News / Brazil

Illegal loggers kill Amazon warrior guarding forest, wound another

Sunday, 03 November 2019 6:50 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 03 November 2019 6:55 AM ]

Indigenous leader Laercio Guajajara, a "forest guardian," holds a gun as he prepares to search for illegal loggers on Arariboia indigenous land near the city of Amarante, Maranhao state, Brazil, September 10, 2019. (Photo by Reuters)

Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday.

Paulo Paulino Guajajara, or Lobo (which means 'wolf' in Portuguese), was hunting on Friday inside the Arariboia reservation in Maranhao state when he was attacked and shot in the head. Another Guajajara, Laercio, was wounded but escaped, they said.

The clash comes amid an increase in invasions of reservations by illegal loggers and miners since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office this year and vowed to open up protected indigenous lands to economic development.

APIB leader Sonia Guajajara said the government was dismantling environmental and indigenous agencies, and leaving tribes to defend themselves from invasion of their lands.

Brazil's federal police said they had sent a team to investigate the circumstances of Paulino Guajajara's death. APIB said his body was still lying in the forest where he was killed.

Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara holds a gun during the search for illegal loggers on Arariboia indigenous land near the city of Amarante, Maranhao state, Brazil, September 11, 2019. (Photo by Reuters)

The Guajajaras, one of Brazil's largest indigenous groups with some 20,000 people, set up the Guardians of the Forest in 2012 to patrol a vast reservation. The area is so large that a small and endangered tribe, the Awa Guaja, lives deep in the forest without any contact with the outside world.

Paulino Guajajara, who was in his twenties and leaves behind one son, told Reuters in an interview on the reservation in September that protecting the forest from intruders had become a dangerous task, but his people could not give in to fear.

(Source: Reuters)

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