3.8 Million Acres
Decreed Indian
Reservation in Brazil
Brazil's President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva on
Friday decreed a new 3.8
million acres Indian
reservation in the heart
of the Amazon rain
forest's logging
frontier.
The Kayapo Indians had
sought the Bau
reservation in Para
state in their ancestral
territory since 1994.
But resistance from
settlers and loggers
delayed its official
creation.
"We are advancing little
by little, but we are
making the necessary
conquests," Silva said
at the signing ceremony
in the capital,
Brasilia.
Brazil's 1988
constitution declared
all Indian ancestral
lands be demarcated and
turned over to tribes
within five years. While
that process has not
been completed yet,
today about 11 percent
of Brazilian territory
and nearly 22 percent of
the Amazon is in Indian
hands.
But there has been
increasing pressure on
the government to limit
the size of reservations
as logging, ranching and
farming expand into the
Amazon. Some settlers
have violently resisted
efforts to relocate
them.
Studies show Indian
reservations tend to be
the best preserved areas
of the rain forest
because the tribes
protect the borders.
National parks and
ecological reserves
rarely have enough staff
to police their
territory.
Marcio Meira, president
of the National Indian
Foundation, said at the
ceremony about half of
the 1 million Indians in
Brazil are on
reservations.
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