Amazonia Undercover (DVD)

Watch as Indigenous people and the local community team up to rewrite the future.

For 14,000 years, Indigenous populations in the Amazon have coexisted with the rainforest. Since 1970, 20% of the Brazilian Amazon has been deforested. Logging and forest fires are threatening a further 20%. Scientists say that at 40% deforestation, we will reach the point of no return. The forest will be lost forever, replaced by savannahs, and the environmental consequences will be catastrophic. The Amazon is often known as the lungs of the planet, producing 6% of the world's oxygen. It is no secret that the rainforest has been losing a dramatic fight against an array of threats, encouraged by capitalism, consumerism, and greed, both legal and illegal. We follow authority IBAMA's two biggest actions with the Federal Prosecutors Bureau and the Federal Police to combat land grabbing in Southwest Pará: the Castanheira and Rios Voadores Operations. It becomes apparent that IBAMA's actions are not efficient enough in combatting illegal logging and land-grabbing mafias. Ignoring the limits of the law, these criminal organizations are advancing over untouched forest regions, encroaching on the Mundurukus's territory. Due to the failure of the Brazilian government to protect the Amazon, an unexpected union is forming in the depths of the forest. Indigenous and local communities are rewriting history as they unite for the first time as allies against a common enemy: the ruthless, often criminal forces and the system which drive the destruction.