Tag: Indigenous

Posted on

Currently, in the Amazon rainforest, 5 times more carbon is released from degradation than from deforestation – and still what remains continues to burn

A study, using detailed 3d surveys, found that road building, and other degradation is causing 5 times as much carbon to be released into the air, than deforestation of the Amazon.

From road building, to selective logging, fires and natural disasters, all these activities are combining to having a greater impact on carbon stocks in the Brazillian Amazon than deforestation. This huge discrepancy is not taken into account by the numbers.

This is also a problem to the world, as this carbon is being radically underestimated, which means that large quantities of our remaining carbon budget are being used up. This new survey used lidar, which gives a more accurate idea of what is left in terms of forest cover.

Read more: Currently, in the Amazon rainforest, 5 times more carbon is released from degradation than from deforestation – and still what remains continues to burn

With the addition of lidar sensors on the ISS, it is possible to scan the worlds forests more often – and given the ISS regular passing over 90% of the earths surface (in each 24 period – as while it orbits on a set path, the earth turns below it) this can be a good tool to keep an eye on the forests of the earth.

Another confirmation (as if it was needed) has been supplied by this study, showing that Indigenous territories and conservation units are both more efficient ways to protect the forest. These cover only 47.5% of the land, but contain just 9.1% of the forest clearing 2.6% of the logging and 9.6% of the fires.

Talking of fires

Fires continue to burn in the Amazon, with over 13,400 having been recorded in 2024. President Lula has called for general mobilization and Brazil has pledged to end deforestation by 2030. This is higher than during Bolsonaro’s time in office, though current cause is a drought, not human mismanagement.

Climate change is causing an increasing change in weather patterns, and reduced rainfall is changing the forests behaviour ( it should be noted, that the forest produces a not -insignificant portion of its rainfallm

Posted on

More than 20 indigenous groups have called on the Australian government to stop culling Dingoes

For indigenous communities, killing dingoes are a cultural icon, and for them killing them is tantamount to killing a family member.

This has been raised more forcefully, after recent surveys showed that the Australian dingo is actually genetically very pure.

Given their classification of being native species, they should not be culled.

It is true that there is some question as to when the dingo arrived in Australia, and whether it arrived with early humans, however that would still mean that they arrived 50,000 years ago, which would definitely make them native in almost any regular description.

Posted on

Backlash to Indigenous communities and environmentalists opposing oil and gas projects have lead to a load of anti-protest fossil fuel bills in the USA

Anti-protest bills are obvious anti-democratic. Yet Republican run states have past bills prohibiting protest in 1 in 3 USA states in the last 4 years. The American Legislative Exchange Council helped write laws criminalizing protest against pipelines, gas terminals and other projects in 24 states in the USA. This is theoretically to protect critical infrastructure.

This is in response to successes in creating laws to keep fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage they do.

For the time being, laws in the USA have swung away from climate protection. We need the US central government to take up this cause, and reverse this issue.

Posted on

And the all out assault on indigenous land and uncontacted tribes continues under Bolsonaros leadership

In past governments indigenous land was out of bounds, yet under Bolsonaro there is currently 1265 requests to mine in Indigenous territories pending. This behaviour is prohibited by the Brazilian constitution, which shows how bad this is. If the mining is illegal what is the ned for it to even be looked at?

Given in these cases this land has been given over to the tribes, it is not the governments to hand over to miners.

The big concern is that even if Bolsonaro is voted out after just one term, he may have destroyed most of the countries remaining forests and indigenous areas, meaning there will be little for his replacement to save.

One of the companies wrote to Mongabay after the article was originally published, they claimed that they did not know anything about it. Unfortunately the record of the request is clear, and it is worth noting that while denying the existence, they did not cancel any of the requests at all

Posted on

Indigenous people of Peru have been living sustainably for 5000 years

There are often arguments, that indigenous people need to be removed in order to balance nature back out. It is true that in some wilderness areas, so called indigenous people have moved into wilderness areas within the last 50 years. These people should not be called indigenous or be given rights over the land that their parents seized.

As you can see, this village is deep in the forest, with little land cleared around it. Furthermore, the village is made from renewable resources, and if the village was abandoned, within a few years these houses would have disappeared for good,

On the other hand, there are tribes in the Amazonian rainforest (as in the Congo and other rainforests) that have lived largely identical lives for 5000 years. Whats more, there is little evidence of damage to the ecosystem throughout the fossil record.

We need to be careful, as we try to protect these wild areas, There is a big difference between modern humans moving into the forest and clearing land for crops, and indigenous people who have lived in harmony with the forest for millenia.

Posted on

Increased concern for damage to indigenous communities from covid 19

Brazil has changed its tack under bolsonaro. He has been astoundingly derogatory about the indigenous Brazilian people ( indeed the way he talks you would only think he wanted the rule for the Descendants of European settlers) and this has been shown by his increasing support and push for invasion of their lands either forgiveness afterwards or promises beforehand that nothing will happen.

Continue reading “Increased concern for damage to indigenous communities from covid 19”
Posted on

The attack on the Brazilian rainforest by Bolsonaro continues – On to indigenous lands

As European settlers moved around the world, they often treated the local population badly. In a significant portion of the world this bad behaviour took the form of small parts of the land being given to the the local population and the rest of the country being taken by the Settlers.

In some places such as America, Many of these tribes have since used their land to run casinos and other things not allowed, outside the reserve. In other words these Reserves are less like the land would have been without the Europeans than if it was not tribal land.

There are similarly huge areas of tribal Or indigenous land around much of the Land that European settled, be that in Canada or Africa or or Australia. In parts of Africa and Australia those indigenous people who wish to continue to live as they always have, can choose to do so. Giving this land to the indigenous people was considered only fair, given how much land that they were losing. However in many of these places this indigenous land was also expected to remain in its wild state. Brazil still has a huge number of indigenous people, living in their tribes as they have done for millennia. Not only have many of these tribes thrived under this system, but they have also been far better at managing the forest within their reserves than outside their control.

For bolsonaro, these indigenous reserves are totally unacceptable. Being huge areas that are often totally outside the control of the Brazilian government and with the current rules unavailable for any of the Descendants of settlers to use.

Around the world it is not unusual when a road is built through a protected Forest that the area is rapidly deforested and often settled within several years. It would appear that this is what is wanted on this occasion to- forget simply building roads bolsonaro is giving permission for farms to be set up on these lands, As well as mining, and fossil fuel extraction. Not only with the indigenous people get no money for the land that is being stolen, but also they would gain nothing from the resources extracted.

In theory the bill does give the people a chance to give their feedback, but they have no veto to stop things done to their land.

Interestingly this also talks about the land being used for tourism. However any tourist worth their salt should be looking to do their trips that benefit the indigenous people and not help steal their land.

This is not the first time that bolsonaro has try something like this. Last year he tried to move control over. What is done with the land from the indigenous people to the agricultural ministry.

Yet, this was blocked by the most senior judges in Brazil who said it was not allowed.

Given that this latest move appears to be identical but done in a different way it should also be blocked. However Given that it is led by the president. We cannot be confident that the damage he is trying to do will be stopped until he can be removed from office.

If you visit Brazil on on a holiday, you must make sure that you do not compound to the damage being done but Instead visit places that will benefit the local indigenous people and the protection of the rainforest.

Posted on

An official in Brazil is shot for trying to protect indigenous people

As well as fires, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro approach’s to protecting the Amazon has been shown to lead to problems. His stance of supporting farmers and loggers in their theft of land, both from national parks or indigenous tribal land has reached its ultimate and some would say obvious conclusion.

Continue reading “An official in Brazil is shot for trying to protect indigenous people”
Posted on

Bolsorano, president of Brazil, update – further rainforest threat


I wrote a few months ago about the news that Bolsorano had been elected as the next president of Brazil. I talked about the things that he had promised to do that would be detrimental to the environmental condition in Brazil and potentially South America.

While it has taken a few months for him to start changing things, it is not encouraging.

Continue reading “Bolsorano, president of Brazil, update – further rainforest threat”
See Animals Wild

Read more news

Join as a wild member
to list your wild place & log in

Join as an ambassador supporter to
support this site, help save wildlife
and make friends & log in

Join as an Associate member
to assist as a writer, creator, lister etc & to log in

List a wild destination

List a destination in
the shadow of man

List a hide for animals more easily seen this way

Highlight some news
missed, or submit a
one-off article

Browse destinations for fun or future travel

Temporary membership
start here if in a hurry

Casual readers and watchers