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Allegedly criminally set fires have destroyed nearly all of Xavante Indigenous Territory Areões, about 219,000 hectares, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, according to a report by Globo News, a leading mainstream media source in Brazil. Areões is an Indigenous Territory, home to about 1,500 Xavante who are now facing the catastrophic impacts from the fires.

Enquanto o Brasil se prepara para a posse de Jair Bolsonaro como presidente, nós, as organizações abaixo-assinadas, desejamos expressar nossa profunda preocupação com as posições sustentadas pelo presidente eleito, que representam uma séria ameaça à democracia, aos direitos humanos e ao meio ambiente. Desejamos também reafirmar nosso apoio aos corajosos indivíduos e grupos no Brasil que lutam para defender os direitos e liberdades constitucionalmente protegidos em um ambiente cada vez mais desafiador.

By Antonio A R Ioris

“…we know that we are going and we want to be killed and buried with our ancestors here where we are today, so we ask the Government and the Federal Justice not to decree our eviction/expulsion, but we request to decree our collective death and to bury us everybody here. We ask, once and for all, to decree our decimation and total extinction, in addition to sending several tractors to dig a large hole to throw and bury our bodies.”

Letter Guarani-Kaiowá of Pyelito Kue (2012)

With support from Cultural Survival, Tribal Link Foundation and generous donors, Xavante leader, Hiparidi Top’tiro of the Xavante Warã Association, spoke at the 17th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues about the grave problems A’uwẽ-Xavante people are confronting as a result of massive soy agribusiness in central Brazil.  In meetings facilitated by Cultural Survival, Top’tiro also met with various government missions to the UN including the Netherlands, Norway, and Germany – all major soy importing nations that indicate conc

By Sacred Fire Foundation 

Honoring his leadership and tireless work for the rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide, on November 26, 2016 the Sacred Fire Foundation presented Xané leader Marcos Terena with the Wisdom Fellowship award.

The award ceremony took place in Lima, Perú a Gala dinner during the The Latin America Indigenous Funders Conference, a unique event that brings leaders from the Indigenous, donor, and corporate worlds to the same table. 

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