Brazil marks borders for isolated Indigenous group in the Amazon after decades

Brazil's Indigenous agency FUNAI spent 60 days this summer physically marking the borders of the 411,000-hectare Rio Pardo Kawahiva Indigenous Territory in Mato Grosso, cutting a boundary path and installing about 140 signs. The Kawahiva, an isolated group first confirmed by the government in 1999, have watched their forest chip away to loggers and land-grabbers ever since, including a 2023 incursion where a farmer cleared several hectares and pointed out there were no markers to tell him otherwise.

The physical demarcation is the next-to-last step before the territory gets full legal status, which requires only a presidential decree. FUNAI's regional coordinator says the marking exists precisely so nobody can plead ignorance again, and that monitoring shows the land still has enough game and fish for the Kawahiva to survive on.

President Lula's office told reporters it is waiting on Supreme Court rulings about a disputed land-claim cutoff date before signing anything, in the name of legal certainty. Twenty-seven years after the government first acknowledged the Kawahiva exist, the land they live on remains one signature away from being officially theirs.

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