Brazil stops demarcating land for indigenous people: ex- govt agency official

Brazil stops demarcating land for indigenous people: ex- govt agency official

By Chris Arsenault

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Facing pressure from agricultural interests, Brazil has stopped formally demarcating land for indigenous communities in a threat to rainforest conservation efforts, according to a former senior government agency official and campaigners.
Brazil's constitution recognizes the right of indigenous people to live on their ancestral lands and the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), a government body, has been working to demarcate land for tribes, who make up less than 1 percent of the population.
But new lands have not been demarcated for indigenous groups since August amid a push by lawmakers from Brazil's rural areas to change the process, said former FUNAI president Marcio Santilli in comments echoed by campaigners.
"There have been no positive actions to move forward with pending demarcations," said Santilli, who led FUNAI in the mid-1990s and now advises the Instituto Socioambiental, a Brazilian environmental group.
"The bancada ruralista (a group of rural politicians)... is proposing constitutional amendments to weaken the territorial rights of the indigenous," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
FUNAI officials said they could not immediately comment.
Home to the world's largest tropical forest, Brazil has lost about one fifth of the Amazon rainforest in the last 50 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

http://in.reuters.com/article/brazil-landrights-politics-idINL5N1EZ464