d disputes and rural activists were specially targeted.
In September 2007 the indigenous Yanomami of Brazil's Amazon rainforest increased their protests against a draft mining law that may force them to expose their currently state-protected communal lands to international mining companies.
Mining on indigenous lands in Brazil is currently prohibited, however the draft law once again allows mining of indigenous territories, with Yanomami lands likely to be the most affected.
According to the Instituto Socioambiental the Lula government has created 15 million hectares of environmental conservation areas in Amazonia; however even though demarcated since 1992, a large proportion of this land has already been surveyed or explored by mining companies.
This could mean a repeat of the cycle of deforestation, and disease first suffered by Yanomami in the mid-1970s, during construction of Brazil's Northern Circumferential Highway, when nearly 20 per cent of the Yanomami died from lack of immunity.
As a world leader in ethanol production, biofuels from agricultural crops is important in the country's long-term economic vision. Indigenous small farmers in Brazil are steadily being pushed off lands cleared for soy production, sometimes violently. This is also affecting Afro-descendant and indigenous 'nutcracker' women who, as of August 2007, continued fighting to retain access to the babaçú palm tree, which is native to the Brazil forest.
The babaçú palm grows wild in the 18.5 million hectare forest area extending across four states between the Amazon and the semi-arid north-east of the country. The 20-meter-tall palm tree has over 50 uses, among them: cattle fodder, natural medicine, house construction, basketry and fuel. The flesh of the nut is eaten or made into oil for cooking and lubrication, as well as soaps and other cosmetics.
Babaçú gathering dates back to pre-Columbian times. It now represents a major income source for half a million mostly Afro-descendent and indigenous female Quebradeiras, who gather and process the babaçú nut. However, large-scale land appropriation is now making it increasingly difficult for women to access babaçú forests.
Since the 1980s, industrial farmers have been acquiring and enclosing vast parcels of primary land where the babaçú grows, and they now intend to clear-cut and burn the forest to breed cattle or grow soybeans for bio-fuel. They especially want to stop indigenous and Afro-descendant collectors from traversing the forested areas, even though the babaçú nut just falls to earth and otherwise remains unused. Deterrents include erecting barbed-wire fences or hiring gunmen.
The Interstate Movement of Babaçú Coconut Breakers (MIQCB) has been trying to negotiate access with the local, regional and national governments, and has been discussing the laws for free access to the babaçú forests. They have also held the government accountable for illegal logging and forest destruction.
Some researchers see potential in the babaçú palm for biofuel, but industrialists lack interest because of supply logistics and difficulty in processing the nut. NGO and university projects in 2007 continued to try to attract Afro-descendant and indigenous Quebradeiras women toward using babaçú for agro fuel, but collectors can earn more selling the multi-use nut than from processed oil. They are also well aware of the effects of the soy and sugarcane industries on independent farmers and remain uninterested in turning babaçú into a corporate biofuel activity.
The Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR) is in charge of coordinating President 'Lula' da Silva's policies for Afro-Brazilians, indigenous communities, Roma, Jews and, to a lesser extent, Brazilian foreign relations with Africa (the SEPPIR minister has joined the president on all of his official delegations to Africa, including Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Gabon, São Tomé and Principe and South Africa , and had a prominent role in the African Union meeting held in Salvador, Bahia in 2006). The SEPPIR ministry is made up of almost 15