The Brazilian Amazon’s social and environmental history in the last forty years has been governed by the completion of monumental infrastructure projects, especially in transportation and energy generation.
A new study on youth and violence from Brazil’s Sangari Institute reveals alarming levels of indigenous suicide, especially among indigenous youth. According to indigenous leader Gersam Luciano Baniwa, this tragic phenomenon is in part a “consequence of a clash of world visions that causes anguish, uncertainty, culture shock and even existential emptiness, all of which has led indigenous youth to take extreme measures, including suicide.”