Soy farming has made inroads in the Amazon, and among the latest evidence is the water-quality concerns being raised by 14 tribes that inhabit the Xingu indigenous reserve in Mato Grosso state. The tribes charge that illegal deforestation of riverbanks in farming areas is causing erosion that has muddied once-clear rivers traversing Xingu. That, they complain, has made it harder for residents of the four-decade-old, 6.1-million-acre (2.5 million-hectare) reserve to catch fish—their main food source—and has forced them to filter their drinking water. “The Xingu used to fish with bows and arrows, but during the past decade the erosion caused by deforestation made the rivers so murky we can’t see the fish,” says Mairawe Kaiabí, a... [Log in to read more]