Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday granted official recognition of nearly 800 square miles of Indigenous lands, following through on a campaign promise in a move that also protects critical Amazon rainforest from commercial exploitation.
Lula recognized six ancestral lands. The two largest are in the Amazon, the world's largest tropical forest and an important carbon sink that helps moderate climate change. The total area of recognized lands in the biome is 161,500 hectares (620 square miles).
