This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Karla Mendes is a fellow. ARARIBOIA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil — Cattle are being illegally raised in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon, amid a record-high number of killings of the region’s Indigenous Guajajara inhabitants, a yearlong Mongabay investigation can reveal. Commercial cattle ranching is banned on Indigenous territories in Brazil, but our investigation found that large plots in Arariboia’s southwestern region have been used for ranching. Mongabay visited Arariboia in late 2023, where we witnessed cattle being raised on Indigenous land. We then analyzed satellite images, conducted spatial analysis to investigate the ranches, and built a database of land leases, reports of illegal cattle ranching and logging, and incidents of violence against Indigenous people in the area. Our investigation found a clear rise in environmental crimes in the region in mid-2023, the deadliest year for Indigenous people in Arariboia since 2016. With four Guajajara people killed and three others surviving attempts on their lives, last year equaled the number of killings in 2007, 2008 and 2016, when four Guajajara Indigenous from Arariboia were also killed, the highest number since the first killing in Arariboia was recorded in 1992. The spike in killings runs contrary to the overall data for Brazil, which recorded in 2023 its lowest number of murders since 2010, according to government data. Maranhão, the state where the Arariboia territory is located, was one of the five states that saw an increase in…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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