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For the first time in history, on 7 February 2007, the Brazilian Government has recognized the formal existence of these rural populations with the Presidential Decree n. 6040.
In the six articles of the decree establishing a national policy for the sustainable development of traditional peoples, the federal government extended the recognition for Indigenous peoples and quilomboloas, made in the 1988 Constitution.
According to the Joshua Project and Gabriel de Oliveira Arcade, Ribeirinhos people in Brazil are about 6,513,000 people.