Death in the Amazon

A few months ago Obede Loyla Souza, an activist and farmer living in the Brazilian state of Para, argued with loggers who were illegally felling trees in the Amazon. He began receiving death threats. Eight days ago, his body was found with a shotgun blast to the head.

Souza is the sixth person over the last month to be killed in feuds over Amazonian land. The murders apparently began with husband and wife Joao Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espirito Santo, conservationists who worked at a nature reserve. They also had received death threats from loggers and cattle ranchers.

The killings come as Brazil's Congress considers a bill that would reform the country's Forest Code. (The bill has already passed the Chamber of Deputies, the Congress's lower house.) A key element of the bill is a provision granting amnesty for farmers who own less than 400 hectares of land who had illegally cut down trees. Because of the sense of impunity fostered by this provision, the rate of deforestation in March and April was six times faster than last year.