How diamonds and a bitter feud led to the destruction of an Amazon reserve
by Fabiano Maisonnave for Climate Home from on (#33D7A)
Family rivalry and Brazil's Catholic church helped miners devastate an indigenous territory that was once a leader in the fight against deforestation. Climate Home reports
The Paiter-Surui are a tribe of roughly 1,400 people, uncontacted until 1969, who live in the Amazon forest on the border between the Brazilian states of Rondinia and Mato Grosso.
In 2013, they became the first indigenous population in the world to sell carbon credits under the UN's major anti-deforestation scheme. Then, last year, they discovered the earth beneath their forest was rich with diamonds, and all hell broke loose.
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