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In the Menkragnoti Indigenous Land, we are resisting more than just COVID

We depend on the forest and the river to survive, and will protect it from exploitation, says Pho Yre, an inhabitant of the Brazilian Amazon

By Pho Yre
Two members of an indigenous community in Brazil, wearing red headdresses, at work patrolling their territory
Two indigenous custodians of the land in the Brazilian Amazon - Pho Yre
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We will remember 2020 as the year when the coronavirus pandemic spread worldwide, reached Brazil, and hit our sacred land, causing a grave crisis.

I have seen various types of foreign invaders enter my indigenous territory over the years. But today, it saddens me even more to see people take advantage of the pandemic, and continue to carry out illegal activities such as predatory fishing within our lands, because the law is no longer enforced in the context of COVID-19.

The violations are mostly taking place in the Pixaxa River, which delimits the boundaries of the Menkragnoti Indigenous Land (IL), and the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0