Illegal Amazon rainforest loggers ambushed a young indigenous leader on Friday, murdering him in cold blood and wounding another member of the Guajajara people in Brazil.

Paulo Paulino Guajajara, 26, was shot in the head during the ambush. The murder occurred in the Araribóia Indigenous Reserve, an area under serious threat from illegal miners and loggers attempting to exploit the indigenous land.

Paulo was a prominent member of the Guardians of the Forest indigenous land defense group and took on the task of becoming a land defender. Guardians is a group of 120 indigenous Guajajara who risk their lives to defend theirs and other indigenous groups’ homes against loggers.

Reports say that during the attack, fellow member of the Guardian, Laércio Guajajara, was shot twice, grazing his arm and back before escaping the aggressors. He was later taken to hospital, said the Guardians’ leader who has also received threats from loggers.

Why Does The Government Allow This To Happen?
Violence has escalated against the forest protectors under the current far-right government of President Jair Bolsonaro. According to the Brazilian pan-indigenous organization APIB, a group that represents almost one million indigenous people throughout Brazil, the President is to blame.

“The Bolsonaro government has Indigenous blood on its hands.

The increase in violence in Indigenous territories is a direct result of his hateful speeches and steps taken against our people,” APIB said in a statement.

Despite federal law enforcement investigating the murder—allegedly a logger was also killed—Paulo’s body remains missing.


APIB leader Sonia Guajajara blasted the government over dismantling the environmental and indigenous agencies and urged lawmakers to refuse a deal that will see the sign off on a major trade deal with the EU. The deal, Sonia told Reuters, could see farmers and loggers driven by open markets to drive production and invade further indigenous lands.

“It’s time to say enough of this institutionalized genocide,” she said.



Just like other governments around the world (Australia and the United States), Bolsonaro condemns activist groups, NGOs and blames environment laws for hindering economic growth. Following his election last year, President Bolsonaro vowed to reverse indigenous protections that keep 15 percent of Brazil’s land reserved for indigenous tribes.

While Bolsonaro has yet to make good on his threats, his continued racism against the indigenous peoples has encouraged illegal logging, mining, and violence.

Amazon Watch program direction Christian Poirier spoke to Democracy Now!:

“[The Guajajara are] doing this on behalf of all of humanity, because they are protecting the critically important Amazon forests that sustain our climate, protect our climate, power or, I should say, fuel the rainfall all over Brazil, but also here in this country. In the state of California, rainfall is slackening due to the fact the Amazon is being decimated today.

Their rights are enshrined in Brazil’s Constitution—their rights to territory and to their way of life … Yet they have been systematically deprived of these rights.

And what we witnessed today—or, two days ago, with the murder of Paulino, was an example of that, a manifestation of the violence that’s growing in these communities.”

Before his death, Paulino spoke to Reuters in September about the inherent dangers he faced by guarding the rainforest:

“There is so much destruction of nature happening, including trees with wood as hard as steel being cut down and taken away.

I’m scared sometimes, but we have to lift up our heads and act. We are here fighting.

We have to preserve this life for our children’s future.”

At one time there were estimated to be only a few hundred Florida manatees left. So, in 1973 they were put on the endangered list. And as hoped, their numbers began to flourish once again.

It makes sense, then, that if the Florida manatee is out of harm’s way, so to speak, they should be removed from the endangered list, right? Well, yes and no. Though there are now estimated to be more than 6,000 Florida manatees in the wild, not everyone is thrilled to see their status changed from “endangered” to “threatened”.

With overall manatee numbers in the Caribbean region up around 13,000, and around half of those Florida manatees, the US Fish and Wildlife service went ahead and made the change to their status. This was in order to make way for others who need the services and protections the “endangered” designation affords them.

What landed them on the endangered list in the first place? Unfortunately, it’s human interference, as you might have guessed. The main causes of manatee death, are impacts from boat propellers, and the loss of their natural habitat. Since neither of these root causes has been remedied, the risk of the manatee numbers suffering again in the future is quite high.

Florida Manatees Are Not Out Of The Woods
The Center For Biological Diversity had this to say about the removal: “… manatee numbers have never truly recovered, as the animals must contend with a barrage of manmade threats. Each year, about 87 manatees are killed by collisions with boats, the single greatest cause of premature mortalities. This is more than seven times (the) number of manatees that the Fish and Wildlife Service estimates can be killed without impairing the species’ recovery. Meanwhile, boating in Florida is at an all-time high and increasing…” and “in 2017, the (US Fish & Wildlife) Service downlisted the manatee from “endangered” to “threatened” despite the fact that 2016 had been the deadliest-ever year for manatees.

There are many who echo these sentiments and believe the move is a real blow to the future of manatees. That removing the protections which afforded manatees the chance to beef up their population, will cause their numbers to dwindle once again. Then we’ll be back at square one.

But let’s not forget the really good news in all of this. The manatee population throughout the Caribbean and Southeast US is now estimated at around 13,000. Of those, about half are believed to be Florida manatees. That’s a far cry from the 1970s when only an estimated few hundred remained. So the special attention on these gentle giants and the protection they were previously afforded did have a positive affect. It’s unfortunate that limited resources exist for protecting endangered animals, and their status must be continually reassessed. If the protections they were enjoying did, in fact, make a positive impact, it’s easy to see how removing them will negatively impact their numbers too. Will the Florida manatee’s status have to be looked at again in the future? If the fatalities continue at this rate, it seems quite likely.

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A product many have not even heard of is causing an apocalypse of sorts for the world’s orangutans.

In Indonesia and Malaysia, rainforests are being slashed and burned at an alarming rate to make way for a third world cash crop: palm oil.

Palm oil has become almost ubiquitous in household products; it is used in instant ramen dishes, shampoo and conditioner, makeup and skin care products, chocolate-hazelnut spreads and nearly half of all packaged goods at any given supermarket. Many manufacturers have turned to palm oil because it is so cheap—until one factors in the cost to both human health (it is horrible for your heart), and the irreplaceable rainforests both our global ecosystem and the native orangutans depend upon.


To date, over 90 percent of orangutan habitat has already been destroyed. Additionally, smoke and debris from the fires are causing further damage to our primate relatives.


“The problem with fire and smoke is absolutely dire,” said Lis Key, International Animal Rescue’s communications manager in a Takepart interview. “Wild orangutans and orangutans in centers like ours are badly affected by the smoke. Some suffer upper respiratory tract infections, which can even prove fatal. Some of the babies we’ve taken in recently have been suffering not only from dehydration and malnourishment through lack of food but also breathing problems from the polluted air.”


One must wonder if a lower price point is worth the suffering and even possible extinction of living beings.

Luckily, it is not game over for orangutans yet, and there are steps we can all take, right now: boycott products or companies that use non-sustainable palm oil, write to companies that make products you use with this ingredient and tell them you won’t support unsustainable palm oil, educate friends and family and click here. A different ending to this story may yet be possible.

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Mushroom-foam is as cheap as Styrofoam, requires no fossil fuel, and creates no plastic pollution, biodegrading in your garden in just a couple of weeks


Ikea is switching to a new mushroom-based, biodegradable alternative to polystyrene (Styrofoam) packaging for its furniture and home decor.

Known as Mycofoam, the product is made of agricultural waste products like corn or hemp husks, oat hulls or cotton burrs and mushroom spores.

The agricultural waste is molded into the desired shape and then seeded with mushroom spores, which begin to sprout mycelium, the vegetative part of fungi that forms a web of hairlike roots that typically hold soil together, but in this case hold the packaging together.

The mycelium threads spread rapidly throughout the material, digesting and binding it into a durable, shock-resistant foam.

When the foam reaches a desirable consistency, it is heated and dried to stop mycelium growth, so it can be used to cushion and protect everything from glass and ceramics to electronics and furniture.


Once the packaging has served its purpose it can be “tossed in a lake to feed fish” or into your compost pile to fertilize your garden, says the video below. In these moist environments, Mycofoam is completely biodegraded in just a couple of weeks.


Styrofoam on the other hand takes thousands of years to decompose and harms countless animals and other organisms that ingest it in the process.

Created from waste products, the material requires no fossil fuel, making it just as cheap (and probably cheaper to make in the future) as polystyrene.

Hopefully Ikea’s idea will spread and all Styrofoam packaging will be replaced with “mushroom-foam.”

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