DRIVE AN HOUR north-west from Boa Vista, capital of Brazil’s Roraima state, towards the border with Venezuela, and pastures of grazing cattle and rice fields give way to the stunning but unkempt expanses of the São Marcos indigenous reserve. Here, sleepy roadside villages show little sign of life, aside from omnipresent prayer sheds marked with the green signs of Seventh Day Adventists.

Brazil outlaws large-scale agriculture or mining in areas demarcated for its 1m-odd indigenous citizens. But the dearth of smaller, local businesses irritates some indigenous leaders by helping to perpetuate the stereotype of the “lazy Indian”. “We must prove to other Brazilians that we too can produce,” says Alindo Ferreira, the ambitious chief of Tarau-Paru, a community of 170 souls on the edge of the reserve.

Mr Ferreira, who is in his early 40s, is keen to grow more manioc, bananas and other cash crops, from which the average family in his village earns more than $125 a week. He proudly points to a flour-production shack with a corrugated-iron roof that has replaced a prettier but rain-prone traditional hut nearby. Ancestors would always let the forest retake the land as it pleased. The chief sees nothing wrong with nudging reforestation along by cultivating more profitable native plants.

At a meeting of the Indigenous Council of Roraima in Boa Vista, community leaders broadly agree with this hopeful vision. Yet the discussion soon reverts to a topic of perpetual concern: land. In 2017 two-thirds of areas traditionally occupied by indigenous peoples had been officially recognised. Nearly half of Roraima state has been demarcated as indigenous land. The land remains the property of the federal government, but its native inhabitants are granted the use of it in perpetuity. Opponents of further demarcations argue that the Indians, just 0.4% of the national population of 211m, occupy 14% of the land. Surely, that is enough.

In theory, indigenous rights have long enjoyed strong guarantees. But implementation has been patchy. For much of the 20th century the Brazilian government sought less to protect indigenous people than to bring them into mainstream society. In the 1950s the federal government made a concerted effort to tap Brazil’s vast Amazon region for its hydropower, farmland and minerals. Roads and railways brought diseases that killed huge numbers of Amazonian natives. Their numbers fell from several hundred thousand (no one is sure of the population) in 1900 to as few as 70,000 in the 1950s.

Attitudes only began to shift after Norman Lewis, a British writer, wrote an article in 1969 entitled “Genocide”. An international outcry led to minor improvements. Then in 1988 a new constitution gave Indians a clutch of rights, including to land, cultural expression and freedom from tutelage. A census in 2010 reckoned that Indian numbers had recovered to 818,000.

Governments now promise schools, clinics and sanitation, as well as new transport links. Many peoples welcome such help. “No one is against development,” says Sônia Guajajara of Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (APIB), a lobby group. Nevertheless, she argues that development should be balanced with the sustainable management of resources. In the Amazon indigenous people guard the jungle. Satellite images show that in many countries indigenous lands are less likely to be deforested than similar non-demarcated ones.

Indigenous representatives particularly fear the clout of the farmers’ lobby. Across much of central and southern Brazil Indians live in conflict with farmers over land. The lobby’s congressional caucus is now said to number 260 deputies and senators, out of a total of 594. They are emboldened by the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, who says he wants an end to further demarcations (but also supposedly to make it easier for tribes to profit from their land). Even before Mr Bolsonaro’s election the government had hinted at a desire to approve more mining, drilling and farming projects regardless of their location. The agency for indigenous people had its budget slashed by around 40% in 2017, as part of spending cuts to close a yawning fiscal deficit.

But the APIB has become more active in the capital. Three years ago it convinced 48 out of 81 senators to oppose a proposed constitutional amendment that would have transferred oversight of demarcations from the justice ministry to the farmer-friendly legislature. Work has now stalled on a “super-permissive” mining code (as Maria Augusta Assirati, a former head of the National Indian Foundation, calls it). In July the government set up a 581,000-hectare protected area where Indian residents will be able to make money by, for instance, offering anglers a chance to hook tucunaré, a prize game fish.

Indians’ attitudes towards the state are evolving, too, as Mr Ferreira demonstrates. To help tackle alcoholism, he has enlisted the help of the army, long accused of disrespect towards Indians. At his request, guards at the neighbouring garrison search tribesmen returning from town and confiscate booze, which he bans in the village. As a result, soldiers and Tarau-Paru rub along well. Children throng the garrison’s deputy commander, Lieutenant Bruno Anastácio, on arrival in his armoured car. Asked who they want to be when they grow up, all the boys (and some girls) eagerly volunteer to be soldiers.

See also: “Why New Zealand’s Maori do better than Australia’s Aboriginals”