Communities of descendants of African slaves who escaped forced labour to form rural villages – called quilombos – are fighting for their survival. Like other indigenous peoples whose lands are being encroached upon, they are fighting to prevent Brazil's agribusiness lobby and land speculators from taking over their territory.
“When the speculators arrived, they said everything was theirs,” Marilda De Souza Francisco still remembers. From her family home, surrounded by sumptuous vegetation, the griotte (African storyteller) from the Santa Rita do Bracui Quilombo slowly revives images from the past. Her community began to be expropriated during the military dictatorship in the 1970s, when there was an explosion of seaside tourism in Brazil. Located on the Costa Verde, the Atlantic coast between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, this is where the Brazilian elite has established its “Hamptons”: luxurious accommodation with private access to a crystal-clear sea. And a privileged view of the Atlantic rainforest, the country's second-biggest tropical forest.
