'Our lands protect our children and future generations' – Brazil's indigenous peoples rise up against a proposed bill they say threatens their survival and traditional way of life in the rainforest amid a push from big businesses
Pataxo Indigenous people in a protest during Brazil's Supreme Court trial of a landmark case on Indigenous land rights and against Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro in Sao Paulo, Brazil September 1, 2021. His body reads "No PL 490" Photo: Reuters
"Many of us are leaving the territories to carry out demonstrations," Alessandra Korap, an Indigenous leader for the Munduruku people tells TRT World. His predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, oversaw policies, which allowed agribusinesses to quickly expand their footprint in the rainforests that are home Indigenous communities and a biodiverse ecosystem.A crucial aspect of the bill involves transferring the powers to demarcate tribal lands from the executive to the legislative branch of the Brazilian government.
"It is an attempt to erase our memory, to erase our existence in Brazil, to say in the future that the Indigenous people existed a long time back but don’t exist anymore." Their ancestral lands have also been scarred by mining, cattle grazing and largely transgenic soya cultivation that, Korap says, is foreign to the local climate and does not bring any benefit for her people.
Fábio M. Alkmin, a researcher in Human Geography at the University of São Paulo, says the bill was first proposed by Homero Pereira, a lawmaker from the Mato Grosso state who is also a cattle rancher, in 2007 and is"closely tied to agribusiness interests." The Bill PL-490 is basically a “compilation” of 13 other anti-Indigenous bills that were prepared between 2007 and 2020, says Alkmin of University of São Paulo.Reuters
Take the example of the Guarani tribe, one of the first Indigenous peoples to come in contact with the European settlers after they arrived in Latin America some 500 years ago. The uncontacted tribes in the rainforest are unaware of the vote on the bill yet the decision, made in the Congress hundreds of kilometers away, “could mean life or death for them.”SIB are pressuring lawmakers in 100 countries with help from thousands of volunteers worldwide who have been emailing Brazil’s senators to reject the bill.
The international community can pressure Brazil to reject it and to comply with the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples and other international human rights treaties, he says.
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