By Lisandra Paraguassu and Leonardo Benassatto
BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -At 93 years old, Indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire is urging Brazil to empower native peoples to preserve the Amazon rainforest and has warned that plans to build infrastructure in the region are a direct threat to the forest and its people.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on Tuesday with Reuters, the leader known widely as Chief Raoni warned that proposed highways, rail projects and oil wells would harm people across the world.
“These projects destroy rivers and lands and they are continuing to do it. I don’t like it. I had said long ago that there will be many very bad consequences for us,” Raoni said, speaking in his native language of Kayapo with his grandson translating. “It will be very bad for us. And for you too. You are bringing the consequences upon yourselves.”
The administration of President Luiz Inacio did not immediately respond for a request for comment.
Raoni is one of dozens of Indigenous leaders participating in this year’s U.N. climate summit, COP30, with the key demand of having more say in how forests are managed worldwide.
He criticized several Brazilian projects in particular, including a plan to pave a highway through the forest, and a license granted a few weeks ago allowing Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras to explore for offshore oil 500 kilometers from the mouth of the Amazon River.
None of these projects, he said, will benefit the local populations.
Raoni, whose distinctive lip plate and yellow feather headdress make him one of the world’s most recognized Indigenous leaders, urged the government of Lula da Silva to give legal protections to tribal lands.
“I had spoken to Lula when we met before he took office and told him that it was necessary to do it so, that finally my people, my relatives, could have their lands by right,” he said.
He recognized the government’s early efforts to formally demarcate some Indigenous territories and called for more: “It is very important for the protection of the lands.”
Lula has sought to promote the world’s tropical forests and Brazil’s Indigenous peoples, putting them at the center of this year’s COP30 and holding the event in the coastal rainforest city of Belem.
However, controversial projects such as the proposed blasting of an Amazon tributary have alarmed Indigenous groups, Raoni said.
The chief attended the 1992 Earth Rio Summit, which produced the world’s U.N. climate treaty that helped to launch the ongoing climate negotiations. He said he has seen no positive changes since then.
“When there were forests everywhere, I went to that meeting to talk about the forest. I said that our forest had to be preserved. And even so, they continued to destroy everything,” Raoni told Reuters.
“You non-Indigenous people, perhaps you should have listened and thought about your children, thought about your grandchildren, so that the forest can live and contribute to the lives of new generations, of your grandchildren.”
(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu and Leonardo Benassatto; Editing by Katy Daigle and Aurora Ellis)
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