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The Karitiana are an indigenous group in Brazil.
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They live on protected land, deep in the Amazon rainforest.
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When it was established in 1986, it was surrounded by rainforest.
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But today, it's almost completely surrounded by farms.
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This kind of encroachment is happening across the Amazon.
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Brazil has over 400 protected indigenous lands.
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But its booming agricultural industry has spent the last few decades clearing the rainforest around them.
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Now they want in.
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And they have the perfect ally to help them.
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Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro wants the expansion of farms to continue.
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Even at the expense of protected lands.
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And that's put 900,000 indigenous people at the risk of losing their homes,
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and their way of life.
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At the start of the 20th century, Brazil was
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intent on becoming a modern country.
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Cities along the coast were already being developed.
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But the Amazon, which covers almost half the country, was remote, inaccessible,
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and home to tens of thousands of indigenous people who had lived there for centuries.
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Around the 1920s, Brazil's government pushed an aggressive plan
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to change the shape of the Amazon.
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They brought telegraph lines, roads, schools, and people into the Amazon,
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while forcibly these indigenous groups out of the way.
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"Troops had to be called out in Brasilia
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to quell the bitter protests of thousands,
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through a brief and bloodless military coup."
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Then, in the 1960s, a brutal military dictatorship took over Brazil and carried out genocide
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against indigenous people.
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They took away their lands to build highways, mines and dams across the Amazon.
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During this time, more than 8,300 indigenous people were killed,
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and tens of thousands had lost their homes.
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In 1985, the military regime collapsed and Brazil became a democracy.
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The new constitution included historic reparations for the country's indigenous people.
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It recognized their culture and traditions.
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And even gave them a way to get their lands back.
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Indigenous groups could claim their traditional territory with a government agency, called
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FUNAI, that would demarcate the borders of a new protected land.
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After final approval from Brazil's president, FUNAI would then monitor and protect it.
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Soon, protected indigenous lands were being set up all over the Amazon.
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And today they make up around 13% of the country.
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Which includes the Karitiana's land.
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But it wasn't long before these lands would be threatened again.
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From the 1990s to the 2000s, Brazil's economy
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was one of the fastest growing in the world - fueled, primarily, by agriculture.
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The country became one of the top producers of beef and soybeans,
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while logging and mining were also significant industries.
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But the economic boom had a downside.
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All of these industries needed more and more land, a lot of which came from the Amazon.
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The rainforest was rapidly cut down in Para, Rondonia, and Mato Grosso states,
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to make room for cattle pastures and farms,
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often leaving the protected indigenous lands as the only forest left.
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Before long, Brazil's agricultural industry wanted to gain access to these areas too.
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And they found support within the government.
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They lobbied to weaken the rules around protected indigenous lands that they claimed were barriers to progress.
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And their pressure started to show results...
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From 2003 to 2010, President Lula da Silva approved 87 indigenous reserves.
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But his successor, Dilma Rousseff, approved just 21.
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Followed by Michel Temer, who approved only one.
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Rousseff and Temer also cut FUNAI's funding, which forced the agency to close
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dozens of offices in the Amazon, leaving indigenous people unprotected.
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As FUNAI's power declined, illegal invasions of protected indigenous lands increased.
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By 2017, Brazil's indigenous were under attack.
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Loggers, ranchers, and farmers felt emboldened
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under a government heavily influenced by the agricultural industry.
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And soon, the man leading Brazil's presidential race would further tip the scales in their favor.
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As a former member of the Army during the military regime, he shared many of their
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oppressive political views, especially those towards indigenous groups:
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These words earned him the endorsement of the agricultural industry,
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but deeply worried indigenous groups.
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As soon as Bolsonaro took office, he turned his attention to the indigenous.
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He slashed FUNAI's budget, and hasn't approved any new lands.
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In fact, he's proposed taking away FUNAI's power to demarcate new lands entirely.
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And he appointed a former police officer, with strong ties to the agriculture industry,
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to lead FUNAI.
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Under Bolsonaro, invasions of indigenous lands have skyrocketed in just the first 9 months of 2019.
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Just ten days after Bolsonaro took office in January 2019,
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40 armed men invaded this land.
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By May, 20,000 illegal miners had invaded the Yanomami reserve.
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And in July, invaders cleared a huge section of forest in the Xikrin land.
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The Karitiana are worried that they could be next.
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Illegal agricultural activities have been happening here,
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right next to the Karitiana land.
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And they've brought actual threats of violence to the people living there.
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In the past, the indigenous groups had FUNAI,
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a protective agency they could turn to for help.
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But now they're left to rely on themselves.
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Hi, thanks for watching the third and final episode of Vox Atlas: the Amazon mini-series.
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My name is Ana Terra Athayde
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and I'm a video journalist based in Brazil.
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I went to the Amazon to report on the ground and to meet with
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the people who provided us with invaluable information.
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I want to thank them all for their time and for sharing their concerns with us.
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Make sure to watch the series' previous videos.
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The first one explains what drives deforestation in the rainforest.
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And in the second video, we take a look at the rubber industry in the Amazon,
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and the work and legacy of Chico Mendes.
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Thanks again for watching.