BRASILIA: Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday. Paulo Paulino Guajajara, or Lobo (which means ‘wolf’ in Portuguese), was hunting on Friday inside the Arariboia reservation in Maranhao state when he was attacked and shot in the head. The clash comes amid an increase in invasions of reservations by illegal loggers and miners since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office this year and vowed to open up protected indigenous lands to economic development. Indigenous leader Laercio Guajajara, a "forest guardian", holds a gun as he prepares to search for illegal loggers on Arariboia indigenous land near the city of Amarante, Maranhao state, Brazil. “We are protecting our land and the life on it, the animals, the birds, even the Awá who are here too,” Paulino Guajajara said at the time.

Source: New Strait Times November 03, 2019 10:34 UTC