Topics : The APIB accuses the government of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro of having “done nothing” to prevent the relentless spread of coronavirus in areas where 750,000 indigenous people live. So far, more than 5,300 have been infected.Brazil is the second-worst-hit country in the world, with more than a million infections and over 50,000 deaths from COVID-19.”If he had adopted preventative measures from the beginning, we would have avoided this number of deaths,” Sonia Guajajara, APIB coordinator, told a podcast for the Socio-Environmental Institute NGO (ISA).Nonagenarian Kaiapo leader Raoni Metuktire claimed Bolsonaro was “taking advantage” of the pandemic to further exploitative projects in the Amazon that could endanger indigenous communities. ‘Pandemic of abandonment’ Poverty is further exacerbating the situation.Some 5,000 Qom people living in Chaco, in the north of Argentina, rely on social support as quarantine rules have prevented them from selling their handicrafts. Malnutrition doesn’t help, and there have been 16 deaths in less than a month.”These are vulnerable neighborhoods where they live in overcrowded situations, without access to basic services such as running water, which makes the virus spread faster,” said Argentina’s Social Development Minister Daniel Arroyo.In Guatemala, where half the population is indigenous, government assistance “hasn’t had an impact in places where the largest indigenous populations live,” said the human rights ombudsman in early June.”There’s already a pandemic of abandonment” of indigenous people, Daniel Pascual, coordinator of the Peasant Unity Committee, told AFP. ‘Fear for ancestral wisdom’ Wearing a crown of feathers, a necklace of tusks and a surgical mask, Remberto Cahuamari is worried that the loss of “grandparents” to COVID-19 will rob the Ticuna community in the Colombian department of Amazonas of its ancestral wisdom.”We’d be left with our young who in the future won’t know anything about our cultures and our customs. That’s what scares us,” he told AFP.A man with his face covered by a mask and holding a stick watches over the entrance to the village of El Progreso, which can only be reached by the Tucushira, one of more than 1,000 tributaries of the Amazon. This poor and depopulated part of southern Colombia has seen 320 coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants — the worst in the country — and 954 deaths per million, compared to Colombia’s average of just 33.Two-thirds of the village’s population is indigenous, and “at risk of extinction,” according to Colombia’s National Indigenous Organization.The extensive area has no road connection to the rest of the country, and the only public hospital has no intensive care unit.”When COVID-19 arrived, our defenses were low,” Armando Wooriyu, secretary to a local indigenous organization, told AFP.He said some communities have moved to remote locations or closed off access and turned to traditional medicine to fight the virus.In Loreto, in the Peruvian jungle, the virus has hit communities already affected by dengue, flu, rubella and smallpox.Some areas are only accessible by boat, and the nearest medical facility is “between six and eight hours, and up to three days or more” away, said the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the East.It said 60 percent of villages are lacking either a medical center, equipment or medicine.The Yuqui people from the tropical center of Bolivia are “in grave danger” of disappearing after 16 of its 300 members became infected, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The Pan American Health Organization says that at least 20,000 people living in the Amazon River basin, which passes through Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname, are infected.On the border between Brazil and Venezuela, the Yanomamis territory is occupied by around 20,000 illegal miners, according to Survival International.Sometimes, the illegal miners and loggers carry the virus with them, exposing indigenous populations to danger.A study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais and ISA predicted that 14,000 Yanomamis could become infected if authorities don’t act to protect them. Indigenous people in Latin America have been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic due to weak immune systems and centuries of state neglect. The threat posed to indigenous communities was highlighted last week with the virus death of Brazilian chief Paulinho Paiakan, an iconic defender of the Amazon rainforest, which is home to 420 indigenous communities.Paiakan’s death in a hospital in the north of Brazil was one of more than 300 amongst the country’s 100 indigenous communities, according to the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) group. That was five times as many deaths as in the whole of 2019. 
Conservation leaders, federal and state officials, and other partners gathered yesterday on the Patapsco River to celebrate the removal of Bloede Dam, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources said in their latest announcement. “Water is life, and healthy rivers are absolutely vital to our health, economy, and communities,” said Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers, at the ceremony.“Today, we’re celebrating a new chapter for the Patapsco and all of the people who depend on this river. This is one of the most significant dam removal and river restoration projects in the country. We applaud the exemplary leadership from the state of Maryland and the collaboration and dedication of many public and private partners.”“Today marks a major milestone in the reclamation and restoration of the Patapsco River,” Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary, Mark Belton, added.“With the removal of Bloede Dam from within Patapsco Valley State Park, we return a river to its natural flow and state, enhance fish migration and passage, improve water quality in its banks and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay, and better protect and serve our guests and patrons.”The benefits of the project extend beyond the river environment to coastal habitats, where sediment carried by the river will replenish marshes and beaches, making the coast more resilient to extreme storms.Since Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast in 2012, the service has helped fund 30 coastal resilience projects in 11 states, using more than $100 million from the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013. Twelve dam removals have restored nearly 100 miles of river to their natural state.Following the initial blast of explosives to breach the dam, crews will continue demolition work for the next three months. The site will remain closed to the public until July 2019.