in the same month last year, according to Brazil's space research agency.
From January to November this year an area almost the size of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico was destroyed — an 83% overall increase in destruction when compared with the same period last year.
The figures were released on Friday by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and collected through the DETER database, which uses satellite images to monitor forest fires, forest destruction and other developments affecting the rainforest.
What's Behind the Rise?
Overall, deforestation in 2019 has jumped 30% compared to last year — 9,762 square kilometers (approximately 3769 square miles) have been destroyed, despite deforestation usually slowing during November and December.
Environmental groups, researchers and activists blamed the policies of Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro for the increase.
They say that Bolosonaro's calls for the Amazon to be developed and his weakening support for Ibama, the government's environmental agency, have led to loggers and ranchers feeling safer and braver in destroying the expansive rainforest.
His government hit back at these claims, pointing out that previous governments also cut budgets to environment agencies such as Ibama.
The report comes as Brazil came to loggerheads with the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) over climate goals during the UN climate conference in Madrid.
AOSIS blasted Brazil, among other nations, for "a lack of ambition that also undermines ours."
Last month, a group of Brazilian lawyers called for Bolsonaro to be investigated by the International Criminal Court over his environmental policies.
Reposted with permission from DW.
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