Illegal loggers kill Amazon guardian

This is Paulo Paulino Guajajara, an indigenous warrior who guarded the Amazon rainforest, in September.

(SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) AMAZON GUARDIAN PAULO PAULINO GUAJAJARA, SAYING:

"I'm scared sometimes, but we have to lift up our heads and act. We are here fighting,"

Less than two months later, and he is dead - killed by illegal loggers amid increased invasions onto indigenous reservations in Brazil.

Paulino Guajajara, who was also known as Lobo, meaning wolf, was a part of Guardians of the Forest - a group set up buy his Guajajara tribe to protect the rainforest.

(SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) AMAZON GUARDIAN, PAULO GUAJAJARA, SAYING:

"We are protecting our land and the life on it, the animals, the birds, even the Awa (tribe) who are here too. There is so much destruction of nature happening, good trees with wood as hard as steel being cut down and taken away."

On Saturday (November 2), the Guajajara tribe said he had been killed in an ambush adding that "now is the time to bring to an end the institutionalized genocide".

After taking office this year, Brazil's right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro vowed to open up indigenous lands to economic development.

Brazil's pan-indigenous organization APIB said the government was dismantling environmental and indigenous agencies, leaving tribes to defend themselves.

Brazil's federal police said they had sent a team to investigate the circumstances around Paulino Guajajara's death.

He was in his twenties and leaves behind one son.