Indigenous minister calls on Lula to kill farm lobby's land bill

Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara attends a ritual dance during the third March of Indigenous Women, in defence of women's rights, local indigenous people and the environment in Brasilia, Brazil September 13, 2023. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's first Indigenous cabinet minister is urging President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to veto a bill pushed through Congress by the farm lobby that she and Indigenous leaders warn would undermine ancestral land rights and threaten their way of life.

The bill, which passed in the Senate late last month and now awaits Lula's signature to become law, would restrict Indigenous reservations to land they lived on in 1988, a deadline that the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional.