"Land rights advocates say allowing the state and farmers to negotiate on the size of a protected area sets a worrying precedent"
"SAO PAULO - When Kaworé Parakana sees the smoke rising on the horizon, the indigenous leader knows that another part of Brazil's Amazon rainforest is gone.
For more than three decades, the Parakana people have been fighting to protect their land in the Apyterewa reservation, in the northern state of Pará, from illegal miners, loggers and farmers who clear large swathes of trees.
"With each day that passes there is a huge amount of deforestation. They create large fields. There has been a lot of smoke here lately at the bottom of the area," Kaworé told the Thomson Reuters Foundation over the phone.
He said the Parakana fear there will be many more burning trees after a Supreme Court decision that could allow the municipality that oversees the reservation to legalize the presence of farmers already encroaching on the land."
Fabio Zuker reports for Thomson Reuters Foundation September 7, 2020.
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