Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) postponed a ruling Sept. 24 in a landmark case to decide if the Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe indigenous people have legal rights to lands opened to farmers and ranchers 26 years ago by state authorities in Bahía. The 54,000 hectares were delineated as indigenous territory by the federal Indian Protection Service in 1937, but some 300 farms now cover approximately half the territory. Some 4,000 Pataxó live on the other half. The case was initiated in 1982 by the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), successor to the Protection Service, which sought to annul land titles illegally granted by local governments.

In a critical decision on Aug. 27, one of Brazil's supreme court judges voted in favor of maintaining Raposa Serra do Sol (RSS) as a continuous indigenous land. Although the other judges on the court still need to vote on the matter, this was seen as an important victory for indigenous peoples. Minister Ayres Britto's decision was celebrated by the indigenous peoples of RSS, who had been mobilized in their communities, as well as in the Roraima state capitol and outside the Supreme Court in Brasilia. Raposa Serra do Sol is the traditional home of some 19,000 Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana people in Northern Brazil. Located on the boundary of Guyana and Venezuela, RSS is over 6,000 square miles of mountains, savannahs, and forests.

Indigenous groups in Peru ended more than a week of militant protests Aug. 20 at key energy sites after lawmakers agreed to overturn a new land law issued by President Alan García, which sought to ease corporate access to communal territories. García had issued the law by decree earlier under special powers Congress granted him to bring Peruvian law into compliance with a new free-trade deal with the US. A congressional commission voted to revoke the law Aug. 19, and a floor vote is expected later this week. "We have lifted the strike," said Alberto Pizango, head of Amazon indigenous alliance AIDESEP. "We have faith and expect Congress to follow through." (Reuters, Aug. 20)

Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are demanding the presence of Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo in peace talks the government has brokered following days of angry protests. Marcial Mudarra, subdirector of the Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples (CORPI), is representing the communities in talks with Peru's General Directorate of Original and Afro-Peruvian Peoples. (AIDESEP, Aug. 15) EFE reports that Pluspetrol suspended part of its operations at Bloc 56 of the Camisea natural-gas fields after armed protesters seized the facilities in the Amazonian region of Cuzco Aug. 9. Protesters oppose the government's new polcies promoting oil exploration on indigenous lands. On Aug. 16, the Amazonian indigenous coalition AIDESEP announced that talks had broken down and the occupation would continue, EFE reported. (EFE, Aug. 16; Bloomberg, Reuters, Aug. 12; EFE, Aug. 11)

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva arrived in Bogotá on July 18 for a three-day visit to Colombia that included joining Colombian president Alvaro Uribe in the inauguration of a meeting of business leaders from the two countries. On July 19 Lula and Uribe met in the Hatogrande estate on the outskirts of the capital to sign accords on investment, the environment and biofuels, and on security along the 1,500-km border Brazil and Colombia share in the Amazon region.

The Matsés, a tribe of 2,500 people in the remote Peruvian Amazon, have rejected plans by the Peruvian government to explore for oil on their land. The government has created five exploration "lots" overlapping Matsés territory, and signed deals opening them to two companies, Pacific Stratus Energy and Occidental Oil & Gas of Peru. "No adequate process of consultation was carried out during the creation of these lots, not as the lots were being auctioned, nor when the contracts were signed between the oil companies and the Peruvian government," said a statement from Matsés Council. "This is in clear contravention of the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 and the United Nations' Declaration of Indigenous Peoples' Rights."

Uncontacted indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon are being killed and having their houses burned to the ground by illegal loggers, according a statement from the International Indigenous Committee for the Protection of Peoples in Voluntary Isolation (CIPIACI). The loggers have invaded the Murunahua Territorial Reserve, a remote area near the Brazilian border set aside in 1997 for uncontacted indigenous peoples, and built an illegal network of roads, the statement charges.

'Uncontacted' Amazon tribesmen" title="'Uncontacted' Amazon tribesmen" class="image thumbnail" height="75" width="100">'Uncontacted' Amazon tribesmenMembers of one of the world's last "uncontacted" peoples were spotted and photographed from the air in a remote part of Brazil's Acre state near the Peruvian border. The flights were undertaken by the Brazilian government to prove the existence of uncontacted tribes in a region under danger from illegal logging. One of the images, released May 29, shows two men covered in bright red body paint poised to fire arrows at the aircraft. Another photo shows about 15 near thatched huts, some also preparing to fire arrows at the aircraft.