The native Indians of Brazil's Roraima state have won a crucial battle against non-indigenous farmers and other settlers in their area. Despite intense lobbying to stall the move, on April 14, 2005, the government announced the long-pending creation of a reserve for around 15,000 Indians in a fiercely disputed remote part of the Amazon forests in Brazil. The Indians will displace the outsiders in the Raposa Serra do Sol (Mountain of the Sun Fox) reserve.

Brazil's constitution promotes the creation of reserves for Indians with the aim of undoing centuries of discrimination suffered by them. But the process, which is anyway complicated and lengthy, was further delayed in Roraima because its large numbers of settlers used money and influence to block the move. Roraima has a very high proportion of Indians: about 40,000 out of a total population of 330,000.