An Interview with Deborah Macedo Duprat de Britto Pereira.

The Cerrado today is seen as an area for agro-industry and for raising cattle. To open more space for monocrop soy cultivation and cattle ranching there has been tremendous deforestation of the Cerrado. And now the government plans to produce biodiesel from sugarcane grown in this area. Mato Grosso is viewed as a state with great potential for developing the biofuels industry. In the 1980s, soy was introduced in this region in the name of progress, and it devastated the Cerrado and Indigenous lands, including areas in the Pimentel Barbosa territory.

One of the most significant developments in Brazilian Indigenous Peoples’ land rights took place in March, when the country’s Supreme Court issued a decision on the Raposa do Sol Indigenous territory in northern Brazil. The decision on March 19 ended more than 30 years of struggle by the region’s Indigenous Peoples to reclaim their land from farmers and development, and for those peoples the decision was a major victory.

On March 15, the United Nations General Assembly voted 170–4 to create a new Human Rights Council, effectively dissolving the oft-criticized Commission on Human Rights. Candidates for the Council will need to be elected by an absolute majority of 96 votes in order to secure a position, and once elected members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.

Brazil — Here at the great bend of the mighty Xingu River, the Brazilian government is pushing to construct a dam that could end up being the world's second largest, generating huge amounts of hydroelectric power.

The Council of the Yanomami and Ye'kuana Special Indigenous Health District submitted a letter on June 30 to Brazilian Ministers of Justice and Environment demanding expulsion of gold miners that have raided their Amazon reservation.

In an attempt to provide easy access to impartial information about the deforestation of the Amazon, The National Institute of Space Research (INPE) has launched a new website. This site provides information based on the digital records of satellite images, including LANDSAT images and maps of the deforestation. The site allows to spatially localize areas of drastic tree loss; an aide that will permit a more comprehensive analysis of the factors behind deforestation and help develop policies to protect against further forest loss.

For the past three years, the Federation of the Indigenous Organizations of the Negro River (FOIRN) has been responsible for the health of the 20,000 Indians in its constituent region. Because of accumulated debts with medical suppliers after repeated nonpayment of bills, FOIRN has decided to cease all activities in the region. This announcement was made to Ricardo Chagas, Director of the Department of Indigenous Health, on June 2. The organization is unable to pay the salaries of its staff of over 200 people.

On June 28 a meeting was held in Quito, under the title of “International Forum: The Impacts of the Spraying of Crops, Typified as “Illicit Activity”, and the Armed Conflict. Responses of the Indigenous Amazon Peoples of the Boundaries”. Amazonian indigenous peoples from Ecuador, Colombia, Perú and Brazil met to discuss a joint proposal for defending their traditional ways of life and environment in the face of Plan Colombia. The proposal will be addressed to their respective governments and to the United States in the coming months.

Brazil's territory covers an area of 8,500,000 square kilometers (3,286,170 square miles), and is home to a population of about 169,500,000 inhabitants, only 16 million of whom live in rural areas -- the number has not changed since 195

As travel to the Third World has expanded, so, too, has concern about the damage wrought by mass tourism on the people and places that play host to wandering North Americans and Europeans. This sensitivity is generating a different kind of tourism, an alternative that goes by the names of peaceful travel, eco-tourism, ethical travel, and responsible travel - to name just a few.