- Xingu Indigenous Park and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory in Brazil cover an area larger than Belgium.
- The Indigenous territories are still largely covered in primary forest, and a haven for wildlife in a region considered an agricultural powerhouse.
- Satellite data show Xingu Indigenous Park lost 15% of its primary forest cover, and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory lost 8.3% of its forest cover, between 2002 and 2023.
- Indigenous groups fear proposed transportation projects will bring a fresh wave of deforestation and open up their territories to invaders.
Surrounded by soy fields and cattle pastures, Xingu Indigenous Park and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory — still shrouded in rainforest — stand out like a green thumb in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state.
Home to roughly 7,500 Indigenous residents in 18 groups, the two territories cover 3.3 million hectares — an area bigger than Belgium — and are a haven for wildlife. Yet despite decades of protection, the reserves are not immune to the pressures building at their boundaries.
Google Timelapse shows how Xingu and Capoto/Jarina became an island of forest in a sea of industrial agriculture.
Xingu Indigenous Park lost 15% of its primary forest cover between 2002 and 2023, an area of 368,000 hectares, according to satellite data from Global Forest Watch (GFW). More than a quarter of that was lost in 2016 alone, when fires ripped through the reserve.
The adjacent Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory lost 8.3% of primary forest cover between 2002 and 2023, an area of 46,300 hectares. The worst years for forest loss were 2017, 2020 and 2022.
Both territories saw big drops in deforestation activity in 2023. But that appears to be but a blip, with imagery and data showing huge swaths of land lost to fire in 2024.
In Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory, 483 fire alerts were detected by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) between Jan. 1 and Nov. 25, 2024 — the highest number since measurement began in 2012, according to GFW analysis.
Fire is a growing threat across the Amazon, as two years of severe drought — driven largely by climate change and exacerbated by forest loss — can leave the rainforest tinder-dry. Degraded and deforested areas dry out even more quickly. In these conditions, fires used to clear land by ranchers, farmers or land-grabbers can quickly spread into the rainforest, with devastating consequences.
A 2022 study found that 7% of the Xingu Indigenous Park has become severely degraded by a combination of drought and fire.
“There have always been Indigenous people in the region, using fires and clearing forest to survive. But the rainforest was balanced, and the fires never spread. But with today’s drier climate, fires today tend to get out of control,” study author Divino Silverio, a professor at the Federal Rural University of Amazonia (UFRA) told Mongabay in 2023. The severe drought and fire risk is making it more difficult for the Xingu to practice one of their most important rituals, the Quarup.
The entire region was once covered in rainforest. But now the two Indigenous reserves are surrounded by vast soybean and corn fields and cattle pasture, with deforestation and fire bleeding into the reserves at the borders.
“Inside our area, it’s all forest. Outside of it, it’s all farms. There are farms everywhere you look.” Puiú Txukarramãe, a cacique from the Kayapó Indigenous people, who live in Capoto/Jarina, told Mongabay in 2023.
Indigenous groups and advocates are deeply concerned that a planned road development will make their land even more vulnerable to deforestation, according to previous reporting by Mongabay.
The MT-322 road passes directly between the two Indigenous territories. Right now, the road is unpaved, and the section which crosses the Xingu River isn’t bridged; to cross, travelers must use an Indigenous-operated barge, which helps control access.
Now efforts are underway to pave the MT-322 and there are plans to bridge the Xingu River to make transporting agricultural products faster, cheaper and easier.
Indigenous groups and advocates fear a paved highway and bridge would lead to a wave of deforestation, and give land-grabbers, miners and organized crime an easier way in.
They’re already seeing land speculation in response to the plan.
In Sept 2023, Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), began the licensing process for a section of the road, and reviewing plans for a bridge.
“This is the biggest problem we’re facing right now,” an anonymous source at Funai, the federal agency tasked with protecting Brazil’s Indigenous people, told Mongabay in 2023. “People are worried about how this will affect their villages. They’re worried about the animals crossing the road, the forest around the territory.”
A proposed railway project is also raising concerns for Indigenous groups in the region. If built, the Ferrogrão railway line would run from Mato Grosso to Pará, and connect with the MT-322 at Matupa. A 2021 policy brief by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) found that the combined impact of both projects would lead to significant deforestation in Indigenous territories, including in the Xingu Indigenous Park and Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Territory, according to reporting by Mongabay in 2023.
Indigenous groups are also worried about the impacts of soy farming pushing ever closer to their territories. Pesticide run-off from the industrial farms, over-extraction of water for irrigation and deforestation upstream all threaten the integrity of the rivers, Mongabay reported in 2023.
Banner image by Planet Labs.
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