Tractors Crush Heart of a Nation
Brazil's indigenous tribes are rapidly losing their once-plentiful hunting grounds and streams rich with fish to farmers and ranchers.
By Henry Chu, Times Staff Writer
....An agricultural explosion is underway in this mammoth country, transforming the world's ninth-largest economy into a farming, logging and ranching powerhouse able to compete with the U.S. and Europe in the production of everything from beef to orange juice.
But the rapid expansion is exacting an anthropological toll not unlike that of the American push west during the 19th century. Land is being cleared and cultivated at a galloping rate, especially for soy, Brazil's new blockbuster crop. As a result, native peoples have been squeezed onto tiny reservations where their customs and traditions are in danger of dying from obsolescence or environmental destruction....
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In May, the plight of Brazil's Indians garnered worldwide attention when loggers encroached on a small, previously uncontacted tribe on the edge of the Amazon rain forest. The judge who had opened the area to loggers hastily reversed course following an outcry by Brazilian officials and international activists, who warned that the isolated community could face annihilation.
The tribe lives on the northern fringe of Mato Grosso state, which also happens to be the engine of Brazil's spectacular growth as an agribusiness giant over the last several years.
A vast and ecologically diverse area in the heart of the South American continent, Mato Grosso boasts rain forest to the north and the world's largest wetland, the Pantanal, in the south, home to hundreds of rare animal species. In between lies the fertile savanna coveted by farmers and ranchers....
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-indigenous10jul10,0,6603402.story?coll=la-home-world