New Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has wasted no time reversing the anti-Indigenous agenda of his predecessor, former president Jair Bolsonaro.

"Lula", who was sworn in on 1st January, will create a new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, with a mandate to oversee policies ranging from land demarcation to health care.

The president has named Sônia Guajajara as head of the ministry, a newcomer to Congress who is well known as the leader of the main umbrella group for Brazil's many Indigenous tribes and a member of the Amazon Guajajara people.

Ms Guajajara has long fought illegal mining and deforestation in the Amazon, organised 300 Native peoples in her organisation Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), and is one of the 1st Indigenous women to serve as a federal deputy in the country.

In 2022 she made Time Magazine's annual list of the world's 100 most influential people.

Writing on social media, Ms Guajajara said her appointment and the creation of the Indigenous ministry "is more than a personal achievement".

"(This) is a collective achievement of Indigenous peoples, a historic moment of the principle of reparation in Brazil. The creation of the Ministry is the confirmation of the commitment that Lula assumes with us."

President da Silva's Indigenous leadership team also includes Wapixana advocate Joênia Wapichana, a federal deputy and one of Brazil's first Indigenous lawyers, as leader of the Indigenista foundation FUNAI. Ms Wapichana has also campaigned to have the boundaries of Indigenous reservations recognised.

Under Lula's presidency, Tapeba leader and lawyer Ricardo Weibe Tapeba will head the Special Secretariat for Indigenous health. Mr Tapeba has worked as the coordinator of the Indigenous federation of Ceará.

President de Silva's focus on Indigenous leadership and cooperation marks a radical departure from the violently racist reign of Mr Bolsonaro.

The former president, now in Florida, weakened Brazil's environmental laws and encouraged loggers and miners to plunder the Amazon.

Illegal operations were carried out and a number of fires deliberately lit in the rainforest, which Mr Bolsonaro attempted to blame on environmental activists.

Ms Guajajara fought hard against attempts to legalise these policies and was largely successful in opposing the Bolsonaro legislative agenda.

In 2019 and 2020 five members of her tribe were killed while opposing illegal loggers.

According to local Indigenous organisations, due to the Bolsonaro legacy, some 20,000 illegal gold miners now operate illegally in Yanomami tribal territory alone.

The former president has a long history of racist remarks about Indigenous people, and in a 1998 speech to Congress, praised the US military for having "decimated its Indians" and expressed regret that Brazil had not done the same.

President de Silva previously served in the top job from 2003 to 2010. He was jailed over highly politicised corruption charges that were later proven false. His party colleague and successor as president, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached under corruption charges that were also subsequently proven false.

The use of such tactics by Mr Bolsonaro's faction in the past, and the former president's own comments and clandestine meetings with military figures in the lead up to the election, led to fears he would attempt to cling to power.

Supporters of Mr Bolsonaro then protested the result, claiming a rigged election, despite opinion polls consistently showing a clear lead to Mr da Silva.

However, Mr Bolsonaro has instead left Brazil for Florida.

President da Silva is now working to abolish 100-year secrecy clauses Mr Bolsonaro put in place, with a view to exposing a raft of suspected illegal activity by the former president.

President da Silva has also appointed Marina Silva, an Amazon rainforest defender, as Brazil's environmental minister again - a position she previously held between 2003-2008.

Ms Silva, thanked Lula, writing on social media that Brazil faces "the great challenge of rescuing and updating the lost socio-environmental agenda."

During November's COP27 in Egypt, Mr da Silva said there can be "no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon," pledging to safeguard the Amazon's biomass.

After the official announcement of Ms Guajajara's appointment and 15 others in the capital of Brasilia last Thursday, several Indigenous organisations, among them the Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon, issued statements congratulating her for the nomination.

The lands where most of Brazil's Indigenous peoples live constitute one of the world's most important carbon sinks.

Roughly 13 per cent of Brazil's territory is demarcated as Indigenous areas. Most of it is in the Amazon and covered by tropical rainforest.