Amazon needs more indigenous ownership

Granting indigenous people ownership of their tribal lands in the Amazon is an effective way of reducing deforestation, a study has found. Scientists combined satellite data of vegetation coverage in the Amazon rainforest between 1982 and 2016 with Brazilian government records of indigenous property rights. They found deforestation rates were on average up to 66 per cent lower in territories owned fully and collectively by local tribes compared to those owned only partially by the tribes or not at all. Tribes who own land found it easier to get help from the authorities to combat illegal logging.