Can Brazil’s indigenous population save the Amazon?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil and it is home to more than 300 indigenous groups. But for centuries both the rainforest and its indigenous inhabitants have been under threat, from deforestation, agri-business, mining and politics. Brazil’s current president, Luis Ignácio de Silva, has made the future security of the Amazon and its peoples a key policy pledge. So far, the president has appointed a new minister for indigenous peoples and according to government figures, the first six months of this year saw a 33 percent drop in deforestation.
But at the recent Amazon Summit in Belém, the president failed to commit to zero-deforestation, to the disappointment of indigenous leaders. They are calling for more protection for their land and their way of life, which they say is crucial to the future preservation of the Amazon and a matter for the whole world. This week on The Inquiry we are asking ‘Can Brazil’s indigenous population save the Amazon?’ Contributors: Pedro Cesarino, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sao Paolo and Writer, Brazil Carlos Peres, Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of East Anglia, England Ana Carolina Alfinito, Legal Advisor at the NGO Amazon Watch Kawá Huni Kuin, Indigenous leader and representative from the Huni Kuin/Kaxinawá people, in the State of Acre, Brazil.
Presenter: David Baker Producer: Jill Collins Researcher: Matt Toulson Editor: Tom Bigwood Technical Producer: Kelly Young Production Co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
(Image: Kawá Huni Kuin, Photo Credit: Bimi Huni Kuin)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was working in a coffee shop in Boston to help pay rent while I was training for the trials |
| 0:05.2 | and so people kept joking and they were like oh yeah she just took a two-hour coffee break |
| 0:08.6 | and went and ran the Olympic trials bare at that. On the podium is back with more Olympians |
| 0:14.2 | and Paralympians sharing their journeys to the top. On the podium from the BBC World Service, |
| 0:19.6 | listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service |
| 0:26.7 | with me David Baker. Each week one question four expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:48.9 | In April this year more than 6,000 Indigenous people came to |
| 0:53.2 | Brazillia the capital of Brazil to demand that the country's new president, |
| 0:57.8 | Louis Signacio de Silva, or Lula for short, deliver on his campaign promises to protect |
| 1:04.8 | Indigenous territories and end deforestation in the Amazon where many of them live. |
| 1:11.0 | The future of the Amazon was central to Lula's campaign. After Brazil's previous president, |
| 1:16.2 | Jaya Bolsonaro, effectively opened up the territory to agriculture and mining. |
| 1:22.0 | According to the government, in the first six months of Lula's presidency, |
| 1:25.9 | there was a 33% drop in deforestation compared to the same period last year. |
| 1:31.3 | But many Indigenous leaders want Lula to go further, to end deforestation entirely, |
| 1:37.7 | to protect their lands and to work with them to guarantee the rainforest's future. |
| 1:44.4 | So for this episode of the inquiry, we're asking can Brazillia's Indigenous population |
| 1:50.4 | save the Amazon. Part one, Brazil's original inhabitants. |
| 2:00.0 | When European colonizers first arrived in South America in the early 1500s, |
| 2:04.5 | there were an estimated 11 million Indigenous people living in the area we now call Brazill. |
| 2:10.5 | Today that number is just 1.6 million and they make up a tiny fraction of the Brazilian population. |
| 2:17.2 | It's less than 1%. They are spread throughout Brazil but mostly around the Amazonian Basin. |
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