Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro shows written on the palm of his hand "Homeland, Family, God" during a ceremony to mark his 400 days in office at the Planalto palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday introduced a controversial measure that opens up the indigenous lands, many of them in the Amazon region, to mining, agricultural activities and hydraulic energy production.

The president described the measure, which still needs approval in Congress.

The measure, which has not yet been published, allows both indigenous and third-party developers to participate in the new land development.

"I hope that this dream... comes true," Bolsonaro said during a ceremony.

"An indigenous person is a human being exactly like us, who has a heart, has a soul, has desires, has needs, and is as Brazilian as we are," he said.

In a statement, the president said the "omission" of previous governments to regulate these activities had caused legal uncertainty "and encouraged illegal mining."

"We will be pressured by the environmentalists. Those people, if I could, I would confine them to the Amazon region since they like the environment so much," said the president, who often frames pressure from environmentalists as a foreign conspiracy.

Some 600 Brazilian indigenous leaders gathered in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso in January to denounce the bill.

Bolsonaro's government, however, maintains that many indigenous leaders support its projects.

The Bolsonaro administration has revived many of Brazil's conservative domestic and foreign policies in the past year. An ally of the Brazilian agribusiness community, Bolsonaro has long seen the Amazon as an ideal region for commercial exploitation despite criticism from environmentalists and civil society.

AFP