In Santarém, indigenous people denounce deforestation in Munduruku territory for soybean planting.

Indigenous people from the Açaizal village in Santarém, in western Pará, released a video on Thursday to denounce the deforestation that was taking place in the lands of the Munduruku people. According to the complaint, a license was granted for a businessman to work with soy cultivation in an area which, according to chief Manoel Munduruku (chief of Ipaupixuna Indigenous Territory), is indigenous. According to the defense of the accused businessman, the area is properly documented and owner Ivo Ruaro has a license to plant grain.

Read the full article and watch the video (in Portuguese)

LiveCast Pakhuis de Zwijger

The Amsterdam Collective for Democracy in Brazil, together with the Transnational Institute (TNI), the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and Both ENDS, invite you to a live online event of inspiring and challenging testimony, reflection and analysis.

What does climate responsibility and ethical business really mean if the Netherlands continues to export unsustainability, deforestation, and human rights violations to Brazil?

This event will inform the public about Dutch neocolonial relations with Brazil, present a first-hand testimony from a Brazilian indigenous leader and discuss a set of actions for the weakening of corporate power and control of nature in Brazilian territories.

Special guests: Vandria Borari (Ceramist, leader of the Borari people, activist for human rights and the environment) and Tim Boekhout van Solinge (expert forest & wildlife crime, director Forest Forces, research fellow Erasmus University).

Watch the LiveCast here

Fair Finance Guide Netherlands co-written by Tim Boekhout van Solinge

Tim Boekhout van Solinge has co-written a new report ‘Funding destruction of the Amazon and the Cerrado-savannah’, a Fair Finance Guide Netherlands case study on deforestation risks in soy and beef supply chains. Tim wrote the first chapter: Deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado regions.

The Amazon and Cerrado biomes in Brazil have for years been among the global hotspots of tropical deforestation. The major drivers of forest conversion in these biomes are soybean cultivation and cattle ranching. This report shows how 21 banking groups, insurance companies and pension funds active on the Dutch market are involved in soy- and beef-driven deforestation in these regions and how they are dealing with this issue.

Read the full report here

Radio 1 Interview

While the world is under the spell of the Covid-19 outbreak, deforestation in the Amazon forest is once again returning to dramatic proportions. The Brazilian government, under Bolsonaro, wants to use the corona crisis to relax legislation to protect the forest.

Bureau Buitenland talks to criminologist and Amazon expert Tim Boekhout van Solinge and Hilde Stroot, Biodiversity Greenpeace program director, about the worrying developments.

More info

Q&A Vandria Borari

In June 2019, Vandria Borari visited the Netherlands following an invitation from Tim Boekhout van Solinge. Vandria is from the Borari indigenous people living in the Brazilian Amazon and she is the first indigenous lawyer from her region. In this interview, she will tell about her life in Brazil, the impact of the European Culture, the work of Forest Forces and what we, Europeans, can do to help improve the lives of indigenous people.

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GPS supported community-based forest crime prevention in the Brazilian Amazon

Article in Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade

This article, written by Tim Boekhout van Solinge, tells the story of how Forest Forces came to be. In 2014, Tim initiated a research project with indigenous tribes in the Brazilian Amazon to investigate the effectivity of GPS-camera’s. This project showed how the camera’s helped a tribe to expel several logging companies from their territory. Therefore, the GPS-camera’s can be an effective, inexpensive way to support indigenous tribes in their fight against deforestation. 

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Dutch Radio Documentary about Tim and chief Dadá awarded in The Hague Peace Palace

On 2 November 2018, the Dutch radio documentary about the GPS forest crime prevention project in the Brazilian Amazon won the Best Report Award of Free Press Unlimited. Tim Boekhout van Solinge and chief Odair ‘Dadá’ Borari of Maró Indigenous Territory (Lower Amazon, Brazil) are the main characters of the radio documentary (in Dutch).

The makers of the radio documentary, Mirjam van Biemen and Mijke van Wijk,  joined Tim to the Brazilian Amazon in October 2017. In November 2018 they received the Best Report award at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

Dutch interview with Mirjam van Biemen and Mijke van Wijk

Read more about the report (in Dutch)