"Keeping forests standing is one of the most effective and important ways to keep the world below dangerous levels of warming. "
"On an early December morning last year in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, half a dozen members of the Indigenous Guajajara people packed their bags with food, maps and drone equipment to get ready for a patrol. They said goodbye to their children, uncertain when, or whether, they would see them again. Then, they hoisted their bags over their shoulders and set out to patrol a section of the 173,000 hectares (428,000 acres) of the primary rainforest they call home.
This is the Caru Indigenous Territory, where the Amazon peters out toward the northeastern coast of Brazil, and it contains some of the last stretches of intact, contiguous forest in Maranhão. It is also under increasing threat: this part of Brazil has been ravaged by some of the country’s highest rates of deforestation and land conflicts over the past decade. Patrols led by Indigenous groups like theirs, known often by the moniker of “Forest Guardians,” have been instrumental in enforcing protections and preventing loggers from entering Indigenous territories. Patrols and their enforcement tactics, which have been ramping up over the past decade, have also resulted in community members being threatened, attacked, and killed — as in the case of Paulo Paulino Guajajara last year, who was murdered in a neighboring Indigenous territory.
But members of the patrol that set out through the forest last December don’t call themselves guardians; they prefer warriors. And they differ in one other notable aspect: they are all women."
Rosamaria Loures and Sarah Sax report for Mongabay August 21, 2020.
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