In May 2019, three per cent of the dense rainforests that make up the Jamanxim National Forest in Pará, a state in northern Brazil, was razed by illegal loggers. The area’s legal protections have, until now, deterred the most egregious logging. But valuable hardwoods are being felled at whirlwind pace, with land cleared for cattle and soy. The invasion left wastelands twice the size of Paris in a single month.
In the neighbouring Amapà state in July, around 50 wildcat goldminers dressed in military-style clothing entered indigenous lands, where 1,200 people live in villages. When they met 68-year-old community leader Emyra Wajãpi, they stabbed him to death and left his body in a river.
