Nuns face guns, impunity in trying to save Amazon

The main cause of deforestation, the government says, are ranchers who illegally clear jungle to graze cattle and grow soy — often using threats and violence to remove the poor farmers eking a living there.

Photo courtesy of Charles Thomas/Flickr

Faces of the Amazon

Often lost in glossy picture books about the Amazon, is the fact that 21 million people in Brazil alone live in the Amazon territory. To be exact 20,998,731 according to the latest census.

[Photograph by: Survival International]