"When all the shamans have died, I think the sky will fall. (...) The forest will be destroyed and the weather will be dark. If there are no more shamans to hold up the sky, it will not stay in place. The whites are just ingenious, they ignore shamanism, they are not the ones who will be able to hold up the sky (...) Not only the Yanomami are going to die, but all the whites too. No one is going to escape the fall of the sky", David Kopenawa, a shaman and leader of the Yanomami people).
The Yanomami Indigenous Territory , which occupies parts of the states of Roraima and Amazonas, is marked by illegal gold and cassiterite mining, sexual violence against women and children, death threats, and the dismantling of health posts. In 2021, the region already registered almost 50% of malaria cases in the entire country and now there are more than 4,000 indigenous people with nutritional deficits, including children and the elderly. In January 2023, indigenous and socio-environmental entities denounced an ongoing humanitarian tragedy in the area.
