It’s been a busy few weeks for Sônia Guajajara. When Brazil’s first ever minister of Indigenous peoples met with TIME in September, she was speaking on a panel at iconic London private members club Annabel’s alongside activist Txai Suruí, having just been in New York for Climate Week. The Indigenous Voices panel was facilitated by The Caring Family Foundation, a big backer of reforestation efforts in Brazil.
Guajajara, 49, appeared rejuvenated by the biggest win for Indigenous rights since her appointment in January by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In September, nine of 11 justices on Brazil’s supreme court voted to block efforts to place a time restriction on Indigenous peoples’ claim to ancestral lands. “Marco temporal” (time marker) is an agribusiness-backed notion that would require groups to prove they physically occupied lands up until Oct, 5. 1988 to stake a legal claim to it.
Read more at TIME Magazine.