case study a kayapo swidden field in brazil's amazon region

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Deforestation along highway BR-163 from Cuiabá to Santarém, Brazil. Photographs by Flavio Forner and the Kabu Institute

For the Kayapó, a Long Battle to Save Their Amazon Homeland

For decades, the Kayapó of Brazil have fought to protect their territory from successive waves of loggers, miners, farmers, and land grabbers. Now, with a recently paved highway and a planned railway closing in on their lands, the Kayapó’s struggle is far from over.

By Jill Langlois • March 29, 2022

For more than four decades, Kokoró Mekranotire has watched with dismay as outsiders have laid waste to ever-larger swaths of his Kayapó homeland. Loggers, gold miners, farmers, and land grabbers have streamed illegally into and around the Indigenous territory, a 40,000-square-mile expanse of forest the size of South Korea. The patch of forest where Mekranotire used to collect Brazil nuts — a dense canopy of deep golden-brown trees standing almost 100 feet tall — was stripped. Stands of cumaru trees, a Brazilian teak, were felled to make decks, cabinetry, and flooring. Loggers have repeatedly entered Kayapó land, removed what was in their way, and taken the rest to make a profit.

“Those trees never should have been touched,” says Mekranotire, now 49 and working for the Kabu Institute , a nonprofit that helps protect Kayapó land and develop sustainable businesses among its people, including Brazil nut cultivation. “We had to fight to hold onto our land and let more trees grow.”

Outsiders started arriving in droves in the 1970s with the opening of the federal BR-163 highway, which stretches 1,320 miles from Cuiabá in south-central Brazil to Santarém in the heart of the Amazon. BR-163 parallels Kayapó land and was fully paved by 2020 , spurring a boom in soybean farming, with the highway providing easy access for millions of tons of the commodity crop to reach Brazilian ports.

“We’re fighting a war against politicians who want to destroy us and our land,” says a Kayapó activist.

The paving also provided much easier outside access to two important Kayapó reserves, Menkragnoti and Baú, measuring more than 18,000 square miles and 6,000 square miles, respectively. Illegal loggers and miners who used to arrive in a trickle, Mekranotire says, started gushing in. “The kuben [white men] already had a lot of experience; they knew exactly what they were doing,” he says. “But not all of our leaders did. They told us the highway wouldn’t affect us. It was a lie.”

Now, as Brazil’s nationalist President Jair Bolsonaro continues his push to legalize a broad range of economic and extractive activities on Indigenous land, plans are underway for a railway to help transport soybeans from the region’s burgeoning number of farms. And even though the Kayapó are one of the strongest and best-known Indigenous groups in the Brazilian Amazon — they have led the fight for Indigenous rights for 40 years — Bolsonaro’s anti-Indigenous policies are posing a significant threat.

“We’re fighting a war,” says Doto Takakire, who also works at the Kabu Institute. “A war against politicians who want to destroy us and our land.”

Located on a plateau in central Brazil, far south of the Amazon River and in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará, Kayapó land is the largest tract of Indigenous territory in Brazil and the largest swath of relatively pristine forest in the Amazon’s southeast, a region known as the ”arc of deforestation.” Despite continuing incursions — the Kayapó lost 3 million acres of land on their eastern border to logging, mining, and other development in the 1980s and 1990s — the group’s territory retains remarkable biodiversity, with jaguars, giant otters, harpy eagles, abundant fish populations, and vast forest areas.

Kokoró Mekranotire of the Menkragnoti Velho village on the Menkragnoti reserve.

Numbering only 9,400 people, the Kayapó live in villages on the Xingu River and its tributaries. The men fish and hunt animals such as tapir, capuchin monkeys, peccary, and deer. Women raise children, tend extensive gardens, and make trips into the forest to collect Brazil nuts, cumaru, açaí berries, and other fruits.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Kayapó made international headlines as they moved to obtain legal rights to their traditional lands. Led by Chief Raoni Metuktire, who would eventually be nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, they were joined by musician Sting in their fight to protect the Amazon rainforest, spawning nonprofits like the Rainforest Fund . Other groups, such as the International Conservation Fund of Canada and Conservation International, have helped the Kayapó defend their territories, providing boats, radios, and aerial surveillance data so the Kayapó can patrol their 1,250 miles of border.

“If there were no more Kayapó territory, then there would definitely be no more forest at all,” says Renata Pinheiro, senior manager for Indigenous people and social policies at Conservation International Brasil. “They’re on the agricultural frontier.”

The Kayapó’s fight has been part of a larger movement to demand Indigenous land rights in Brazil following centuries of oppression. The implementation of Brazil’s Constitution in 1988, including article 231 , which outlines those rights as well as the federal government’s responsibility to demarcate and protect the land, gave them recourse. It didn’t, however, mean that those theoretical protections would always work in practice.

Left: Kayapó women carry bundles of leaves to a village ceremony. Right: Kayapó men in a traditional ceremony.

In the decades to come, all Indigenous land — Brazil has 305 Indigenous groups — would continue to come under threat, whether or not the groups had already completed the slow process of demarcation and official government recognition. Illegal mining, logging, fishing, and land theft, as well as the construction of highways, railways, and hydroelectric dams, have continued to impinge upon Indigenous territories.

The Yanomami, who live in the Amazon rainforest bordering Venezuela, are still in a longstanding fight to remove more than 20,000 illegal miners from their land, which is rich in gold. In Mato Grosso do Sul — a state that encompasses the tropical savanna known as the Cerrado and the world’s largest tropical wetland, called the Pantanal — the Guarani Kaiowá are trying to take back land lost to ever-advancing farming, facing violent attacks and the burning of their prayer houses . And the Kambiwá, Pataxó, and Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe in the state of Minas Gerais, who lost their land in the 2019 Brumadinho dam disaster , continue to confront land grabbers trying to take over their new territory.

The construction of the BR-163 highway was part of the National Integration Plan implemented by Brazil’s military dictatorship — a project designed to bring Indigenous groups under government control, occupy the Amazon, and take over the land. Anything and anyone in the way would be removed.

Kayapó land ravaged by illegal gold mining.

By the time the highway opened in 1976, many Kayapó had succumbed to outbreaks of disease brought to the region by outsiders, and just 20 percent of the Kayapó living on what would become the Baú reserve survived. They no longer had access to the Jamanxim River and lost 1,158 square miles of land to wildcat miners, loggers, and squatters, which they agreed to give up in exchange for what would be an empty promise to put an end to invasions of their territory.

With their land placed under federal protection — the Baú reserve in 2008 and the Menkragnoti reserve in 1993 — the Kayapó thought the threats would subside. But they haven’t. Deforestation has continued to threaten both reserves, as more and more trees are felled closer to their borders. According to the Kabu Institute, the deforestation on non-Indigenous land surrounding the Menkragnoti and Baú reserves almost tripled in 18 years , jumping from 4,450 square miles in 2000 to more than 12,580 square miles in 2018.

And deforestation on Indigenous land itself — illegal in Brazil under federal law — hasn’t stopped. A recent study from the research institute, Imazon, showed that almost 67,000 acres of forest in the state of Pará were lost to unauthorized logging between August 2019 and July 2020. Of that total, 390 acres were on the Baú reserve. According to Dalton Cardoso, an Imazon researcher, the south of Pará, where Kayapó land is located, contains abundant old-growth wood, prized by illegal loggers. The region’s ever-expanding network of highways, he says, has also “given loggers access to areas that were previously unreachable.”

Kayapó leaders know that the proposed railroad will bring more soybean farmers close to their land.

It has emboldened them, too. Doto Takakire is from the Baú reserve. Because of his work with the Kabu Institute, he often travels back and forth between his home in the forest and Novo Progresso, a nearby town that sits on the BR-163. Infamous for being at the center of August 2019’s Fire Day — when a group of farmers and ranchers got together to set a series of coordinated fires in the forest in support of Bolsonaro and his promise to open the Amazon to more development — the town is a staging point for men working in extractive industries.

It is also where some of them put pressure on the Kayapó.

Last year, Takakire says he was approached several times by loggers in town. Because of his ability to speak to Indigenous people living in Baú and Menkragnoti, the loggers thought he could convince the Kayapó to give them permission to work on their land. Knowing it was rich in prized ipê wood, or Brazilian walnut, they offered Takakire $10,000 Brazilian reais ($2,000) for his trouble. When he said no, they upped it to $20,000 Brazilian reais ($4,000). Again, he refused.

“I defend my people’s interests,” Takakire says. “If we stop, who will fight for us? Nobody.”

In August 2020, the Kayapó set up a blockade across the section of the BR-163 that runs through Novo Progresso. Wearing headdresses and painted faces, they demanded improvements in health care, the removal of illegal miners from their territories, and, most of all, to be consulted about plans to build a railway next to their land.

Doto Takakire at his desk at the Kabu Institute in Novo Progresso.

Known as the Ferrogrão, the railway would run 580 miles between Sinop, in Mato Grosso state, and Itaituba, in Pará, an important port city for the flow of agricultural commodities in the Amazon. The railroad’s main objective: to transport soy.

Soy production in Brazil is soaring, reaching an estimated 134 million tons last year and making the country the world’s third-largest soy producer. A study published last year noted that soy was responsible for 10 percent of deforestation across South America in the last 20 years, and that “the most rapid expansion occurred in the Brazilian Amazon, where soybean area increased more than tenfold.”

The Kayapó living on the Baú and Menkragnoti reserves don’t need to see these numbers to know that soy is taking over the region. The constant flow of trucks carrying soybeans on highway BR-163 makes it obvious, as do the farms that line the road. Bepdjo Mekragnotire, chief of the Baú village, located on the Kayapó’s Baú reserve, knows that the proposed railroad will bring more soy farmers close to Kayapó land.

On the Pixaxá and other rivers that are key arteries through Kayapó territory, warriors have recently been confronting gold miners illegally entering Indigenous land on makeshift rafts. The widespread, ad-hoc mining, which uses mercury to separate gold from other minerals, has already contaminated numerous rivers, like the Curuá, where the Kayapó once fished, collected drinking water, and bathed. According to a 2018 federal investigation into illegal mining, fish samples collected in the Curuá and Baú rivers showed levels of mercury well above what is recommended by the World Health Organization and the Brazilian health regulatory agency, ANVISA.

Left: An illegal mining raft that entered the Pixaxá River before being ejected by Kayapó warriors. Right: Fish caught in the Baú river. A federal investigation found that fish from the Baú contained high levels of mercury, which is used in mining.

No epidemiological studies of mercury have been done among the Kayapó people, but their concerns increased when a study by the scientific institution Fiocruz and WWF Brazil showed that 100 percent of the members of the neighboring Munduruku Indigenous group were contaminated with mercury , 60 percent at levels above what is considered safe. Contamination among riverside villagers jumped to 90 percent.

“We’ve had some babies born with developmental problems,” says Bepdjo Mekragnotire. “We wonder if it’s the mercury, but we just don’t know yet.”

Mining is illegal on Kayapó territory, but legal on adjacent land, with the requirement that the Kayapó are consulted regarding possible environmental and health effects. Nevertheless, mining is rampant where the Kayapó live, occasionally with the involvement of some Kayapó. Rich in gold, the entire region has attracted everything from the smallest wildcat operations to some of the biggest mining giants, including Serabi Gold , a company headquartered in the UK that owns and operates two gold mining complexes in the region, including one next to Kayapó land.

Bekwyitexo Kayapó, chief of Pukany village, holds a basket of beaded bracelets that she and other Kayapó women make and sell.

Ever since Jair Bolsonaro campaigned for president in 2018, vowing to open up Indigenous land to mining and end federal recognition of Indigenous territories, the Kayapó have been feeling the pressure. Since then, the president has repeated his promises several times, saying two months after his election, “I will not demarcate one more square centimeter of Indigenous land.”

In 2020, he pushed a bill to regulate the exploitation of resources on Indigenous reserves — legislation widely seen as further opening Indigenous territories to development. Brazil’s lower house of Congress voted this month to flag the bill as urgent, and it is expected to go to a vote in April. In February, Bolsonaro, who is up for reelection this year, signed a decree meant to encourage small-scale and artisanal mining. The government has denied this includes illegal mining, but environmentalists are concerned it could spur more unlawful mining in the Amazon.

“When I was young, I feared that the white men who came to our village were there to kill us and to take what was valuable from our land,” says Bekwyitexo Kayapó, chief of the Pukany village on the Menkragnoti reserve. “Now, I know that they’ve come to kill us in a different way. Now, I fear they’ll do it by taking our land.”

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‘I want Lula to see this’: Indigenous chief continues fight for Amazon

Raoni Metuktire Kayapó has battled against deforestation all his life and is inviting Brazil’s president to see the damage to his land

F lying low over the Kayapó Indigenous territory, the poisoning of the Amazon is starkly apparent in a string of mud polygons carved out by illegal goldminers. From a Greenpeace plane, the Indigenous chief Raoni Metuktire Kayapó stares at the scars – tinted red, blue, green, white, brown, yellow and grey – and jabs his finger in anger. “I don’t like this at all. The destruction is so big and the land will never go back to what it was.”

Raoni, a lifetime campaigner for the rainforest, has invited the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , to his territory this week for one of the most important meetings of Indigenous leaders in recent years.

Illegal mining, and its pollution of rivers, people and culture, will be high on the agenda. In the past four years, pressure on Indigenous territories intensified alarmingly under the laissez-faire presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, who encouraged a new wave of invasion by illegal miners, with the Yanomami, Munduruku and Kayapó territories particularly badly affected.

The visible damage caused by deforestation around the Maria Bonita area of Kayapó territory is only a small part of the impact from garimpos (illegal mines). A far bigger and much less understood consequence is the contamination of water systems by toxic separating chemicals and vast quantities of sediment. It is these agents and the algae that forms in the tailings ponds that make the pools change colour at different stages of production or abandonment.

“The garimpos destroy the rivers with mercury. This contaminates the fish that our people eat and then we become contaminated,” said Raoni, who has been campaigning on these issues for most of his life. He became a global figure in the 1980s, immediately recognisable by his labret lip disc, through his advocacy and friendship with celebrity supporters such as Sting, playing an important role in the government’s demarcation of swathes of Indigenous territory in the early 2010s, which is the best-maintained and protected forest in the Amazon.

Raoni walked arm in arm with Lula during the latter’s inaugural procession up to the presidential palace at the start of this year. Since then, the president has appointed Brazil’s first Indigenous minister, called an Amazon summit to be held next month, secured hosting rights for the UN Cop30 climate conference in Belem in November 2025, and sent a clear signal that deforestation and illegal mining will not be tolerated.

These efforts appear to be making progress. In June, the government reported Amazon land clearance had already fallen below pre-Bolsonaro levels, and so far in July, deforestation has dropped by 34% in the first half of 2023 . There have also been declines in illegal mining in some parts of the Amazon.

But the government has so far lacked the resources to conduct garimpo-clearing operations in Kayapó land, which has far bigger illegal mines due to the proximity of roads to bring in heavy equipment.

According to Greenpeace figures based on satellite analysis and overflight confirmation, there have been five times more illegal mining alerts in Kayapó land than in Yanomami land so far this year. Despite an improvement compared with last year, there were still 175 new areas opened up in Kayapó land in the last month alone. At least 768km (477 miles) of rivers have so far been affected, mostly in the past decade.

Recent studies have shown that more than a fifth of fish samples taken across the Amazon show levels of mercury in excess of recommendations of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, but there is a dearth of information about the extent to which this has spread to local people.

Greenpeace’s senior campaigner, Danicley de Aguiar, said this should be as important a measurement as deforestation figures. “When people consider the health of the Amazon, all the attention is on hectares that are cleared, but this is only part of the story. We need a new metric for the rivers and people. They are just as important.”

Cultural contamination is another concern. Poy Kayapó, the chief of Gorotire village, which is very close to an illegal mine , says the illegal miners now outnumber his community, which puts pressure on the traditional way of life.

Raoni has now called on representatives from all the Kayapó communities, including those involved with the illegal miners, to discuss a way forward with the Brazilian National Development Bank and the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund.

Despite his advanced age, Raoni is resilient. In a nod to the potential health risks of low oxygen, the small, unpressurised propeller plane cannot fly to high altitudes to escape turbulence so he and the other passengers are bumped around mercilessly on the four-hour flight between the garimpo area and the soy-producing capital of Sinop in Mato Grosso state. Some passengers are sick, but Raoni is unfazed.

What concerns him is what has happened to his land. “Look down there,” he says, pointing to another vast brown strip of cleared land that has been turned into monoculture. “I was born and raised there. It was all forest then. Now it is a soy town. I want Lula to come and see what is going on. I feel very sad to see it all changing and going away. We are losing the strength of the forest.”

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Radical Territories in the Brazilian Amazon: The Kayapó's Fight for Just Livelihoods by laura zanotti

2017, Anthropological Quarterly

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Soares da Silveira

Diego Soares da Silveira

Resumo do livro, "Radical Territories in the Brazilian Amazon", de autoria de Laura Zanotti, publicada na revista Tipiti, vol. 15.

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Cesar Gordon

In this paper I discuss the recent phenomenon of conspicuous and increasing consumption of goods among the Xikrin-Kayapó (Mebengokre) of Pará, Brazil. Money and goods have become embedded in every domain of Xikrin life, including kinship, economy, politics and ritual. Merchandise can now be seen as a total social fact in Xikrin‑Kayapó society. I show that this sort of consumerism results from a complex interaction between general principles of Mebengokre sociocosmology and the particular historical conditions in which such principles operate and are actualized. In particular, I suggest that the meaning and function of manufactured goods and money (“Whites’ stuff,” in the words of the Xikrin) in Mebengokre society must be understood as a structural transformation of the meaning and function of a class of indigenous objects related to the ritual system (e.g. ceremonial ornaments and ceremonial names) which have great symbolic and cosmological significance. In the last part of the paper, I describe the changes that this process of incorporating the “Whites’ stuff” may cause in Mebengokre political and symbolic economy.

Vanessa Lea

Current Anthropology

Bernard Belisário

ISSN 0011-3204 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (Glenn H. Shepard Jr. e Richard Pace - Authenticity and Anthropophagy in Kayapó Film Production)

Tipiti Journal of the Society For the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Michael J. Heckenberger

Journal of Political Ecology

One key strand of political ecology inquiry draws attention to different scalar aspects of territorial control and environmental governance, especially as they relate to inequity, power, and marginality in the rural South. Simultaneously, in the past several decades scholars have argued for a more meaningful engagement with space and place, as global forces of capitalism and geographies of difference make and unmake places in surprising and often violent ways. In this article, I interweave political ecology and anthropology of space and place approaches to territorial practices in the Brazilian Amazon to demonstrate how multiscalar politics of territorial retention and use are layered alongside local, spatial practices. In the Brazilian Amazon, indigenous rights are closely linked to the territorial demarcation and protection of federally defined Indigenous Lands. To that end, a general pattern has been observed across Amazonia that colonization and state-making agendas regarding territorial control have coincided to an increased sedentism of indigenous peoples. This narrative elides the present and ongoing importance local ideas about territories and place have for indigenous communities. Ethnographic data from research with the Kayapó, an indigenous group in Brazil, is presented to draw attention to the complexities of the local responses to the past several decades of change that have resulted in a federally defined territorial homeland and shifting spatial practices within those lands. The Kayapó response is a particularly well-suited case study for this type of analysis, as the tribe is known ethnographically for their fissioning and trekking patterns. I show that movement, mobility, and travel still figure into everyday practices in meaningful ways. While far from homogenous, movement through the landscape is part of responding to current demands to their ways of life. I also argue that travel also affirms the Kayapó notions of knowing (kukradjà), beauty (mê), and strength (tycht). Un volet essentiel de l'enquête de l'écologie politique attire l'attention sur différents aspects scalaires de contrôle territorial et la gouvernance environnementale. Un accent particulier est l'inégalité, la puissance et la marginalité dans les zones rurales des pays du Sud. Simultanément, dans les dernières décennies les chercheurs ont plaidé pour un engagement plus significatif avec l'espace et le lieu, que les forces globales du capitalisme et des géographies de différence font et défont les lieux de façons surprenantes et souvent violentes. Dans cet article, je s'entremêle l'écologie politique et anthropologie de l'espace et du lieu, à des pratiques territoriales de l'Amazonie brésilienne. Je démontre comment la politique multiscalaire entourant la conservation et l'utilisation du territoire de sont posés à côté des pratiques locales et spatiales. En Amazonie brésilienne, les droits des autochtones sont étroitement liées à la délimitation et la protection des terres autochtones définis par le gouvernement fédéral territoriale. Un modèle a été observée à travers l'Amazonie - la colonisation et l'agenda l'Etatique en ce qui concerne le contrôle du territoire ont coïncidé à une sédentarité accrue des peuples autochtones. Ce récit élude l'importance actuelle que des idées locales sur les territoires et le lieu ont pour les communautés autochtones. Je présente des données ethnographiques tirer avec les Kayapó, un groupe autochtone au Brésil. J'attire l'attention sur la complexité des réponses locales apportées au cours des dernières décennies du changement, qui ont abouti à une patrie territoriale définie par le gouvernement fédéral. Ils se tournent avec une stratégie 'spatiale' au sein de ces territoires. La réponse des Kayapó est une étude de cas particulièrement bien adapté pour ce type d'analyse, parce que la tribu est connue pour leur modèle de groupes sociaux fissionnant, et le trekking. Je montre que le mouvement, la mobilité, et le voyage figurent encore dans les pratiques quotidiennes de manière significative. Bien que loin d'être homogène, le mouvement à travers le paysage fait partie de la réponse aux exigences actuelles de leurs moyens de subsistance. Je soutiens aussi que le voyage affirme également les notions Kayapós du savoir (kukradjà), la beauté (mê) , et la force (tycht). Un punto clave del estudio de la ecología política centra la atención en los diferentes aspectos del control territorial y gobernanza ambiental, especialmente en lo referente a las desigualdades, poder y marginalidad del Sur rural. Al mismo tiempo, en las últimas décadas los académicos han abogado por una implicación más útil del espacio y el lugar, ya que las fuerzas globales del capitalismo y las geografías de las diferencias hacen y deshacen los lugares de formas sorprendentes y a menudo violentas. En este artículo, entretejo la ecología política y la antropología de los enfoques de espacio y lugar a las prácticas territoriales del Amazonas brasileño para demostrar cómo las políticas multiescala de retención y uso territorial están extendidas junto a las prácticas locales y espaciales. En el Amazonas brasileño, los derechos de los indígenas están estrechamente vinculados a la demarcación y protección territorial de las Tierras Indígenas definidas federalmente. Para tal fin, se ha observado un patrón general en todo el Amazonas que tanto las agendas de colonización y estado relacionadas con el control territorial han coincidido en un incremento del sedentarismo de los indígenas. Esta narrativa eluda la importancia que las comunidades indígenas dan a las ideas locales de territorio y lugar. Los datos etnográficos de la investigación con los Kayapó, un grupo indígena brasileño, se presentan para centrar la atención en las complejidades de las respuestas locales a las últimas décadas de cambio que han resultado en un territorio federalmente definido y un cambio en las prácticas espaciales dentro de esas tierras. La respuesta de los Kayapó es un caso práctico especialmente idóneo para este tipo de análisis, ya que la tribu se conoce etnográficamente por sus patrones de fisión y senderismo. Demuestro que el movimiento, movilidad y los recorridos siguen formando parte de las prácticas diarias de formas significativas. Si bien el movimiento a través de la selva está lejos de ser homogéneo, si que forma parte de las demandas actuales de su forma de vida. Asimismo sostengo que los recorridos también afirman las nociones de conocimientos (kukradjà), belleza (mê), y fortaleza de los Kayapó (tycht).

Stine Krøijer

Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Folklore Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Human Geography Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Linguistic Anthropology Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, Public Policy Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, and the Work, Economy and Organizations Commons

André Drago

Uirá Garcia

This article is based on fieldwork among the Guajá people, a small indigenous group of Tupí-Guaraní speakers inhabiting the eastern portion of Brazil’s Amazon region. Aiming for an ethnographic definition of kinship, this article engages in issues related to the figure of the “owner/masterin the Amazon, proposing a dialogue with a seldom discussed aspect of this subject—namely, its relation to conjugality. I argue that relationships included in the universe of “familiarity” and “mastery” are not only coextensive with the field of kinship; they also reveal a very particular conception of humanity. The process of Awá-Guajá kinship, where the spouse is transformed through a very particular system of actions, can only be understood if we move beyond the issue of Amazonian affinity and articulate it with certain aspects of the familiarity and mastery theme. This article is an attempt to think inclusively about kinship, the mastery/ownershiptheme, and some ecological questions, in an ethnographic way.

Harald Prins

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Case study site: Kayapó territory - Brazil

Mapping forest stability within major biomes using modis time series.

Forest stability is a key component of ecosystem integrity and primary forests. Current remote sensing products largely focus on deforestation rather than forest degradation, and depend on machine learning calibrated with extensive field measurements. To address this, we used MODIS time series to develop a novel approach for mapping forest stability across forest biomes.

Legal protection of the Amazon: Current and future Trends

The recent Amazon fires of 2019 and 2020 have heightened attention on the region and brought the question of Amazon conservation to the forefront of international debate. The crucial role of primary forests, such as the Amazon, in preventing catastrophic biodiversity loss and climate change is largely recognised in the scientific literature and in policy forums.

REDD+ and forest protection on indigenous lands in the Amazon

This study focuses on REDD+ as a market-based mechanism in the voluntary carbon market. It assesses the viability of using REDD+ on Indigenous lands, in this case the Brazilian Amazon and examines three key aspects of REDD+: the legal, technical and market requirements.

Large-scale forest conservation with an Indigenous People in the Amazon

This book chapter examines the struggle of the Kayapó to protect their constitutional territorial rights in the highly-threatened southeastern Amazon of Brazil. 21st century alliances of the Kayapò with conservation organisations have enabled protection of over 9 million hectares of their contiguous ratified territories.

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Kayapo Project, Protecting the Brazilian Amazon

Kayapo Project: Protecting the Brazilian Amazon

Conservation Value:

Kayapo Indigenous Territories are of high conservation significance because they are likely large enough to protect ecological processes and the full suite of southeastern Amazonian biodiversity.  (See Conservation Significance section of "In More Depth", below.)  They also furnish huge climate benefits .

Kayapo lands are located in the midst of one of the world’s highest deforestation regions — an agricultural frontier with an expanding road network and little if law enforcement. Kayapo have fiercely protected their vast territory but face increased pressure from illegal incursions for goldmining, logging, commercial fishing, and ranching.

Actions & Results:

• Provisioning, organizing and other assistance has enabled greatly increased surveillance and territorial control. While surveillance and protection need further enhancement, our help has undoubtedly prevented widespread invasions of Kayapo lands.  See first "In More Depth" section below re evidence of our success.
• In just a few years, Kayapo NGOs have developed the capacity for managing complex programs. Local capacity for long-term management and protection has developed well and will continue to evolve. The Kayapo have gained much greater insight into the threats they face and development options for a sustainable future. 
• Sustainable and culturally compatible economic activities have been developed so the Kayapo may earn cash to buy the manufactured goods they have come to need. Brazil nut sales have been especially successful; cumaru seeds (for the cosmetics industry), bead handicrafts and catch-release-sport-fishing (see  Untamed Angling ; Kendjam Lodge ; Xingu Lodge ) are also proving to be lucrative sustainable micro-enterprises for Kayapo communities
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Southeastern Amazon, Brazil

To empower the Kayapo indigenous people to continue to protect over nine million hectares of their lands from degradation and deforestation, and to build the capacity of Kayapo NGOs to manage territorial surveillance and sustainable economic activities.

Project Field Partner:

Associação Floresta Protegida , Instituto Kabu and Instituto Raoni

Cumulative cost to ICFC (2007-2022): CA$14,344,902 Special thanks to Earth Alliance, Global Wildlife Conservation and The Rosebud Charitable Trust for their support to ICFC for this project.  Thanks as well to our individual and foundation donors to this project. Currently, other major funders are the Amazon Fund and the Kayapó Fund.

Size of Area Involved:

9 million hectares (90,000 km 2 ; larger than almost half of the world's countries; almost twice the size of Nova Scotia; about the size of Iceland and of South Korea)

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Survival Revolution: The Kayapo Identity (by our colleague WILD Foundation)

In More Depth...

The overarching goal of the Kayapo-conservation NGO alliance is to empower the Kayapo to defend their constitutional rights, protect their ecologically intact territories and develop sustainable economic autonomy within the lawless frontier zone of the southeastern Amazon. The Kayapo entered into alliances with outside NGOs to obtain the help they needed to protect their constitutional right to exclusive occupation and control over their territory and, indeed, their very survival. Once they gain a foothold, loggers and goldminers quickly overwhelm Kayapo traditional governance systems and overtake an area. The eastern Kayapo were drawn into the illicit frontier economy in the 1980s and 1990s having had no experience with these activities and no support to develop economic alternatives or to foresee the inevitable and irreversibly destructive consequences of predatory logging and goldmining. Immersed in a region where lawlessness and corruption prevail, they have lost control over roughly 1.2 million hectares of their territory in the east, which is now a no-man’s land dominated by goldminers, loggers and other illegal actors. The Kayapo living in these eastern communities depend on these actors for outside goods.  Most rivers in this area are choked with mud and polluted by mercury used in goldmining. Forest is degraded by logging which removes most of the big, old growth primary forest trees so pivotal to the overall ecology of this biome. This opens these once resilient forests to fire. Traditional culture breaks down in lockstep with environmental degradation and the introduction by loggers and miners of alcohol, drugs and prostitution.

The intact environmental and social conditions of NGO-allied Kayapo territory contrast starkly with the breakdown in the east. As of 2020, the total Kayapo population numbered almost 10,000 people living in 82 communities and small family settlements located throughout their 10.6 million-hectare block of territory.  Of this land, 89 percent, or 9,400,000 ha, is controlled by 61% of the Kayapo population who live in 48 communities and small settlements that have allied with the NGOs to pursue sustainable economic autonomy and territorial control. Ninety percent of the approximately 4,000 Kayapo living in 34 communities and small family settlements involved with the illicit frontier economy reside in the 1,200,000-hectare band of eastern territory that fell to the frontier of predatory resource extraction before the arrival of NGOs or before NGO programs were developed enough to help the Kayapo bar the intense wave of illegal activity resurgent in the region after 2010.

Deforestation Hot Spots Analysis

We analysed the Kayapo territory for forest loss events (hotspots) using global forest change 2000-2018 imagery from the Google Earth Engine data catalog and GLAD alert imagery for 2019.  From space we observe significant correlation between the location of deforestation hotspots and the presence/absence of NGO investment with Kayapo communities. We see that the eastern zone has much greater densities of loss events per hectare that the NGO-allied western zone.

Deforestation in the Xingu Basin is heavily concentrated outside of the indigenous lands and protected areas. However, the Xingu basin spans the most high-deforestation region of the Amazon frontier. There was a 54% increase in overall deforestation in the Xingu basin during the first two months of 2019 compared with the same period in 2018. Deforestation in indigenous territories increased 158% during the summer of 2019 compared to 2018. Intense activity by illegal loggers and goldminers combined with lack of law enforcement by government authorities has led to significant losses along the eastern band of Kayapo territory. Goldmining and logging continue to expand in the non-NGO represented areas of eastern Kayapo territory. Beginning in about 2015, over 1,500 hectares were being lost annually to goldminers in eastern Kayapo territory.

The relative lack of deforestation and degradation throughout more than 9 million hectares of Kayapo territory to the west compared to the heavily degraded 1.2 million-hectare eastern band of Kayapo territory can be explained by philanthropic investment into Kayapo empowerment for territorial control. Where Kayapo communities receive help to monitor and control their territory, develop equitable and sustainable sources of income and gain insight into threats and options, their borders largely remain secure and forest remains largely intact. Kayapo territory that receives no conservation and development investment is being heavily invaded by goldmining and fire in forest degraded by logging. A low density of hot spot alerts overlaps with Kayapo territory that is represented by and receives program support from Kayapo indigenous NGOs that in turn are supported by international conservation NGOs (Map X). This pattern cannot be explained by cultural differences as the eastern and western Kayapo belong to the same ethnic group whom share the same history; nor can it be explained by distribution of gold and timber which is found throughout Kayapo territory that can be reached from anywhere.

The Xingu River, a major tributary of the Amazon in Brazil, begins in the semi-deciduous forests and woodland-savannas of Mato Grosso state and flows north for 2,700 km across varying topography before ending in the wet forests of the Amazon near Belem. The Xingu spans major tropical biomes from savanna (cerrado) in the headwaters of the south to semi-deciduous and evergreen wet canopy forests of the southern, mid- and northern regions. More than 20 linguistically differentiated indigenous cultures that hold millennia's worth of ecological knowledge are found in the forests of the Xingu.

During the last four decades, the Xingu has been subject to increasingly intense deforestation as the agricultural frontier inexorably expands north and west. An "arc of fire" constituting the highest rate of deforestation in Brazil and indeed, one of the highest in the world, sweeps across the region. This process of colonization and agricultural expansion, often accompanied by violent land conflict in the lawless frontier, follows road construction, especially the perimetral framework of national highways.

With adequate roads and suitable soils, the Xingu has become an important centre for cattle production (occupying the greatest tracts of land and by far the greatest driver of deforestation), logging (almost all illegal) and production of soybean for export. Dozens of towns have sprung up along roads to support frontier activities and hundreds of thousands of people depend on the frontier economy. In addition, over the last decade a surge in gold prices is driving a wave of illegal and highly destructive goldmining in indigenous and other protected areas.

While this tsunami of forest destruction threatens to engulf the region, an enormous 28.8-million-ha network of protected areas (including both ratified indigenous territories and conservation areas) secures protection in law of 56% of the Xingu basin. This protected area corridor is the great hope for conservation of multi-landscape scale tracts of southeastern Amazonian forest with all its magnificent richness of biodiversity, indigenous cultures and ecosystem services. Indigenous lands of the Xingu are of particular importance because they occupy two thirds of the protected areas corridor and possess de facto protection services - their indigenous inhabitants. Over the past three decades, indigenous territories have proved formidable barriers to forest destruction (Figure 2; see also Nepstad et al., 2006. Inhibition of Amazon deforestation and fire by parks and Indigenous lands. Conservation Biology, 20: 65-73; view pdf)

However, outside pressure on Kayapó lands continues to increase. If borders are not well monitored in this lawless region of weak governance: ranching, fraudulent land speculation, commercial fishing, logging and goldmining inevitably invade and encroach into protected areas. If they cannot gain clandestine entry, loggers and goldminers will attempt to buy off individual Kayapó to obtain access to the rich timber stocks and gold on their lands. Sometimes they are successful. Once a door is opened, it becomes impossible to control they influx of invaders. When they lack information, insight into foreign capitalist society and sustainable economic alternatives, indigenous peoples are vulnerable to outside pressure to liquidate their resources.

Large infrastructure projects are an increasing threat to the region's remaining forest: i.e., Kayapó land. The mining company Vale S/A operates a nickel mine near Tucuma. The mine has catalyzed immigration to the region, increasing outside pressure on neighbouring Kayapó lands. At the same time, the third largest hydro dam in the world, "Belo Monte" has been built on the Xingu river some 600km upriver from Kayapó lands in Para. To operate efficiently during the dry season, the turbines at Belo Monte will need water released from upriver holding dams -projected for building in Kayapó lands. In the west, the newly paved BR 163 highway from Cuiaba in the south to Santarem in the north has dramatically increased immigration into the region with associated pressure for illegal predatory resource extraction (logging, goldmining) and ranching on western Kayapó lands. Perhaps worst of all, the newly elected far right government of Jair Bolsonaro has vowed to open indigenous lands to industrial development. Strengthening the capacity of Kayapó institutions to protect their boundaries and develop sustainable income alternatives becomes even more crucial in the face of approaching large-scale industry.

Kayapo lands conserve the last remaining large, intact block of native forest in the southeastern Amazon, and maintain the connectivity of this ecoregion with the western Amazon. They confer incalculable benefits to protection of biodiversity, mitigation of climate change and preservation of the crucial role of Amazonian forests in producing rainfall over a much larger geographic scale.

Kayapo territories are large enough to protect large scale ecological processes. For example, very large areas are required to maintain tropical tree species because individuals of species are usually very sparsely distributed. Most tropical tree species depend on co-evolved animal vectors for pollination and seed dispersal across large inter-individual distances - small areas do not contain enough individuals or viable animal vector populations for regeneration over the long term. The intricate web of interdependence among Amazonian species requires large areas for these ecosystems to function and persist.

Kayapo lands remain reasonably undisturbed. Large-bodied game species (including large cracids, lowland tapir, and white-lipped peccary), which are preferred by local peoples throughout the Amazon, are abundant within the hunting range of Kayapo communities. Protected lands in the region safeguard a full complement of disturbance-sensitive wildlife along with an entire vegetation transition from open savanna (cerrado) to close-canopy forests, along with endangered and threatened species (Table 1).

Kayapó lands and the contiguous Xingu Indigenous Park to the south protect more than four hundred kilometers of the Xingu river from degradation by deforestation, pollution and over-fishing. Preliminary surveys indicate that as many as 1,500 fish species inhabit the Xingu River. Fish are the most important source of protein for local people of the Xingu. Sixteen species of fish are considered endemic to (i.e. only found in) the Xingu.

Our local partners are three Brazilian non-governmental organizations: the  Associação Floresta Protegida  (AFP),  Instituto Kabu  (IK), and  Instituto Raoni  (IR) that together represent all Kayapó communities that form part of the NGO alliance. AFP, IK and IR are pillars of organization for the Kayapó, enabling them to implement programs of conservation and development that strengthen their capacity for territorial control and protection. AFP is based in Tucuma, Para state, and represents communities located east of the Xingu River. IK is based in Novo Progresso, Para, and represents communities located to the north and west of Xingu River. IR, based in Colider, Mato Grosso state, represents communities of the southeast (map of Kayapó territories with names of communities). The Kayapo organizations also collaborate with the Brazilian government Indian agency (FUNAI) responsible for upholding indigenous rights.

Origins of the Kayapo Project

Thanks to the efforts of Canadian tropical ecologist, Barbara Zimmerman, in 1992, Conservation International began working with the Kayapo. With Barbara aa Kayapo Project Director, in the early 2000s, CI helped Kayapo communities to set up their own indigenous NGOs (the three listed above) to build capacity for managing and protecting their territories, which is essential given the lack of government enforcement of indigenous land rights.  This was the start of an alliance of the Kayapo with international conservation NGOs that has strengthened of Kayapo territorial surveillance and control as well as developing income generating activities for Kayapo communities.[1]

Since 2007, the informal alliance has included the International Conservation Fund of Canada, Environmental Defense (with funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Kayapo Fund (capitalized by Conservation International and the Brazilian National Development Bank’s Amazonia Fund).  There has also been funding from the Amazon Fund, but the contributors to that fund, Norway and Germany, suspended payments in 2019 due to concerns over rising deforestation and the rhetoric emanating from the administration of Jair Bolsonaro.  The Kayapo NGOs themselves raise significant program funding from domestic sources, especially from government mandated environmental compensation packages related to road building, mining and the hydro-electric industries. Therefore, ICFC support of high-level functioning of Kayapo NGO administrations leverages significant program support from other sources.

Territorial surveillance and boundary demarcation

Territorial surveillance: ICFC and our US based partner EDF provide surveillance infrastructure and administrative services to Kayapó NGOs including boats, outboard engines, radios, 4X4 vehicles, expedition supplies, fuel, equipment maintenance, accounting and also capacity building workshops. We enable Kayapó NGOs to perform overflight surveillance and ground patrols with the result that several foci of illegal activity have been identified over the years: goldmining, logging and encroachment by ranchers. 

Over the past five years, the wave of illegal goldmining, logging, and commercial fishing has been building, using heavy equipment and taking advantage of the expanding network of roads built by ranchers.  Sporadic Kayapo border patrol alone proved insufficient to withstand this increased pressure. Government enforcement has always been inadequate, but the Kayapo were able to obtain some helicopter supported enforcement operations to destroy goldmining and logging equipment, and these operations helped to keep the lid partially on invasion. Enforcement of protected and indigenous areas ended in 2019 with the Bolsonaro government and the emboldened invaders stepped up their game. 

But a solution exists. The Kayapo NGOs have developed a guard post model that works. The first guard post was installed in 2017 at the northern Xingu river gateway to Kayapo land. Since then, no unauthorized persons gained entry and fish stocks depleted after several years of illegal fishing have rebounded. The success of the Xingu guard post led the Kayapo to set up a second guard post on the Iriri river in the north—a previously remote area now threatened by ranch road development. This guard post protects the Iriri, including a fully established and thriving catch-and-release fly-fishing enterprise for the Iriri river Kayapo in collaboration with company partner Untamed Angling 9UA).  With their river protected and fish returning, Kayapo communities of the Xingu are also developing sport fishing with UA and high-end ecotourism to generate sustainable income for their communities.

In 2019 the Kayapo received funding to set up five more guard posts at strategic border locations where loggers and goldminers had begun to gain entry or were threatening to.  Importantly, guard posts generate paid work that benefits all families. Shifts of six men rotate through a guard post every week with the number of shifts allocated to each community in proportion to population size. This equitable distribution of income within and among communities is a powerful antidote to attempts by goldminers and loggers to buy off individuals to gain entry. 

Sustainable Income generation

As the frontier of roads and towns consolidated around them, the Kayapo gained much greater access to towns and manufactured goods. The young generation of Kayapo especially seeks technology and education.  Today, Kayapo face a choice between unsustainable (illegal) but in the short term high-value activities, and lower-value conservation-based enterprises that take longer to develop but are environmentally and culturally sustainable. All Kayapo in the NGO represented territory continue to choose the latter option. Kayapo NGOs have been developing a successful portfolio of non-timber forest product and service enterprises with their communities that fit with Kayapo culture and that generate equitably distributed benefits. These enterprises are: the harvest and sale of Brazil nut to the domestic food industry; harvest and sale of cumaru nut (tonka bean) to UK cosmetics company “Lush”, international university field courses and internships with the Federal University of Para and US institutional partners, handicrafts sales, and catch-and-release sport-fishing with partner Untamed Angling (see  Untamed Angling ; Kendjam Lodge ; Xingu Lodge ).

Sustainable income alternatives are now generating close to half a million dollars per year for Kayapo communities of the NGO alliance. These enterprises continue to grow and develop.

Institution building

Instituto Kabu negotiation with the Ministry of Transportation for highway impact compensation package.

No longer are the traditional warrior tactics of their Kayapo forefathers sufficient for protecting indigenous rights in the 21st century. The Kayapo must learn to protect their interests and rights in the legal context of outside society. Their three NGOs play a central role in their future, hence the value of ICFC's support for management and administration of Kayapó organizations. High functioning administrations have become adept at program development, program implementation and financial accounting, so much so that Kayapó NGOs have been able to obtain the lion's share of program funding on their own.

An important source of program funding accessed by Kayapó NGOs is government mandated environmental compensation packages for infrastructure and industrial development. The AFP Kayapó of the northeast have a deal with the Vale Mining company to compensate for impacts of the nearby "Onça-Puma" nickel mine. Vale funding mitigates mine impacts by supporting the AFP's surveillance and sustainable economic development programs, as well as initiatives to strengthen Kayapó cultural identity. Similarly, the northwestern IK Kayapó receive compensation from the Department of Transportation for impacts of paving the Cuiaba to Santarem BR-163 federal highway. Paving of this highway opened the floodgates to colonization and deforestation along the western border protected by IK and this compensation is playing a crucial role in helping the Kayapó to continue to defend their lands in the west. Negotiation of these significant grants for conservation and development counts on professional level administration performed by the Kayapó NGOs.

Every year, ICFC supports meetings of Kayapó leaders in the Annual General Assemblies of their organizations. At the AGMs, Kayapó leaders review the past year's work and accounts and approve work-plans and budgets for the upcoming year. These meetings are crucial for Kayapo unity of vision and strategic planning in the face of increasing threat.

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With adequate roads and suitable soils, the Xingu has become an important centre for cattle production (occupying the greatest tracts of land and by far the greatest driver of deforestation), logging (almost all illegal) and production of soy bean for export. Dozens of towns have sprung up along roads to support frontier activities and hundreds of thousands of people depend on the frontier economy.

While this tsunami of forest destruction threatens to engulf the region, an enormous 28.8-million-ha network of protected areas (including both ratified indigenous territories and conservation areas) secures protection in law of 56% of the Xingu basin. This protected areas corridor is the great hope for conservation of multi-landscape scale tracts of southeastern Amazonian forest with all its magnificent richness of biodiversity, indigenous cultures and ecosystem services. Indigenous lands of the Xingu are of particular importance because they occupy two thirds of the protected areas corridor and possess de facto protection services — their indigenous inhabitants. Over the past three decades, indigenous territories have proved formidable barriers to forest destruction.

Satellite image of Kayapo lands and most of the Xingu Indigenous Park (to the south) showing plumes of smoke rising from burning of primary forest remnants outside of the Indigenous Territories. Dark green areas are indigenous lands and light brown areas are ranch and agricultural land.

However, outside pressure on Kayapo lands continues to increase. If borders are not well monitored in this lawless region of weak governance; ranching, fraudulent land speculation, commercial fishing, logging and gold-mining inevitably invade and encroach into protected areas. If they cannot gain clandestine entry, loggers and goldminers will attempt to buy off Kayapo individuals to obtain access to the rich timber stocks and gold on their lands. Sometimes they are successful. Once a door is opened, it is hard for even the Kayapo to control an influx. When they lack information and sustainable economic alternatives, indigenous peoples are vulnerable to outside pressure to liquidate their resources.

Large infrastructure projects are an increasing threat to the region’s remaining forest: i.e., Kayapo land. The mining company Vale S/A operates a nickel mine near Tucuma. The mine has catalyzed immigration into the region increasing outside pressure on neighbouring Kayapo lands. At the same time, the third largest hydro dam in the world, “Belo Monte” is under construction on the Xingu river some 600km upriver from Kayapo lands in Para. To operate efficiently during the dry season, the turbines at Belo Monte will need water released from upriver holding dams –projected for building in Kayapo lands. In the west, the newly paved BR 163 highway from Cuiaba in the south to Santarem in the north has dramatically increased immigration into the region with associated pressure for illegal predatory resource extraction (logging, goldmining) and ranching on western Kayapo lands. Strengthening the capacity of Kayapo institutions to protect their boundaries, and develop sustainable income alternatives becomes even more crucial in the face of approaching large-scale industry.

Kayapo Project

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Tag: Kayapo

The successful surveillance of Kayapo’s indigenous land

The Kayapo Project is pleased to report that during 2021 most of the 2200km border of Kayapo’s indigenous land remained unbreached by goldminers, loggers and poachers.

The tale of the Kayapo is one of the most inspiring and hopeful conservation stories of our time. It provides us with a successful model for the large-scale conservation of rainforests and ancient indigenous cultures. Kayapo’s pristine land is situated in the midst of industrial development, and yet they have halted the advance of deforestation across most of their land.

A hostile environment

The success of the Kayapo and their allies is made even more impressive by the fact that they carry on their fight in a lawless region where criminal activity against indigenous peoples and nature is unhindered or even encouraged. As one Brazilian journalist puts it, the south of Para, where most Kayapo land is located, “eats, drinks and breathes environmental crime”.

Organized crime relentlessly seeks Kayapo gold and timber, while the government works to weaken indigenous rights and tries to convince the public that indigenous peoples no longer wish to pursue their traditional lives on their ancestral lands. Add to this context the allure of the modern world pressed against Kayapo borders and one starts to see the level of threat to survival faced by the Kayapo. 

Kayapo territory is as large as a small country roughly equal in size to South Korea or Iceland. The Kayapo manage to monitor and control their borders with infinitely less money, people, roads, machines or weapons than a state. Their power today arises from alliances they forged over 20 years ago with the conservation movement. The alliance is empowering the Kayapo with tools and capacity for territorial surveillance, sustainable economic autonomy, and a voice in national society (kayapo.org). 

To meet the increasing threat to their survival as Kayapo on Kayapo land, the Kayapo need the capacity to monitor and control their vast territory; as well as sustainable sources of income tied to the forest that sustains them and that fit with the traditional culture protecting their borders. Conservation NGOs support the Kayapo to organize and manage a series of border guard posts and surveillance expeditions and to develop sustainable non-timber product enterprises such as Brazil nut harvest and sale, and eco-tourism.

The guard posts

“We had many problems and difficulties; vehicles breaking down, teams having to move location at night, boats sinking, loggers threatening guards, trees falling on post living quarters, scorpion stings, and various other difficulties that happened on a daily basis -but we held strong -determined to fulfil our commitment to protect Kayapo territory against illegal predators” (Director of Kayapo surveillance, December 2021)

Presently, there are 13 Kayapo guard posts located strategically at vulnerable entry points along the Kayapo border. The two most logistically challenging guard posts, Kenpoty and Iriri illustrate some of the challenges involved in defending Kayapo territory. 

The Kenpoti guard post was established to facilitate Kayapo’s presence in the vast interior region of their Mekragnoti territory. Supplying the Kenpoti post begins in the town of Novo Progresso where the NGO of the northwestern Kayapo Instituto Kabu- is located; then 150 km south on the BR 163 highway to the entry point of an unmaintained dirt road 230 km through the forest. Finally, there is one day’s travel by boat with a portage to reach the post. 

Supplying the Iriri guard post requires 4X4 travel over 300 km of particularly bad dirt road from the nearest supply town of São Felix do Xingu; followed by an eight-hour boat trip upriver to the base which becomes a two-day boat trip during the dry season of low water. 

Kayapo men undertook 10 expeditions through the rainforest wilderness in 2021. Their goal was to maintain presence and reinforce territorial surveillance in regions beyond the reach of guard posts, locate official government geodesic markers that demarcate the border of an indigenous territory and, in general, deter invasion and encroachment on their land. Expeditions also serve as important venues for the transmission of traditional territorial and cultural knowledge from elder to youth and reinforcement of Kayapo pride.

A social and economic battle

Guard post duty generates income that is distributed equitably within Kayapo communities. Teams rotate through a post on a weekly or bi-weekly basis with teams drawn from communities in a frequency proportional to population size such that every adult, male and female, has an opportunity to make a week’s salary working as a guard.

This equitable distribution of income consolidates communities against illegal activity and thwarts the bribing of individuals by loggers and goldminers to gain entry. In 2021 guard posts generated a total of US$ 300,000 income for Kayapo communities of the NGO alliance. This amount is less than the total amounts offered by loggers and goldminers, but conservation investment is more powerful than bribes because everyone benefits rather than only a few and community members are then able to organize against illegal activity.

Guard post duty is a source of pride for the Kayapo who want nothing more than to continue living on their territory as Kayapo.

The rapid spread and consolidation of roads, ranches and towns along almost all of their border immerses the Kayapo in an outside society about which they understand little to nothing. Guard posts augment the work of their NGOs by serving as centers for learning and awareness-raising, where Kayapo NGOs and their partners help the Kayapo understand the political and economic reality in which they exist. Without insight into the boom-bust economy, the concept of law, and the anti-indigenous agenda of the government, the Kayapo would be unable to make informed choices about their future. Guard posts provide an infrastructure where information critical to the Kayapo’s future and the forest they protect can be transmitted to a large proportion of adults.

The war is far from over 

The success of Kayapo’s surveillance program should not give us the impression that the future of the Kayapo people and their land is secure. Pressure on the remaining pockets of Earth’s wilderness increases as the global economy continues to grow.  Rising prices for gold and timber will continue to incentivize the invasion of indigenous lands. The same is true for beef and soy which drives agriculture ever deeper into the Amazon rainforest. 

Ideally, governments and international institutions would provide legal, logistical and financial support to indigenous peoples, but these institutions are unreliable. In Brazil, the government has set out to weaken protections of the environment and indigenous people to open more space for industry.  The work of protecting indigenous peoples and their lands in the Amazon now falls almost solely to charity (NGOs) .

The Kayapo Project proves that philanthropic investment in rainforest conservation can be successful even in a hostile political climate.

The Kayapo stopped the ‘Beautiful Monster’, but couldn’t slay it

In 1989, Tuira Kayapó sent a clear message that caught the attention of millions around the world. She brandished her machete in the face of a government official who was trying to convince indigenous leaders to accept a mega-dam project in the Amazon. Tuira slid the dull side of the machete across his cheeks and made it clear that damming the Xingu river would mean a declaration of war by the Kayapo. The footage showing her audacity and defiance was a powerful message that undermined support for the project.

The fight against the dam was led by the Kayapo indigenous people and local activists and began as soon as it was first proposed in 1975. The first phase of resistance culminated in 1989 when the Kayapo staged an impressive protest in Altamira. During the protests, Tuira spoke with the pride and the audacity the Kayapo are known for: 

Electricity won’t give us food. We need the rivers to flow freely. Don’t talk to us about relieving our ‘poverty’ – we are the richest people in Brazil. We are Indians.” (See “Adios Amazonia?” in the ecologist, Vol 19 No 2, March/April 1989)

The Kayapo stood united and won the battle. Their defiance was instrumental in convincing the World Bank to withdraw funding.

But they lost the war

A few years later the Altamira hydro dam project on the Xingu River arose again and so indigenous resistance continued. In 2010, after two decades of petitions, protests in Brazil and around the world, as well as multiple court hearings, the construction of the Belo Monte dam at Altamira was approved under president Lula. In a letter to the President, Kayapó leaders said:

‘We don’t want this dam to destroy the ecosystems and the biodiversity that we have taken care of for millennia and which we can still preserve’. – source

Cacique Raoni traveled to Paris in 2011 to raise international awareness about the threats facing the survival of indigenous people and the Amazon forest in Brazil including the dam.

As it’s most often the case, economic interests prevail over human rights, the environment, and the opinions of scientists. The third biggest dam in the world was built in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, on the wild Xingu river. After pouring 3 million cubic meters of concrete and diverting most of Xingu’s flow through its turbines, the dam flooded 500km2 of rainforest and displaced tens of thousands of indigenous people. Nicknamed “Belo Monstro” (The Beautiful Monster) the dam has exacted an array of devastating consequences for the regional and global environment, for the local population. 

Flood and drought

The Xingu River forms a major aquatic ecosystem that enriches the forest ecosystem it flows through for some 1,700 km. The river is home to innumerable aquatic species adapted to dramatic natural fluctuations in water level and unique to the region. 

Inevitably, dam construction was going to have a serious environmental cost. Yet, the damage goes far beyond the flooding, In fact, the government advertised a reduction in flooding of indigenous lands from 1200 to 500 km2 under a new design. But reduced flooding did not protect these lands from destruction.

Belo Monte takes advantage of a large bend in the Xingu River by creating a shortcut in water flow to flow to the turbines on the other side of the bend. The dam didn’t flood the land of the Yudjá tribe, (meaning: the people of the river), it dried it out.

The ecological balance of the river is disrupted by the low water flow caused by the dam and the retention of nutrients and sediments as well as the blockage of fish migration. In February 2021, the operator of the dam received permission to reduce the flow through the Big Bend (Volta Grande) of the Xingu for an entire year down to only 13% leading to severe consequences for the ecology and traditional peoples living along the Xingu.

Many fish species such as the plant-eating piranha; endangered white-cheeked spider monkey; and threatened turtle species such as the Arrau River turtle lost their breeding grounds. Fishing communities have been devastated by the decline of fish and turtle populations.

“The Volta Grande will turn into a cemetery. A cemetery of fish, a cemetery of dead trees,” Bel Juruna, of the Juruna (Yudjá) Indigenous people quoted by mongbay

Not a ‘green’ energy source

Hydropower is still regarded as a renewable energy source, but dams do emit greenhouse gases. Plant matter, initially trapped under the water or later brought into the reservoir by the currents, results in the emission of significant amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Dams in tropical regions have the highest emissions, due to deforestation and methane production. Researchers estimate that 83% of methane emissions of all dams occurred within tropical climate zones.

The growth of algae is another major issue. During the dry season when reservoir levels are low, algal blooms harm many aquatic species. The retention of sediments and nutrients and the low oxygen environment at the bottom of the reservoir causes the transformation of mercury, naturally present in the soil to a poisonous form, damaging the environment and the local communities. 

The displacement of indigenous people and the destruction of their livelihood also have direct environmental consequences. The construction of roads and the influx of workers have impacted the entire region surrounding Belo Monte, with deforestation levels soaring throughout several indigenous territories . Without its indigenous guardians, the rainforest is far more likely to fall prey to the ever-expanding beef and logging industries. 

Hydropower development in the tropics is anything but green.. The negative impacts on in biodiverse forests and  pristine riverine ecosystems are similar. 

The final bill is not yet in

The construction of the dam cost 18 billion dollars and was supposed to massively boost Brazil’s energy production. In reality, the externalities it created will likely never be repaid with the underwhelming amount of electricity it produces.

The turbines were built to generate up to 11.000 MW per month, but they never came close to this figure , even during the high water rainy season.  The mid to upper Xingu River flows through a region that experiences a strong 4-5 month annual dry season which is increasingly exacerbated by climate change and deforestation. The Xingu just doesn’t have enough water to generate the power promised by dam supporters. This overestimation of Xingu’s flow and impact of drastic seasonal water level fluctuation was repeatedly highlighted by environmentalists. The maximum power generated in a month never surpassed 7000 MW, while during the low water dry season this figure averages a meager 540 MW.

 The Destruction of Traditional Communities 

The impact of the Belo Monte dam on the indigenous and other traditional forest people (descendants of rubber tappers) of the region was devastating. It’s a process repeated across the Amazon where infrastructure projects, mining, logging, and ranching spread into primary forest. As well as devastation of natural ecosystems, with roads and machines, comes disease, alcohol, drugs, and prostitution, to communities without experience with these foreign social ills. The city of Altamira, located close to the dam construction site, saw its murder rate increase by 147%, making it the deadliest city on Earth in 2015.

The promises of economic opportunities for displaced indigenous people quickly reveal their emptiness. Outside the forest indigenous people are thrown into a world they do not understand and are ill-prepared to navigate. Their knowledge, skills, culture, and identity are tied to the forest, and without it, they are left impoverished and alienated.

“I had a better life than anyone in São Paulo.  If I wanted to work my land, I did. If I didn’t, the land would be there the next day. If I wanted to fish, I did, but if I’d rather pick açaí, I did. I had a river, I had woods, I had tranquility. On the island, I didn’t have any doors. I had a place … And on the island, we didn’t get sick.” – an indigenous man speaks about the effect the dam has had on his life. His story is the norm for displaced indigenous peoples.

It’s impossible to calculate the real cost of the dam, as ecological and social externalities keep rising. Once the forest is cut there is no going back. The damage cannot be undone, rainforests take a long time to recover if ever, and in any case much longer than we can afford. Brazil and the Amazon region are the first victims of the destruction of the rainforest. While companies and elites are cashing-in quick profits, the bill they leave will continue to be paid by everybody else. Most projects involving massive environmental destruction are sold to the public based on exaggerations, denial, and lies. The international community and civil society should remain vigilant and organized. 

Bigger than the monster 

Hydropower development is far from being the only threat to this unique riverine ecosystem: predatory fishing, logging, mining, farming, and cattle ranching all pose a deadly threat to the fine ecological balance in which countless species have evolved for millennia. Belo Monte is one of many gruesome examples where short-term economic development prevailed over the efforts of indigenous peoples and activists.

The early victory of the Kayapo time, but in the end industry won. A powerful image such as a Kayapo woman, Tuira, holding a machete to the face of a government official can galvanize the world’s attention for a moment, but the struggle between the indigenous cultures and capitalism cannot be won by indigenous people on their own .

World leaders have pledged to halt deforestation by 2030, but we cannot afford to wait to see if they implement their promises. We should learn from past mistakes and find ways to support indigenous peoples across the globe, for they are defending our common future.

The Belo Monte dam didn’t flood or dry out Kayapo land, goldminers, loggers, and farmers are kept at bay. The Kayapo remain unconquered. They fought for their rights and earned ratification of their traditional territories forty years ago. They remain unconquered and continue to protect their vast forested territory through alliances with environmental NGOs which provide the tools to meet the threats of the 21st century.

Brazilian amazon indigenous peoples threatened by mining bill (Study)

“The Brazilian Amazon has the highest concentration of indigenous peoples in the world. Recently, the Brazilian government sent a bill to Congress to regulate commercial mining in indigenous lands.”

“This work analyzes the risks of the proposed mining bill to Amazonian indigenous peoples and their lands. To evaluate the possible impact of the new mining bill, we consider all mining license requests registered in Brazil’s National Mining Agency that overlap indigenous lands as potential mining areas in the future. The existing mining requests cover 176 000 km 2 of indigenous lands, a factor 3000 more than the area of current illegal mining. Considering only these existing requests, about 15% of the total area of ILs in the region could be directly affected by mining if the bill is approved. Ethnic groups like Yudjá, Kayapó, Apalaí, Wayana, and Katuena may have between 47% and 87% of their lands impacted. Gold mining, which has previously shown to cause mercury contamination, death of indigenous people due to diseases, and biodiversity degradation, accounts for 64% of the requested areas. We conclude that the proposed bill is a significant threat to Amazonian indigenous peoples, further exposing indigenous peoples to rural violence, contamination by toxic pollutants, and contagious diseases. The obligation of the government is to enforce existing laws and regulations that put indigenous rights and livelihoods above economic consideration and not to reduce such protections.”

This abstract comes from a study out of the Environmental Research Letters Journal published on October 9th, 2020. We encourage you to read the full article by clicking below. 

FULL STUDY HERE

Pictures: A River People Awaits an Amazon Dam

The Kayapo people, whose lives and culture are intertwined with the Xingu River, face change as a massive dam project moves forward in Brazil's Amazon.

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• RAIN FORESTS
• PEOPLE AND CULTURE
• HYDROELECTRIC POWER

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Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapó indians of the Brazilian Amazon

• Published: June 1985
• Volume 3 , pages 139–158, ( 1985 )

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• Darrell Addison Posey 1  

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The Kayapó Indians of Brazil's Amazon Basin are described as effective managers of tropical forest, utilizing an extensive inventory of useful native plants that are concentrated by human activity in special forest areas (resource islands, forest fields, forest openings, tuber gardens, agricultural plots, old fields, and trailsides). Long-term transplanting and selection of plants suggest semi-domestication of many species. The overall management strategies of forest also includes many manipulated animal species (birds, fish, bees, mammals) utilized as food and game. Forest patches ( apêtê ) are created by Indians from campo/cerrado using planting zones made from termite and ant nests mixed with mulch: formation and development of these is briefly discussed, including the implications for new ideas concerning reforestation and campo management. Finally an integrative cognitive model is presented showing the relationships between variants of forest and savanna recognized by the Kayapó. Indigenous knowledge of subtle similarities between conceptually distinct ecological units in the model allows for the interchange of botanical material between microclimates to increase biological diversity in managed areas. It is suggested that indigenous knowledge is extremely important in developing new strategies for forest and campo/cerrado conservation, while improving productiveness of these ecological systems. Such knowledge is not only applicable for Amazônian Indians, but also has far-reaching implications for human populations throughout the humid tropics.

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This is a preliminary survey of indigenous management strategies that is generated as a part of the ‘Projeto Kayapó’ , an interdisciplinary ethnobiological research project funded by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) and the World Wildlife Fund. I would like to thank Drs. Gerhard Gottsberger and Anthony Anderson for their assistance in collecting plants that are currently being identified to supply more complete data on Kayapó subsistence. I also wish to thank FUNAI (Fundaτão Nacional do Índio) for their assistance and support, as well as FAB (Forτa Aérea Brasileira) and VOTEC for providing some transportation to/from Gorotire, and the Unevangelized Field Missions for their assistance in providing communication and acquiring supplies.

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Posey, D.A. Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapó indians of the Brazilian Amazon. Agroforest Syst 3 , 139–158 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00122640

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Brazilian indigenous speak out as Amazon fires rage

In this Aug. 27, 2019 photo, members of the Kayapo indigenous group attend a meeting to discuss community issues in their village Bau, located on Kayapo indigenous territory in Altamira in Brazil’s Amazon. About 98% of all Brazil’s indigenous lands lie within the Amazon. “Just outside, our reserve is being heavily deforested. It’s being badly destroyed,” a Kayapo leader said. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In this Aug. 27, 2019 photo, Kayapo indigenous members stand near their shelters in the Bau indigenous reserve in Altamira, in Brazil’s Amazon. The Kayapo indigenous leader has helped to organize a village watch group to protect the community’s lands from encroaching flames and illegal loggers, miners and others seeking to exploit the area. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In this Aug. 27, 2019 photo, Kayapo indigenous members of PREVFOGO, a group that combats and helps to prevent fires, pause after working on the Bau indigenous reserve in Altamira in Brazil’s Amazon where fires are burning. The group, which also works to improve the use of land for farming, depends on IBAMA, the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, a government environmental agency. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In this Aug. 26, 2019 photo, a youth from the Kayapo indigenous community bathes in the river at dusk near his village in the Bau indigenous reserve in Altamira in Brazil’s Amazon. President Jair Bolsonaro has long pushed to open indigenous reserves for agriculture and mining, saying it will benefit the people there. He insists Brazil’s indigenous people, “want to integrate, they want electricity, they want to be what we are.” (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In this Aug. 26, 2019 photo, indigenous leader Saulo Katitaurlu stands next to the Sarare River, in the southwestern Amazon near Conquista D’Oeste, in the Brazilian state Mato Grosso. “Many years ago, the water wasn’t like this,” he told AP journalists, saying increased cattle ranching and soy farming have made muddied the once clear waters. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

In this Aug. 26, 2019 photo, children of the Nambikwara Sarare tribe climb trees as they play in their indigenous reserve in the southwestern Amazon, near Conquista D’Oeste, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. About 98% of all Brazil’s indigenous lands lie within the Amazon. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

In this Aug. 27, 2019 photo, Wakonkra Kayapo of the Kayapo indigenous community, rifle in tow, indicates the way on the Curua River as he searches for suspected prospectors and loggers in the Bau indigenous reserve in Altamira, in Brazil’s Amazon, where fires burn nearby. “The forest will stay in its place. It can’t be taken down. We take care of the land”, said the 68-year-old man who describes himself as a “small warrior.” (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

An area left scorched by fires is seen in the Menkragnoti indigenous reserve of the Kayapo indigenous group of Amazon rainforest in Altamira, Para state, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2019. President Jair Bolsonaro said Wednesday that Latin America’s Amazon countries will meet in September to discuss both protecting and developing the rainforest region, which has been hit by weeks of devastating fires. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In this Aug. 26, 2019 photo, the land smolders during a forest fire in Altamira in Brazil’s Amazon. The fire is very close to Kayapo indigenous land located on the Bau indigenous reserve. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

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ALTAMIRA, Brazil (AP) — As fires raged in parts of the Amazon, Mydje Kayapo sat in a small boat looking out over the Curua River in the Bau indigenous reserve. The smell of smoke filled the air, and Kayapo was worried.

“The fire is coming closer and closer to our reserve,” he told a visiting news team from The Associated Press. “Now it is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.”

Kayapo, one of the Bau people’s leaders, helps organize a village watch group to protect the community’s lands from encroaching flames as well as illegal loggers, miners and others seeking to exploit the area. With fires spreading quickly to wide swaths of indigenous territories in recent weeks, his task has grown more critical.

So far in 2019, Brazil reported 83,000 fires, a 77% increase from the same period last year. Many of those were set in already deforested areas by people clearing land for cultivation or pasture.

With over 98% of Brazil’s indigenous lands within the Amazon, the threat to groups like Kayapo’s are particularly exposed.

According to Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, an estimated 3,553 fires are now burning on 148 indigenous territories in the region.

“Just outside, our reserve is being heavily deforested. It’s being badly destroyed,” Kayapo said. “We indigenous people need to be united.”

As a multitude of international players discuss how to develop and protect the Amazon, Kayapo and others find themselves on the front line of firefighting efforts and an ever-acrimonious feud with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Boslonaro has come under harsh criticism for environmental policies that some say are weakening safeguards in the rainforest. He maintains Europeans are trying to infringe on his country’s sovereignty, while also arguing that the demarcation of indigenous lands has hindered business interests.

On Tuesday, he reasserted his claims at a meeting of Amazon regional governors, arguing that reserves are being exploited by outsiders to halt the growth of Brazil’s economy.

“Many reserves are located strategically, someone arranged this,” Bolsonaro said, without noting who he was referring to. “Indians don’t have a (political) lobby, they don’t speak our language, but they have managed to get 14% of our national territory.”

As rhetoric escalates, indigenous leaders have some of the most at stake.

Saulo Katitaurlu, a leader in the municipality of Conquista D’Oeste in Mato Grosso state, appeared woeful as he walked along the banks of the Sarare River.

“The non-indigenous do whatever they want and then put the blame on the Indian,” Katitaurlu said, explaining that when his group reported a fire to authorities, a rancher said the tribe had set the blaze themselves.

This year, he said his indigenous group, the Nambikwara Sarare, felt the effects of farming and ranching expansion even more acutely and said inspectors were “not going after” the criminals.

“Some years ago there were a few (fires) but now there are more,” Katitaurlu said. “With the Amazon burning, this is the largest (fire) that has ever happened and the smoke is coming here. Today the sky is clean, but two days ago it was full of smoke and hot.”

In recent days, leaders of the Group of Seven industrial nations pledged to help protect the Amazon region with $20 million in funds, in addition to a separate $12 million from Britain and $11 million from Canada.

At the same time, French President Emmanuel Macron has engaged in an increasingly personal feud with his Brazilian counterpart, while Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said Latin America countries “have sovereignty over the Amazon.”

Leaders of all Amazon nations except Venezuela will meet Sept. 6 “to come up with our own unified strategy for preserving the environment, and also for exploration sustainable in our region,” Bolsonaro said Wednesday.

Although Brazil’s president and international players have dominated the discussion, some indigenous leaders appear to feel the most effective way to influence environmental preservation policies is to raise their own voices — or take matters into their own hands.

“I think this president doesn’t know the constitution very well,” said Kayapo, the leader from the Bau reserve. “We are resilient. If there is an invasion in our reserve, if they try to come here ... we will react against the Bolsonaro government and say: ‘Not here. This reserve has an owner.’”

In an Aug. 24 video posted to YouTube, one indigenous woman wearing face paint and a headdress addressed the camera and also vowed to “resist for the sake of the forest, for our way of living.”

“We from the Xingu River are connected to you, all together standing in defense of the Amazon,” she said. “We are on the front line and we need your support, join our fight.”

Associated Press journalist Leo Correa reported this story in Altimira, AP journalist Mario Lobao reported in Conquista D’Oeste and AP writer Anna Jean Kaiser reported from Rio de Janeiro.