In May, a judge blocked the appointment of a former Christian missionary and pastor to head the country’s federal Indigenous Affairs Agency after concerns were raised by advocacy groups that oppose evangelical outreaches to tribes in the Amazon.
Ricardo Lopes Dias had worked with New Tribes Mission, now called Ethnos260, for ten years. The group’s missionaries have engaged in efforts to contact unreached people groups and tribes deep in the Amazonian rainforest.
Dias was appointed by the Bolsonaro government to head the Uncontacted Indians’ Unit of the Indigenous Affairs Agency. President Bolsonaro, a Catholic, gained support from conservative evangelicals.
Opposition came from Survival International (SI) who oppose evangelical activities in the Amazon, claiming that past attempts by missionaries to contact tribal groups have brought death and disease to those communities because their bodies lack immunity to common illnesses. SI argued there was a conflict of interest, and the judge agreed.
Bolsonaro has called for indigenous reserves to be reduced in a way that opens land for commercial mining.
In April, a judge ordered government agencies to forcibly remove all evangelical missionaries from the Vale do Javari, which is said to have the highest concentration of uncontacted tribes in the world.
