The Xingu River is a symbol of Brazil’s biological and cultural diversity. Over 2,700 kilometres long, it rises in the northeast of the state of Mato Grosso and flows through the state of Pará until it enters the main Amazon River. Its basin is over half a million square kilometres – the size of Spain – and contains still untouched areas of the Cerrado tropical savannah, the Amazon Forest and transitional areas.
The Xingu headwaters region is inhabited by 18 indigenous peoples comprising 10,000 people, for whom the Xingu is the basis of their livelihoods and their culture. Around 5,000 of these, from 14 ethnic groups, live in the Xingu Indigenous Park, one of the best known indigenous lands in Brazil.
The region around the park is also home to more than a quarter of a million non-indigenous inhabitants. A large proportion of the farmers now living in the region arrived from southern Brazil in the 1970s, turning the region into an important agriculture and ranching centre.
.jpg "Burning. Municipality of Peixoto de Azevedo. 2003. Photo: André Villas-Bôas/ISA")
The whole area is, however, seriously threatened. The majority of the headwaters of the river rise outside the park and are suffering the impacts of the accelerating use and occupation of the area. Several have already dried up as a result of deforestation and burning. By 2007 around 3,000 square kilometres of gallery forest – the vegetation along the river banks and that protects water courses – had been cleared
Local farmers speak about the increased erosion and the loss of soil fertility. The silting of rivers has also resulted in the declining numbers of fish. In the longer term, changes in climate and loss of biodiversity also threaten the state of Mato Grosso as a whole.
