In Brazil’s Amazon states, it is common for landowners to contract off-duty police officers to perform extrajudicial killings and land evictions. Those words reaffirmed his vision of the Amazon: indigenous peoples must open up to innovation, their lands must be reduced and the region must be available for exploitation. Here, and across the Brazilian Amazon, since 1985, less than 10% of land killings have gone to trial. A deforested area in southern Maranhão seen from the helicopter of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources. The state of Maranhão is one of the worst affected by forest fires and illegal logging, and has lost 75% of its Amazon forest cover.

Source: The Guardian June 04, 2021 06:00 UTC