But the Indigenous communities near the border between Peru and Brazil are experiencing an onslaught on their homelands.

When the pandemic forced governments to reduce monitoring and law enforcement in the remote rainforests, the illegal road builders, loggers, miners and traffickers increased their presence and work rate. The state’s absence gave them a relative respite from law enforcement, and in Brazil, they were goaded on by the anti-environment, anti-Indigenous and anti-science rhetoric of President Jair Bolsonaro.

A combination of road-building, climate change-induced forest heating and drying, and related deforestation is pushing the Amazon rainforest toward a tipping point that could turn the world’s largest rainforest and reserve of terrestrial biodiversity into a sparsely wooded savanna in just a few decades. Thousands of fires are burning in the Brazilian Amazon as I write this in late September 2022.

A few hours downriver from where she confronted the loggers, Paredes and other Peruvian Indigenous leaders met with their Brazilian counterparts in September 2022 to discuss strategies to stop the invasions. The Brazilian leaders include Francisco Piyako and Isaac Piyako, two Indigenous Ashéninka brothers running for election at the federal and state level.

The Brazilian election’s first round of voting on Oct. 2, 2022, includes more Indigenous candidates than any in Brazilian history, with the 175 candidates representing a 37% increase over 2018.

The future of the Amazon is very much at stake.

On one side of the election stands Bolsonaro, a populist who has derided Indigenous people, environmentalists and science while weakening environmental and Indigenous agencies and inciting miners, loggers, ranchers and agribusiness leaders to cut down the forest.

On the other side is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – commonly called Lula – a Workers Party veteran and former Brazilian president who is arguing for zero deforestation.

More important than national rhetoric may be the success of Indigenous candidates like the Piyakos who are committed to sustainability, transboundary cooperation and cultural diversity.

Peru also has elections on Oct. 2, but at the regional and municipal levels. In the Ucayali region, 37% of the candidates are Indigenous, but they have historically had very poor showings. In contrast, the winners often have strong ties to the logging, mining or coca industries.

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