Erwin Kräutler is an Austro-Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop and the current prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Xingu. He was born in Koblach, Tyrol east, Austria on July 12th, 1939, in 1965 went to Brazil as a missionary. In 1978, he became a Brazilian citizen (though also keeping his Austrian citizenship). He worked among the people of the Xingu-Valley, who include indigenous peoples of different ethnic groups. In 1980, Kräutler was appointed Bishop of Xingu, the largest diocese in Brazil. From 1983-1991, and since 2006 he is the President of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) of the Catholic Church in Brazil.
Bishop Erwin Kräutler during Interreligious Walk to Seewaldalm and Friedensglocke des Alpenraumes, 26. Oktober 2011. Telfs-Mösern. Foto. Wojciech Gatz.
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Erwin Kräutler is one of Brazil's most important defenders of and advocates for the rights of indigenous peoples. Already in the 1980s, he helped secure the inclusion of indigenous peoples' rights into the Brazilian constitution. He also plays an important role in opposing one of South America's largest and most controversial energy projects: the Belo Monte dam.
Bishop Kräutler has initiated include building houses for poor people, running schools, building a facility for mothers, pregnant women and children, founding a 'refugio' for recuperation after hospital treatment, emergency aid, legal support, and work on farmers' rights and land demarcation.
Bishop Kräutler has been very active in the struggle against the plans for the huge Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River. The dam would destroy 1000 square km of forest, flood a third of the capital city, Altamira, and create a lake of stagnant, mosquito-infested water of about 500 square km, which would make life in the rest of the city very difficult. 30,000 people would have to be relocated.
Bishop Erwin Kräutler during Interreligious Walk to Seewaldalm and Friedensglocke des Alpenraumes, 26. Oktober 2011. Telfs-Mösern. Foto. Wojciech Gatz.
Bishop Kräutler has initiated include building houses for poor people, running schools, building a facility for mothers, pregnant women and children, founding a 'refugio' for recuperation after hospital treatment, emergency aid, legal support, and work on farmers' rights and land demarcation.
Bishop Kräutler has been very active in the struggle against the plans for the huge Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River. The dam would destroy 1000 square km of forest, flood a third of the capital city, Altamira, and create a lake of stagnant, mosquito-infested water of about 500 square km, which would make life in the rest of the city very difficult. 30,000 people would have to be relocated.
Kräutler's commitment and outspokenness have put him at constant personal risk. In October 1987 he was seriously injured in a, suspected planned, car crash. Since 2006, Kräutler has been under round-the-clock police protection, partly because he insisted on a full investigation following the murder of the environmental activist Sister Dorothy Stang in 2005 who, since 1982, had worked closely with him.
In 1989, Kräutler received the Grosser Binding-Preis für Natur und Umweltschutz (Principality of Liechtenstein) and in 2009 an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Salzburg, Austria.
Kräutler has written a number of books, most recently Rot wie Blut die Blumen - Ein Bischof zwischen Leben und Tod (Flowers Red as Blood: a Bishop Between Life and Death), published in German in 2009.
Erwin Krautler, Bishop of Xingu, has won the 2010 Right Livelihood Award, known as the "alternative Nobel prize".
Source: internet, i.a. www.rightlivelihood.org