分类： environment

Nestled between the Javae and Araguaia rivers in northern Brazil, Bananal Island — the world’s largest river island — has become the epicenter of a contentious national debate that encapsulates the complex tradeoffs between environmental protection, Indigenous sovereignty and the economic power of Brazil’s massive agribusiness sector.

Last year, federal environmental authorities ordered all commercial cattle herds removed from the island’s legally protected Indigenous territory. The order argued that the land is permanently reserved for Indigenous communities and biodiversity conservation, and that unregulated cattle grazing by non-Indigenous ranchers was not only illegal under Brazilian law, but also a major driver of widespread habitat degradation across the island.

Wranglers successfully moved more than 100,000 cattle off the island during a period of low river levels to comply with the ruling, but the removal has triggered unforeseen economic upheaval for Indigenous residents who had become dependent on revenue from leasing tribal land to outside ranchers for decades.

The situation lays bare the persistent challenge of reconciling three competing priorities that define environmental policy in Brazil: curbing Amazon deforestation, upholding Indigenous territorial rights, and accommodating the demands of agribusiness — one of the country’s most politically influential economic sectors. As the world’s top beef exporter, Brazil accounts for roughly 20% of global beef production, with the industry contributing 6% to the nation’s total gross domestic product.

Conservation researchers widely recognize protected Indigenous territories as one of the most effective tools to reduce deforestation in the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and a critical global climate regulator. Even as Brazil has made notable progress cutting overall deforestation rates in recent years, cattle ranching remains the single largest driver of forest loss across the country. To create new grazing pastures, ranchers clear large swathes of native forest, replacing carbon-absorbing trees with methane-emitting cattle — a dynamic that accelerates global climate change while threatening native biodiversity. Data from MapBiomas, a non-profit land use tracking organization, shows Tocantins state, where Bananal Island is located, recorded among the highest deforestation rates in Brazil in 2025.

Brazilian law strictly prohibits large-scale commercial activity on designated Indigenous lands, allowing cattle rearing only for small-scale subsidence use by tribal communities. For decades, however, an informal leasing system operated openly on parts of Bananal Island. Non-Indigenous ranchers paid village leaders roughly 15 reais ($3) per head of cattle monthly — a fraction of the 60 reais ($12) per head typical for grazing leases outside the territory. At its peak, when more than 100,000 cattle grazed on the island, monthly leasing revenue reached 1.5 million reais ($290,000), which was distributed through tribal leadership to local community associations.

“Cattle, over the years, have covered many of our community’s expenses,” explained Cleiton Javae, chief of the Txuiri village, one of more than 40 Indigenous communities on the island home to roughly 5,000 total residents. Javae noted the revenue funded critical local needs including school supplies, medical care, transportation and traditional cultural festivals. But critics of the informal system point to deep structural inequities: much of the revenue was concentrated among a small group of tribal leaders, leaving many community members in poverty. “The law requires consultation and shared benefits,” said Leandro Milhomem, head of IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, in Tocantins. “Instead, some chiefs had significant resources while, in the same community, children died of malnutrition.”

Indigenous residents also told the Associated Press that ranchers fenced off large sections of the island to contain their herds, blocking communal access to traditional subsistence farming areas. Even leaders who supported the original leasing agreements acknowledge the system spiraled out of control, with ranchers bringing far more cattle onto the island than they initially declared. “The situation became unsustainable, and removing the cattle was the only alternative,” Javae said.

Beyond economic inequality, unregulated cattle ranching caused severe environmental harm to the island. IBAMA investigations linked grazing activity to soil acidification and increased wildfire risk, as ranchers regularly use controlled burns to clear brush and refresh pasture land. Many of these blazes spread beyond grazing areas, destroying native habitat.

Bananal Island’s modern conflict has deep historical roots. When European colonizers arrived in the region in the late 18th century, they found the island already inhabited by Indigenous groups and covered in wild banana groves, which gave the island its Portuguese name Ilha do Bananal. The region remained largely undeveloped and overlooked by the Brazilian government until the 1950s, when it was formally designated a protected Indigenous territory. At the same time, federal officials encouraged non-Indigenous ranching through informal leasing arrangements with local communities, setting the stage for the current crisis.

Three Indigenous groups — the Javae, Karaja and Ava-Canoeiro — currently live on the island. The Javae, in particular, developed long-standing social and economic ties with non-Indigenous ranchers, with many outsiders settling on the island after marrying into local Indigenous communities. These connections allowed ranchers to gain access to develop commercial activity inside the legally protected territory, creating the mixed cultural landscape visible on the island today: modern brick homes stand alongside traditional thatched huts, children play with traditional bows and arrows near Protestant churches, and elderly tribal leaders prepare traditional meals while watching cooking tutorials on YouTube.

Following the cattle removal, Indigenous leaders on Bananal Island are now rethinking their approach to economic development, working to craft a new model that balances income generation with territorial and environmental protection. The Javae community is partnering with The Nature Conservancy, a global non-profit conservation organization, to develop a comprehensive community-led land management plan that integrates the tribe’s social, economic and environmental priorities.

In May 2026, Javae leaders traveled to the northern Amazon state of Roraima to study the successful model developed by the Macuxi people, who have become a national example of balancing collective economic development with land rights protection. Starting in the 1980s, the Macuxi developed a community-owned cattle operation to help reclaim their territory from encroachment by farmers, miners and land grabbers, decades before their land was officially demarcated as Indigenous territory in 2005. Today, the Macuxi collectively own more than 45,000 head of cattle, generating sustained shared revenue for the community while protecting their territorial sovereignty.

The Macuxi and Bananal Island experiences reflect a growing national conversation among Indigenous communities across Brazil about how to balance sustainable economic activity with protection of territorial rights and natural ecosystems, a debate that has also extended to mining. In February 2026, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino ruled that the Cinta Larga people, whose territory spans the Amazonian states of Mato Grosso and Rondonia, have the legal right to conduct mining operations within their own territory.

Ivo Aureliano Macuxi, an Indigenous rights advocate and member of the Indigenous Council of Roraima, argues that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for Indigenous economic development. “You can’t apply a single model as a template for other Indigenous lands,” he said, emphasizing that frameworks must be tailored to “each region, each territory, each people.” What works for one community, he added, may not work for another, requiring flexible legal frameworks that respect the self-determination of Brazil’s 391 distinct Indigenous peoples.

This coverage of climate and environmental issues from the Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP maintains full editorial control over all content.

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA – In a groundbreaking move for global forest conservation, Colombia has signed into law a first-of-its-kind mandatory framework requiring the entire domestic cattle industry to implement full livestock traceability, guaranteeing that national beef supply chains are completely free of deforestation-linked production. Environmental advocates across the globe are hailing the legislation as a historic precedent, marking the first time any tropical forest country has rolled out such a sweeping nationwide rule to curb forest loss driven by cattle ranching.

Under the new law, government regulatory bodies and private sector actors across the cattle supply chain are mandated to integrate three core systems: individual cattle tracking, official land ownership verification, and real-time deforestation monitoring. This cross-system integration is designed to flag any livestock raised on land cleared of forest, blocking these animals from entering legal commercial supply chains entirely.

For decades, unregulated expansion of cattle ranching has stood as the single largest driver of deforestation in Colombia’s portion of the Amazon basin, with large swathes of protected forest cleared illegally through land grabbing to create new pasture. Proponents of the legislation argue it will close longstanding regulatory gaps that have allowed cattle reared on illegally deforested land – including grazing areas inside protected national parks and conservation reserves – to launder into legitimate domestic retail and international export markets.

Susanne Breitkopf, U.S. forest campaigns director for the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international watchdog that has spent years documenting deforestation tied to Colombia’s cattle sector, emphasized that the law sets a replicable blueprint for other tropical forest nations grappling with the same issue. “This is a win for forests, for Indigenous and local communities that have acted as the world’s most effective forest stewards, and for consumers around the world who are increasingly demanding that the food they buy does not contribute to forest destruction or illicit land activities,” Breitkopf noted.

The legislation comes at a moment of mounting global pressure, as both governments and agribusiness face growing requirements from international import markets to prove major commodities including beef are not linked to deforestation. Environmental advocates point out that robust traceability systems are quickly becoming a non-negotiable prerequisite for accessing key overseas markets, while also giving law enforcement clearer tools to identify and crack down on illegal land grabbing and forest clearing.

Data from organizations backing the law shows Colombia has lost roughly 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) of forest in recent decades – an area nearly identical in size to the entire country of Belgium – with the Amazon region seeing the most severe rates of loss. While Brazil’s Amazonian state of Pará has previously implemented cattle traceability rules for producers, environmental groups stress that Colombia’s new law goes further by codifying a uniform, nationwide legal mandate rather than a subnational policy.

A 2025 EIA analysis underscored the urgency of the reform, finding that hundreds of thousands of cattle were moved between 2020 and 2024 from production areas overlapping protected national parks into legal supply chains. The new law is the culmination of more than five years of coordinated advocacy from environmental organizations, policy researchers, and progressive lawmakers, who have long warned that fragmented oversight and weak regulation allowed illegally deforestation-linked cattle to flow through Colombia’s disjointed cattle supply chain.

Natalia Katixa Escobar, a researcher with Colombian legal and policy think tank Dejusticia, which has documented the links between cattle expansion and deforestation, explained that the law addresses a long-standing institutional disconnect between Colombia’s agricultural and environmental regulators. “One of its most immediate achievements is that it builds a formal bridge between environmental policy and agricultural oversight,” Escobar said. “For years, the control mechanisms for cattle ranching and traceability had absolutely no integration with environmental monitoring – that gap is what allowed illegal activity to thrive.”

Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres told reporters the new framework will help the government clearly separate responsible, law-abiding cattle producers from actors linked to forest destruction. “This means it will become increasingly hard for forest destruction and illicit economic activity to hide behind the facade of legitimate supply chains,” Vélez said.

The law sets a phased two-year implementation timeline to give stakeholders time to adapt. Within the first six months, the national government must roll out compliance support programs for small and medium producers, launch an official certification system for deforestation-free beef products, and allocate dedicated funding to strengthen monitoring systems in active deforestation hotspots. After one year, regulators must finalize formal rules for national cattle identification and traceability protocols, and formalize mandatory due diligence requirements for deforestation-free cattle ranching.

By the end of the second year, all major supply chain actors including slaughterhouses, meat processors, cattle auction houses, traders, and live cattle exporters will be required to have full due diligence policies in place to guarantee their supply chains are deforestation-free. A core component of the reform is the mandatory gradual integration of separate government databases, which for the first time will allow officials to cross-reference data on land tenure, cattle ownership, and recent forest loss to flag illegal operations.

While supporters say these structural changes will dramatically improve regulators’ ability to intercept deforestation-linked cattle before they reach legal markets, observers warn that the law’s ultimate success hinges on consistent, well-funded enforcement – particularly in remote Amazon regions where illegal deforestation remains rampant and state presence is often limited.

If implemented fully, the policy could become a global model for other tropical forest countries working to protect their forest ecosystems while retaining access to increasingly sustainability-focused international commodity markets. “The real test will be what happens on the ground,” Escobar emphasized. “While the law fixes critical gaps in oversight and information sharing, reducing deforestation will also depend on improved governance and consistent enforcement in the most remote parts of the Colombian Amazon. Whether it will deliver significant reductions in Amazon deforestation remains to be seen.”

This coverage from The Associated Press, which received funding from private philanthropic foundations for its climate and environmental reporting, maintains full editorial independence over all content.

On a recent May morning in the remote Xerente Indigenous Territory of Brazil’s northern Tocantins state, a low crackle like distant rainfall drifted across the Cerrado, the sprawling savanna ecosystem that stretches across central and northern Brazil. Unlike the unplanned, destructive blazes that terrorize the region every dry season, these flames were intentional, part of a proactive wildfire prevention strategy forged through a historic collaboration between the Xerente people and Brazil’s federal environmental authorities.

This year, the work carries extra urgency: with an El Niño event approaching, forecasters warn of prolonged drought and soaring regional temperatures that will create perfect tinder for out-of-control wildfires, amplifying the annual risk the Xerente have faced for generations.

For decades, the Xerente and other Indigenous communities across Brazil faced systemic prejudice that dismissed their millennia of land management wisdom. Brazilian environmental policy for generations clung to a strict “zero-fire” doctrine, which labeled any controlled burn an illegal threat requiring immediate suppression. But over time, ecological research and shifting policy perspectives have revealed the critical role that low-intensity, controlled fire plays in the natural evolution of savanna ecosystems like the Cerrado. Today, that outdated approach has been replaced by a groundbreaking model: Indigenous ancestral fire management paired with modern scientific monitoring.

The 2026 controlled burn operation, carried out on May 19, brought together trained Indigenous firefighters and agents from IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental protection agency, to map and burn targeted areas of dry vegetation ahead of the August-September peak dry season. On the ground, Xerente firefighters carried on tradition, igniting small, controlled patches with dry palm leaves and drip torches, while a small airborne team dropped precision incendiary spheres from a government helicopter to reach mapped, hard-to-access areas. Crews stood by at all times to immediately extinguish any flames that threatened to spread beyond planned boundaries, leaving behind a patchwork of safely burned plots that will act as natural fire breaks when high-risk season arrives.

“The Xerente know this region, its climate, its vegetation, and the optimal windows to carry out burns better than anyone,” explained Marco Borges, the IBAMA agent coordinating fire prevention efforts across Tocantins. “We came to learn from their traditional knowledge, adapt it to our conservation goals, and align our work with their relationship to fire. They are our best teachers.”

Ecologists confirm this approach aligns with the Cerrado’s natural history. “Fire is a natural part of the Cerrado’s ecosystem, and many native species actually rely on periodic low-intensity burns to thrive,” said Leandro Maracahipes, a biologist and researcher at Yale University. Historically, natural blazes sparked by lightning occurred at the start of the rainy season, when fuel loads were low and fires stayed contained. But in recent decades, human activity—particularly clearing for surrounding soy and cattle farms—has shifted fire patterns, leading to far more intense, destructive blazes during the peak drought months of August and September.

By carrying out controlled burns early in the dry season, when vegetation is not yet fully parched, teams reduce the buildup of excess flammable grass that would otherwise feed catastrophic wildfires. The burned patches form protective barriers around villages, critical headwaters, and ecologically sensitive sites. As Maracahipes explains, the old zero-fire policy backfired dramatically: “Totally excluding fire leads to a massive buildup of fuel that feeds high-intensity burns. These intense fires can kill even the most fire-resilient trees and spread so rapidly across the landscape that firefighting becomes nearly impossible.”

The day of the operation opened with a traditional ceremony that highlighted the new collaborative dynamic between Indigenous leaders and government officials. When IBAMA convoys arrived at the Xerente territory, 30 Indigenous community members gathered at the people’s association’s wood-and-thatch headquarters, forming two facing parallel lines to create a ceremonial corridor. One line was made up of Xerente firefighters in official bright yellow brigade uniforms, while the other held community members, many shirtless with traditional body paint marking their connection to ancestral land. Together, they chanted traditional songs and stomped in rhythm, welcoming the official team to their territory.

Waiting at the end of the corridor was 68-year-old Lazaro Xerente, the community’s eldest traditional chief. Clad in a feathered headdress and bearing traditional body paint, he thanked officials for the collaboration but pushed back against the harmful misinformation that often plagues Indigenous communities after major fire events. “People say, ‘Oh, it’s the Indigenous people who are causing fires,’” he said through a translator. “But in reality, since I was born, and long before me, my ancestors have always protected this forest.” After major wildfires, out-of-context images of Indigenous controlled burns frequently circulate on Brazilian social media, falsely blaming communities for destruction that is in fact caused by unregulated clearing activity outside Indigenous territories. All burns in the current program are carefully mapped and monitored by joint fire management teams.

Planning for each day’s burns combines modern satellite mapping data with generations of Xerente knowledge of the territory’s terrain and ecology, a model that has been formalized through government partnerships dating back to 2014. Some Xerente firefighters are hired on two-year government contracts, receiving formal training and a monthly salary, while others volunteer their time. The program receives partial funding from a partnership between the Bunge Foundation and IBAMA, which supports training and equipment for up to 40 Indigenous fire brigades across five Cerrado and Amazon states.

This year’s operation is taking place as Brazilian authorities are on high alert for the impacts of the approaching El Niño. The climate phenomenon typically brings hotter, drier conditions to the Cerrado and Amazon, creating ideal conditions for wildfire spread. During the 2023-2024 El Niño event, data from MapBiomas, a nonprofit tracking deforestation and fire activity, shows Brazil suffered historic burning that destroyed more than 30.8 million hectares—an area larger than the entire country of Italy. The Amazon bore the brunt of the damage, accounting for nearly 60% of the total burned area, with the Cerrado ranking second at almost 10 million hectares affected.

Brazil’s Environment Ministry has been tracking El Niño impacts since the start of 2026 and has deployed more than 4,000 brigade members across the country. Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the government established a national fire management policy in 2024 that formalizes cross-sector coordination between authorities, civil society, and Indigenous communities, explicitly including the use of controlled burns led by Indigenous land managers. While the zero-fire policy remains in place for the more moisture-reliant Amazon ecosystem, where extreme drought has made even low-intensity fires a major risk, the Cerrado has embraced controlled burn as a core conservation tool.

“When applied with technical expertise and traditional knowledge, fire can make a major contribution to environmental conservation,” said André Lima, secretary for deforestation control and land-use planning at Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment. “For example, when used in prescribed burns for sustainable land management, it can help prevent the major catastrophic disasters that destroy vast swathes of ecosystem every year.”

For the Xerente, the model is a long-overdue validation of the wisdom their ancestors have nurtured for millennia. Bolivar Rodrigues Xerente, a Xerente member working with Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency FUNAI, summed up the collaborative ethos that underpins the program: “My Indigenous elders taught me that traditional knowledge and modern science are like the two wings of a bird. A bird with two wings can navigate the wind, but with only one wing, it cannot fly. Technology without the traditional knowledge held by Indigenous communities simply does not work.”