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July 29, 2019

Miners Raid Tribe in Brazil, Killing Leader as Amazon Suffers Mass Deforestation by Illegal Loggers
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In northern Brazil, residents of a remote indigenous village say at
least 10 heavily armed gold miners in military uniforms raided their
community last week, stabbing a leader to death. The assault on the
Wajãpi village came as new government data show that deforestation in
the Amazon has dramatically increased since President Bolsonaro took
office in January, losing more than 1,300 square miles of forest cover-a
39% increase over the same period last year. The drastic change is due
to Bolsonaro's rolling back of regulations and punitive measures on
illegal logging. In May, a group of former Brazilian environment
ministers warned, "We're facing the risk of runaway deforestation in the
Amazon." One former minister said that Brazil was becoming an
"exterminator of the future."


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