SAO PAULO (AP) – Before disappearing into Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, Bruno Pereira laid the foundations for a mammoth enterprise: a 350-kilometer trail that will mark the southwestern boundary of the indigenous territory of the Javari Valley, an area the size of Portugal .
The purpose of the trail is to prevent cattle herders from encroaching on Javari territory – and it was only Pereira’s latest attempt to help the indigenous people protect their natural resources and traditional lifestyle.
While Pereira had long pursued these goals as an expert at Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency known as FUNAI, in recent years he has worked as a consultant for the indigenous organization of the Javari Valley. That’s because after Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president in 2019, FUNAI began to take a more cautious approach to protecting indigenous land and people — and the government uncompromisingly promoted development over environmental protection.
Deeply frustrated, Pereira left the agency and pursued a more independent – and dangerous – path.
He was last seen alive on June 5 on a boat in the Itaquai River with British freelance journalist Dom Phillips near a border area with Peru and Colombia. On Wednesday, a fisherman confessed to killing Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, and took police to a place where human remains were being recovered; They have since been identified as the two men.
Speaking to The Associated Press several times over the past 18 months, Pereira spoke about his decision to leave FUNAI, which he says has become an obstacle to his work. After Bolsonaro came to power, the agency was crowded with loyalists and people lacking experience in indigenous affairs, he said.
“There’s no point in my being there as long as these cops and army generals are in charge,” he said by phone in November. “I can’t do my job among them.”
As a technical advisor for the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley, or Univaja, Pereira helped the group develop a surveillance program to reduce illegal fishing and hunting in a remote region owned by 6,300 people from seven different ethnic groups, many of whom little had no contact with the outside world. He and three other non-Indigenous people trained Indigenous patrols to use drones and other technology to detect and photograph illegal activity and provide evidence to authorities.
“When it came to helping the indigenous peoples, he did everything he could,” said Jader Marubo, former president of Univaja. “He gave his life for us”
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Ricardo Rao, like Pereira, was an indigenous expert at FUNAI who prepared a dossier in 2019 detailing illegal logging in indigenous areas of Maranhao state. But afraid of being so blunt under the new regime, he fled to Norway.
“I asked Norway for asylum because I knew the men I accused would have access to my name and would kill me, just like what happened to Bruno,” Rao said.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly advocated tapping into the vast wealth of indigenous countries, especially their mineral resources, and integrating indigenous people into society. He has vowed not to grant any more Indigenous land protections and said in April he would defy a Supreme Court decision if necessary. These positions directly opposed Pereira’s hopes for the Javari Valley.
Before leaving, Pereira was deposed as head of FUNAI’s isolated and recently contacted tribes department. The move came shortly after he commanded an operation that evicted hundreds of illegal prospectors from an indigenous area in Roraima state. His position was soon filled by a former evangelical missionary with an anthropological background. The decision sparked an outcry as some missionary groups have openly sought to contact and convert tribes whose voluntary isolation is protected by Brazilian law.
Key colleagues of Pereira’s at FUNAI either followed his example and resigned, or were moved to bureaucratic positions far from the demarcation of protected areas, according to a recent report by the Institute of Socioeconomic Studies think tank and the non-profit Associated Indigenists, of which Current is a member and former FUNAI employees.
“Of FUNAI’s 39 regional coordination offices, only two are headed by FUNAI staff,” the report says. “Seventeen military officers, three police officers, two federal officers and six professionals with no prior connection to public administration were named” under Bolsonaro.
The 173-page report, released Monday, says many of the agency’s experts have been fired, unfairly investigated, or discredited by their leaders for trying to protect tribal people.
In response to AP questions about the report’s allegations, FUNAI said in an emailed statement that it operates “in strict compliance with applicable laws” and does not prosecute its officials.
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On the day they went missing, Pereira and Phillips were sleeping at an outpost at the entrance to the main secret route into the territory, without getting past the indigenous agency’s permanent base at the entrance, locals told the AP.
Two Indigenous patrols told the AP the couple carried cellphones from the surveillance project with photos of places where illegal fishermen had been. Authorities have said an illegal fishing network is at the center of the police investigation into the killings. Police said in a statement on Saturday that Pereira’s death was caused by three gunshot wounds, two to the stomach and one to the head, with ammunition typical of hunting.
Pereira was not the first person linked to FUNAI to be killed in the area. In 2019, an active FUNAI agent, Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, was shot dead while riding his motorcycle through the town of Tabatinga. He had been threatened for his work against illegal fishermen before he was shot. This crime remains unsolved.
Pereira’s assassination will not prevent the Javari Territory border demarcation project from moving forward, said Manoel Chorimpa, a Univaja member involved in the project. And in another sign that Pereira’s work will endure, surveillance efforts by indigenous patrols have begun, leading to the investigation, arrest and prosecution of lawbreakers.
Before joining FUNAI, Pereira worked as a journalist. But his passion for indigenous affairs and languages - he spoke four – prompted him to switch careers. His wife, an anthropologist, Beatriz Matos, encouraged him in his work, even if it meant being far from their home in Atalaia do Norte and their children. Most recently, they lived in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia.
The region’s indigenous peoples have mourned Pereira as a partner, and an old photo that has been circulating widely on social media in recent days shows a group of them shirtless gathered behind Pereira as he smacks them something on his laptop shows. A child leans gently on his shoulder.
In a statement on Thursday, FUNAI mourned Pereira’s death and commended his work: “The official leaves a tremendous legacy for the protection of isolated tribal peoples. He became one of the best specialists in the country on this issue and worked with the highest level of commitment.”
Before the bodies were found, however, FUNAI had issued a statement implying that Pereira had breached procedure by exceeding his permit inside Javari Territory. It prompted FUNAI’s grass roots to go on strike, claiming that the agency had slandered Pereira and demanded the dismissal of its president. A court on Thursday ordered FUNAI to withdraw its testimony that “is inconsistent with the reality of the facts” and to stop discrediting Pereira.
Rubens Valente, a journalist who has covered the Amazon for decades, said Pereira’s work became inherently more risky when he felt it necessary to work independently.
“Fish thieves saw Bruno as a fragile person, without the status and power that FUNAI gave him in the region where he was FUNAI coordinator for five years,” Valente said. “When the criminals realized that Bruno was weak, he became an even bigger target.”
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Maisonnave reported from Atalaia do Norte. AP writer Débora Álvares contributed from Brasilia.
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