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Internationally there are an alarming number of violations of indigenous peoples’ land and human rights. Brazil is currently under the spotlight as the heightening of the political crisis that led to the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff brings national and international concerns over the uncertainty related to changes in policy that may be adopted by the interim Government in relation to indigenous peoples land rights. With a focus on land governance, our study aims to assess if the policies for indigenous land in the Legal Amazon and Matopiba since the Constitution of 1988 represented an improvement or regress to the indigenous population’s land use and access rights. We structured this study in the following way: 1) Background on Brazilian weak land governance and its relation with indigenous land rights, 2) Indigenous territories’ laws and improvements after 1988, 3) Sources of pressure on indigenous territories – Agribusiness, 4) Sources of pressure on indigenous territories – Large-scale infrastructure projects, 5) Discussion and policy proposals.
