Eloy Terena

Luiz Henrique Eloy Amado (born February 2, 1988), better known as Eloy Terena, is a Brazilian lawyer, anthropologist, researcher, professor, and an indigenous leader of the Terena ethnic group, whose work is primarily focused on the defense of the rights of indigenous peoples in Brazil. Since January 2023, he has served as Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, and on March 31, 2026, he was sworn in as Minister, succeeding Sônia Guajajara.

Biography Eloy Terena was born in the Ipegue indigenous village, in the municipality of Aquidauana, Mato Grosso do Sul, on February 2, 1988. Following his parents' separation in 1991, his mother began working as a domestic housemaid in Campo Grande, where he moved with his siblings to live with her. Influenced by his sister, he decided to study Law and was awarded a full scholarship through the Programa Universidade Para Todos (ProUni) to attend the Dom Bosco Catholic University, from which he graduated. Encouraged by his professor Antônio Brandi, he came into contact with the struggles of indigenous peoples and developed a growing interest in indigenous rights. At the same university, he earned a master's degree in Local Development. Terena began providing legal counsel to various indigenous communities and indigenist organizations, organizing training courses for leadership development, and advocating on behalf of indigenous causes before the Supreme Federal Court. One of his greatest achievements was securing the reversal of a judicial decision that had expelled several communities from the traditional lands they had reoccupied in 2013.

In 2022, he obtained a doctorate in Sociology and Law from the Fluminense Federal University, with the thesis The Social Field of Law and the Theory of Indigenist Law, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Social Sciences at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. and was subsequently nominated for the position of Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, assuming office in January 2023. and he was sworn in on March 31, 2026.

Works