Illegally cut timber stacked near the Tapiche River in Sierra del Divisor National Park and Yavarí-Tapiche Indigenous Reserve in Peru, near the Brazilian border. (Photo courtesy of Orpio)
The recent slaying in western Brazil of a British journalist and a Brazilian expert on indigenous issues underscores not only the dangers facing those who defend the rights of indigenous Amazonians, but also the chronic lawlessness along the Brazilian-Peruvian border. Freelance journalist Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, a former official with Funai, the Brazilian government’s indigenous-affairs agency, were shot and killed June 5, allegedly by men involved in illegal fishing in the Vale do Javari Indigenous Territory. The huge expanse of forest near the triple border shared by Brazil, Peru and Colombia is home to the world’s largest concentration of semi-nomadic people who shun contact with the outside world. Phillips and Pereira had visited a lake where members of a surveillance team of Univaja, the umbrella organization representing indigenous peoples in the territory, were stationed. They were returning to the town of Atalaia do Norte when they... [Log in to read more]
