“My life is defending this place” says Eduardo Morimã, a native to the apiaka ethnic group who lives in the village of Mayrob, in the municipality of Juara, in north of the Brazilian state Mato Grosso. Situated in the heart of the country, it is one of the main eyes on the hurricane of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest as a result of intensive cattle ranching and the monocultures of soy, corn and cotton that have created an agricultural belt in the South of the Amazon.
The impact of building hundreds hydroelectricity plants will have goes beyond impacting the flora and fauna of the river and displacing populations but will also aggravate deforestation rates in the region.
