TEXTO:
Indigenous people and global warming
Forests on indigenous lands hold 37.7 billion tons
of CO2 worldwide. If they were destroyed, the carbon
released into the air would surpass global emissions of
vehicles for 29 years. Luckily, the Indians have been more
[5] effective than any other human group in combating
deforestation. These numbers are from a report released
by NGOs WRI (World Resources Institute) and RRI
(Rights and Resources Initiative).
Researchers of the two entities crossed forest
[10] preservation numbers from indigenous and traditional
people with data from the FAO (United Nations Food
and Agriculture) on forest biomass. Research was done
in 2013. According to the report, about one-eighth of the
tropical forests area today is within these areas.
[15] Compared to forests that are outside the Indigenous
jurisdiction, the land not in that area has displayed a
weak protection rate.
In the Brazilian Amazon, forests not in the
indigenous land have a deforestation rate 11 times higher.
[20] In the Guatemalan forests, home to Mayans
descendants, the protection rate is 20 times higher, and
in the rest of the Yucatan is 350 times higher —
Indigenous people are virtually the only type of protection
there. Part of the reason for this is that developing
[25] countries, home to most of the preserved forests, often
lack the resources to implement surveillance against
illegal deforestation, whether within or outside protected
areas.
It is often better to recognize the right of indigenous
[30] communities to land and give them autonomy to manage
an area than turn it into an ecological reserve and hire
guards. However, the report does not comment on the
proposed constitutional amendment 215, being debated
in the Brazilian Congress, providing the legislative power
[35] the right to demarcate indigenous lands, complicating
the process.
GARCIA, Rafael. Disponível em: <www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhealth/2014/07/1491038-indigenous-people-help-stopglobal- warming.shtml>. Acesso em: 12 out. 2015.
The author recognizes that developing countries have difficulty preserving their forests because they
