Location São João das Missões, Brazil
Disaster Xakriabá Indigenous territory drought, 2013-24
José Fiuza Xakriabá grew up in the Xakriabá Indigenous territory and is now an influential Xakriabá leader. That region was previously watered by an extensive network of rivers. But the only stream that still flows in the surrounding area is now the Itacarambi. The trend of increasing drought in Minas Gerais state started in the 1970s and is caused by rising temperatures. Scientific research has shown that droughts have been the worst in at least 700 years and are mostly the result of human-caused global heating.
I never gave up on my land, which for me is the world where I was born and raised. My father is from here; my mother is from here. The first tiled-roof house we lived in is here, next to me. Before, we lived in houses made of straw, grass thatch, garlic tree bark, wood. That’s how it always was.
