Fires in the Brazilian Amazon, which are burning in unusually great number this year, are threatening to wipe out a group of 150 Awá indigenous people living in voluntary isolation. Some of the fires are burning simultaneously on indigenous reservations of the Awá and Guajajara peoples in a peripheral swath of Amazon forest in the northeastern state of Maranhão. Most are believed to have been set by farmers and ranchers clearing land for pasture and crops, and in some cases by loggers hoping to distract indigenous communities from illegal cutting they are doing. The fires have spread with help from a severe drought currently gripping the Amazon region, according to the government’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) which uses satellites to detect and monitor Amazon... [Log in to read more]