Tag: The Amazon

The Amazon

Brazil: Amazon road blocked to press demarcation

Members of the Gavião, Gamella, Krenyê and Tremembé indigenous peoples blocked the main road through São Luís, capital of Brazil's Maranhão state, to press demands for long-delayed demarcation of their ancestral lands—now being overrun by illegal loggers and their paramilitary enforcers. The action, which halted traffic on the artery for several hours, came as some 100 indigenous activists had been camping for three weeks outside the São Luís headquarters of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).

The Amazon

Peru: indigenous resistance defeats oil contract

Peruvian authorities turned down a bid to renew Frontera Energy's oil contract for Bloc 192 in the upper Amazon after the oilfield was occupied by indigenous protesters, prompting the Canadian company to declare force majeure. Local communities launched the occupation to demand that they be consulted before a decision was made on renewing the contract.

The Amazon

China wins contract for Amazon mega-project

Peru's Transport and Communications Ministry signed a contract with Chinese state-owned engineering giant SinoHydro to build the Hidrovía Amazónica, a mega-project aimed at turning the major rivers of the Amazon into arteries for delivering the resources of the rainforest basin to foreign markets. The government claims to have carried out a "prior consultation" with impacted communities along the rivers, having won 40 agreements to proceed with work.

The Amazon

Brazil: massacre of ‘uncontacted’ group reported

Prosecutors in Brazil have opened an investigation after reports that illegal gold-miners on a remote Amazon river massacred members of an "uncontacted" indigenous band. Two gold-miners have been arrested in the case. The killings allegedly took place last month in the Vale do Javari Indigenous Territory, known as the "Uncontacted Frontier," as it shelters more isolated peoples than anywhere else on Earth.

The Amazon

Brazil: vast Amazon reserve opened to mining

Brazil's government issued an order abolishing a vast national reserve in the Amazon in order to open up the area to mineral exploitation. The National Reserve of Copper and Associated (RENCA), covering an area larger than Denmark, straddles the northern states of Amapa and Pará, and is thought to be rich in gold, iron, manganese and other minerals. Opposition Senator Randolfe Rodrigues denounced the move as "the biggest attack on the Amazon of the last 50 years."

The Amazon

Ecuador: drones deployed in Amazon stand-off

Ecuador's government has deployed drones and helicopters to the Amazon village of El Tink, where indigenous residents are blocking roads in a dispute over a mining project.