tory in Brazil – warned that rates of malaria and hepatitis are spiralling out of control, with uncontacted tribes in the area being in grave danger. In 2006 it was estimated that 90 per cent of indigenous peoples in the area suffered from malaria. A further study by Survival International in 2007, of 306 indigenous people, revealed that 56 per cent were carrying the hepatitis B virus, 85 per cent had contact with hepatitis A and 25 per cent were carrying hepatitis C.
Local indigenous organizations in the area accuse the government of shirking its responsibilities under Article 231 of the Federal Constitution, which holds the state responsible for protecting the customs, languages and traditionally occupied territories of the indigenous population. Indigenous groups also hold the Brazilian authorities responsible for the provision of health care to communities and believe that they have taken insufficient action to combat the crisis.
In 2007 more than half of indigenous communities continued to live in poverty in areas where traditional ways of life are increasingly threatened by land development, agricultural expansion and mining.
However, there was also continued evidence in 2007 of eroding government concern over indigenous land rights especially since – according to long-time Brazilian indigenous rights advocate Sydney Possuelo – the head of FUNAI is reported to have claimed that indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon have too much land.
This largely matches the attitude of Brazil's powerful elite, who seek even more Amazon deforestation for cattle and large-scale agriculture. Ranchers, land-grabbers, miners and loggers have already destroyed nearly one-fifth of the Brazilian rainforest. More than 17 per cent of the original tree cover has already been eliminated and what remains is disappearing fast.
Violent land wars between indigenous groups, ranchers, companies and farmers, increased in 2007, and a 10-year high was reached in the rate of murders of indigenous people. Killings were mostly related to land 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 