The following is based on a communication sent by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and other UN experts to the Governments of Brazil and the USA, as well as the US headquartered company Wildlife Works Carbon LLC, on 29 April 2025. The communication remained confidential for 60 days before being made public, giving the Governments and company time to reply. Replies were received from the Brazilian Government and Wildlife Works, and can be found at the below links. Annexes from Wildlife Works were also received, and will be added to this page when they are processed. If further replies are received, they will be made public on the UN Special Procedures communications database.
On 2 June 2025, a Federal court ordered the provisional suspension of all activities related to the proposed carbon credit project, following an urgent complaint filed by the Tuxa Ta Pame Council of the Ka’apor People and concerns over the compliance of the development of the project with ILO Convention 169. Since this decision, the Special Rapporteur has received news of new attacks against the indigenous Ka’apor human rights defenders. She will continue following the case.
This is a shorter version of the original communication.
BACKGROUND
Topic: alleged threats and intimidation of indigenous Ka’apor human rights defenders, including Itahu Ka’apor and Mariuza Ka’apor, in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, in connection with their opposition to a carbon credit project proposed on indigenous land by the US-headquartered company Wildlife Works.
Itahu Ka’apor and Mariuza Ka’apor are members of the Tuxa Ta Pame, which in the Kaapor language means the Ka’apor Management Council. Since 2013, this six-person body has been the Ka’apor representative authority in the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory. It manages health care, education and self-protection strategies for local communities. The Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory extends across 531,000 hectares of land in the remains of the eastern Amazon, in Maranhão State, and is home to Ka’apor, Tembé and Awa peoples, some of whom are in isolation or uncontacted. It was demarcated by the Brazilian Government through Decree 88.002 in 1982. Protected areas were established along the borders of the territory by the Ka’apor people from 2013 onwards to protect the communities living there from attacks by loggers and protect the Amazon from deforestation. From this moment onwards, a significant drop in deforestation in the area has been recorded.
ALLEGATIONS
Since 2013, when the creation of the protected areas along its borders started, nine Ka’apor indigenous people from the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory have been brutally murdered, including several whose bodies were mutilated. None of these murders have been properly investigated and all remain unpunished. Two further Ka’apor people from the territory were murdered between 2011 and 2012. In 2022, a Ka’apor leader and member of the Tuxa Pa Pame died after allegedly being given poisoned fish to eat, in another possible killing.
Since at least February 2023, the US-headquartered company Wildlife Works Carbon LCC has been seeking to develop a carbon credit project within the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory. As part of their efforts to develop the project, which would require the free, prior and informed consent of all Indigenous and other traditional peoples directly and indirectly affected, Wildlife Works has allegedly sidelined the Tuxa Ta Pame in favour of engaging with another association which does not represent the peoples of the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory. In mid-February 2023, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with this association, leading to a division among those living in the territory. This agreement was signed almost one year prior to the company’s first engagement with the Tuxa Ta Pame, which took place on 23 January 2024 through an email sent to the Ka’apor leaders, in which the company invited them to a meeting. The Tuxa Ta Pame responded on 31 January 2024, demanding the suspension of the company’s activities and withdrawal, stating that they would not accept the company’s presence in the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory.
On 30 October 2024, the Tuxa Ta Pame filed a lawsuit before the 3rd Federal Court of the Federal Judicial Section of Maranhão against the Federal Government, FUNAI (Fundação Nacional dos Povos Indígenas) and Wildlife Works for the implementation of a carbon credit project in the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory without the prior, free and informed consent of the Ka’apor indigenous people. In the suit, the Tuxa Ta Pame sought an injunction suspending all activities of Wildlife Works in the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory, and an inspection of the companies’ activities therein by FUNAI and the Federal Government.
On 10 February 2025, at around 10 p.m., two Ka’apor indigenous people who support the Wildlife Works carbon credit project came to Itahu Ka’apor’s home and threatened him, warning him to drop the lawsuit filed by the Tuxa Ta Pame against Wildlife Works or else he would face the consequences. This threat led the human rights defender to take security measures for his protection.
The incident on 10 February 2025 is allegedly only one instance in a pattern of threats and intimidation against Ka’apor human rights defenders, including Itahu Ka’apor and Mariuza Ka’apor, by people in favour of the carbon credit project.
At the time of writing, the case brought by the Tuxa Ta Pame against Wildlife Works, the Federal Government and FUNAI was ongoing before the 3rd Federal Court of the Federal Judicial Section of Maranhão.
CONCERNS
In the communication, we express serious concern for the threats to the safety of Itahu Ka’apor and Mariuza Ka’apor, along with their fellow Indigenous human rights defenders in the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Territory. Our concern is aggravated by the history of violent killings of Ka’apor people in Brazil, and the persistent impunity for these crimes. We express further concern at the risks posed to the rights of Indigenous peoples by the project proposed by Wildlife Works and call for the Brazilian Government’s immediate attention to these risks.
