Brazil: On 23 April several Brazilian indigenous rights and environmental groups staged a protest against the policies of Brazil’s President
Jair Bolsonaro in front of the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations (UN) in New York City. Since taking office in January, Bolsonaro has pushed to allow for the development of minerals and agriculture on indigenous lands in Brazil. Notably, he transferred the responsibility to protect indigenous lands from the indigenous rights agency (Funai) to the agriculture ministry. The groups at the protest included the Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira (Coiab) and Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib). Led by Brazilian indigenous rights activist
Sônia Guajajara, they presented a letter with 12,000 signatures to the mission. While these groups are in New York for a meeting of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, thousands of indigenous rights activists are marching on Brasília. This protest, known as ‘the free land encampment’, is in its 15
th year.
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