Brazil’s plans to establish a 4.2-million-acre (1.7-million-ha) Indian reservation this month covering 8% of the northeastern Amazon state of Roraima have drawn fire from state officials and from local farmers and ranchers who want to remain on 741,000 acres (300,000 ha) of land within the reserve. The federal government in 1992 declared the lands of the Ingáriko, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang, and Wapixana peoples to be indigenous, and in 1998-99 demarcated the reservation, called Raposa Serra do Sol as the home of the five tribes’ 16,000 members. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s announcement last month that he will approve the demarcation, thus officially creating the reserve, means some 700 white settlers, among them farmers, ranchers and their employees, must move out... [Log in to read more]