In pictures: The Brazilian Amazon in 2019

Since Jair Bolsonaro took office, deforestation and fires have increased, leaving a heavy toll on the people who live in the rainforest


Tommaso Protti

Pau d’Arco, Pará - A landless peasant erects a sign claiming occupation of the Santa Lúcia farm, where ten land activists were killed by police in May 2017. Rural land conflicts have increased in recent years, as rural government agencies have been cut back. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac

Fires in the Amazon sparked headlines all over the world this summer. But less well covered were the lives of the people who call the rainforest home. 

In Brazil, which holds 60% of the rainforest, fires in the Amazon biome rose by 42% in the first nine months of 2019, compared to the same period last year. Fires in Indigenous territories outstripped that, more than doubling in the period from January to September this year compared to 2018.


Marabá, Pará - A child sits in a makeshift stock cupboard at the Hugo Chavez landless peasant camp, which has been targeted by fazendeiros (large land owners). Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac

Photographer Tommaso Protti, accompanied by journalist Sam Cowie, travelled to the Brazilian Amazon to cover the everyday lives of people living in the region.

Produced with the support of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award which funds investigative reportage on human rights issues the world over, Protti’s work looks at the intense violence faced by Indigenous communities in the Amazon, as well as religious festivities, law enforcement and creeping urbanisation in one of the most ecologically significant territories on earth.


Araribóia, Maranhão - A member of the Guajajara forest guard in a moment of sad silence at the sight of a toppled tree cut down by illegal loggers. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac
Araribóia, Maranhão - Members of the Guajajara forest guard beat another Indigenous man whom they suspect of collaborating with illegal loggers. The killing of Paulo Paulino Guajajara sparked international headlines earlier this month. Photo: Tommaso Protti
Terra Indígena Porquinhos, Maranhão - A fire rages on the Porquinhos Indigenous land, home to the Canela Apanyekrá tribe which practices traditional slash and burn farming. The number of fires in Indigenous territories has outstripped the increase in fires in the rest of the Amazon in 2019. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac

Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office, violence against Indigenous communities has increased. Preliminary data released last month by the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI) released showed a steep increase in the number of Indigenous land invasions in the first nine months of the year to 160, up from 111 in the whole of 2018, and 96 in 2017.


Jamari National Forest, Rondônia - A military police officer stands in what was previously an illegal mining site in the Jamari National Forest. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac

Indigenous organisations in Brazil have spoken of how Bolsonaro’s violent rhetoric against minorities and moves to cutback agencies protecting marginalised communities have exacerbated the problem.

In November, Indigenous land defender Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed in the Araribóia Indigenous territory in Maranhão state in an ambush by illegal loggers.


Vila da Ressaca, Pará - Francisco Pereira da Silva, 59, a gold miner. Gold continues to draw miners to the Amazon rainforest. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac
Altamira, Pará - Jatobá, home of the relocated Ribeirinhos (Amazon river people) is the worst affected neighbourhood in Altamira, considered the most violent city in Brazil. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac
Altamira, Pará - A girl plays in the Jatobá neighborhood where most of the residents are Ribeirinhos (Amazon river people) relocated after the completion of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac
Manaus, Amazonas - The richest and most populous city of the Brazilian Amazon attracts thousands of migrants. The poorest often end up living in shantytowns on the city’s forested outskirts. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac
Careiro Castanho, Amazonas - A community Easter nativity play in a small town 100 km from Manaus, organised by the local Catholic Church. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac

Protti, who photographed the Guajajara people in February, told Unearthed that in his five years visiting the Brazilian Amazon, he has noticed the situation on the ground grow more intense. 

“All the Indigenous territories I visited have been somehow invaded by illegal loggers and wildcat miners, and people have died,” he said. 

“The declarations of this new government have contributed to create a climate of hatred towards Indigenous communities, environmental activists and landless peasants. They are increasingly perceived as barriers for the development. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of the population living in the region there is the idea that nature is not in danger, that there is plenty of it, and above all that it is in their right to exploit and modernize it. The messages of Bolsonaro of an Amazonia open to trade have exacerbated this vision legitimizing those who act illegally.” 

The exhibition for the 10th Carmignac photojournalism Award: Amazônia by Tommaso Protti, will be held in Paris at the Maison Européenne de la photographie from December 4th, 2019 to February 16th, 2020

Words: Joe Sandler Clarke


Crepurizão, Pará - Evangelical Christians worshipping. In the world’s biggest Catholic nation, US imported evangelicalism accounts today for about a quarter of the population. Photo: Tommaso Protti for Fondation Carmignac
Kayapó Indigenous Territory, Pará - Kayapós prepare for their ancient tribal ritual called the Kukrut, in the village of Kuben-Kran Ken. Photo: Tommaso Protti
Kayapó Indigenous Territory, Pará - The Rio Fresco flows through the largest tropical protected area in the world, 3.2m hectares of forest containing many endangered species. Photo: Tommaso Protti