An Indigenous leader has inspired an Amazon city to grant personhood to an endangered river
The IndependentFor free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The river, named Laje in non-Indigenous maps, is vital to the Oro Waram, one of the six subgroups of the Wari’ people, who have inhabited the Western Amazon for centuries. “We are further organizing ourselves to fend off invaders,” councilman Francisco Oro Waram, the law’s proponent, told The Associated Press. “So this law is a 21st century update of these very traditional social, biological, ecological values that are at the center of Wari’ culture.” The expansion of soy, with heavily pesticide-dependent crops, poses a significant threat to the Komi Memem River. The Wari’ hope that the new law giving the river personhood status can help address what they see as inaction of Funai and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
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