"President Jair Bolsonaro is moving aggressively to open up the Amazon rainforest to commercial development, posing an existential threat to the tribes living there."
"URU EU WAU WAU TERRITORY, Brazil — The billboard at the entrance of a tiny Indigenous village in the Amazon has become a relic in less than a decade, boasting of something no longer true.
“Here, there is investment by the federal government,” proclaims the sign, erected in 2012, which is now shrouded by fallen palm tree fronds.
In fact, this tiny hamlet in Rondônia state, called Alto Jamari, home to some 10 families of the Uru Eu Wau Wau tribe, is barely surviving, just like scores of other struggling villages in the region that for decades have served as havens for Indigenous culture and bulwarks against deforestation in Brazil.
Federal aid is drying up at the same time that more outsiders are trespassing on their lands, eager to illegally exploit the forest’s resources, and as the coronavirus poses a deadly threat, having already reached a few remote villages."
Ernesto Londoño and Letícia Casado report for the New York Times April 19, 2020.
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