2024-09-11 14:29:41
Last Thursday evening (5/9), the Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, signed the declaration orders for three Indigenous Lands (TI): Apiaká do Pontal and Scoite (MT)of the people Apiaka, Separated from Pontal e Munduruku; Moro (PA)of the people Arapium and Borari; And Big Cobra (PA)of the people of Arapium, Jaraqui e Tapajó (see the map below). In total, the fields cover the equivalent of 1.4 million football fields or twice the territory of the Federal District.
The Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) made the last IT declaration six years ago, in 2018. The identification and delimitation studies of the three areas now declared were approved more than ten years ago and took, on average, 12 , 6 years to proceed to the next stages of regulation.
For other ITs who are still waiting for a confirmed order, the waiting time continues to increase. The average period to declare an area was two and a half years in President Lula’s first term (2003 to 2006), when the Ministry of Justice declared 30 territories.
The issuance of directives is already moving at a slow pace since the last term of Dilma Rousseff (2015-2016), when 15 TIs were declared. Torquato Jardim, Minister of Justice under Michel Temer (2016-2018), published only three actions. During the Bolsonaro government, when for the first time since any IT was announced in the Constitution, the average time jumped to 12 years.
“One of the most emblematic cases is that of the Barra Velha do Monte Pascoal TI, in the south of Bahia, where the waiting of more than 16 years for the declaration order, despite the existence of judicial decisions, has resulted in violent conflicts . for the indigenous people of Pataxó”, the researcher considers The Institute of Socio-Environment (ISA) Tiago Moreira.
According to data monitored by ISAin total, Funai has already identified 44 TIs that are awaiting confirmation from the Ministry of Justice, as well as 65 lands that are awaiting approval from the Presidency of the Republic. Overall, yes 265 TI and demarcation process underway.
Source: ISA/DOUIcanous people celebrate
Miracildo Silva da Conceição, from the Tapajó family, representative of the Cobra Grande Indigenous Land Council (COINTECOG), says that this long process ended with an invitation to a meeting on the day of the first public conciliation hearing on the so-called Law of Timeframe (14,701/2023). With the attacks on indigenous communities in Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), however, the meeting was rescheduled for last Thursday.
“We thought it was a simple meeting. In fact, everything was fine to sign the [portaria] confirmed”, he said. “It was a moment of joy for us, there was a signing ceremony, we saw the minister signing. We left the Ministry of Justice with a clean soul and duty fulfilled”, he celebrated.
Eliane at the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI).
“We see it as the result of a lot of talk, we see it with good eyes and we hope that the other purposes that are waiting will also come out and that we can find alternatives for other processes that are initially as a working group, those that are also sub judice, so that our people have a demarcated territory, so that we can have our rights recognized by the State”, he defended.
In a publication of the Indigenous Council of Tapajós and Arapiuns (Cita), the general chief executive of TI Maró, Odair José Alves de Souza, also known as Dadá Borari, of the Borari people, celebrated the decisionbut he reminded that the regularization process needs to be completed. “Today, Tír Dúchasach Maró can only celebrate this victory and festival,” he said.
According to the directives, the three areas are declared to be in the permanent and exclusive possession of the people who traditionally live in them and are now awaiting the physical demarcation of the area and approval from the Presidency of the Republic, the last step of the limiting process.
“These three declared Indigenous Lands are crucial to the socio-environmental balance of this region of the Amazon. They are located in different places on the Tapajós Basin, a river that has many pressures, due to the progress of the agricultural border, the construction of hydroelectric plants and illegal mining”, explains Moreira.
Source: ISA / DOUSix years without declarations
Lewandowski inherited liabilities from former minister Flávio Dino for at least 28 cases that Funai forwarded for confirmation, according to information from the indigenous body itself. Among them, eleven would be on the MJSP’s list to be confirmed, according to Infoamazonia reportincluding two that were forwarded last week. The TIs still awaiting their appointments are: Sawré Muybu (PA); Sambaqui (PR); Djaiko-aty (SP); Amba Porã (SP); Promorim (SP); Ka’aguy Mirim (SP); Ypol Triunfo (MS); Xakriabá (MG) and Pindoty – Araça-Mirim (SP).
“The signed directives show that more can be done, despite the situation of political conflict and the great liabilities of the areas to be declared. In addition to the three TIs, others are located in areas that already belong to the Union, and overlap with Federal Conservation Units”, says the ISA researcher.
This is the case of TI Sawré Muybu. Overlaid on a Conservation Unit, the area is suffering from the invasion of miners and loggers. “There should be no barriers to declaring this area. The security of the Conservation Unit that it overlaps depends on the Munduruku’s overall possession of the territory. The indigenous people were the best guardians of the environmental heritage, of our forests”, he explains.
In 2023, President Lula sent 14 TIs that would be ready for their approval, but, despite the fact that the approvals were expected to happen in the first month of the government, that was not fulfilled. So far, ten areas have been approved in this third PT administration.
One of the reasons for the obstruction of outlines, as the indigenous movement has already indicated, is the approval of the Provisional Regime Law, at the end of 2023. During the year, both the Funai as the MJSP said that they were retreating in the progress of the processes because of the rule. President Lula blocked the indigenous movement by limiting two of the six TIs promised for April 2024.
“I want you to know that these lands are ready. What we don’t want is to promise you something today and tomorrow you read in the newspaper that the Court made a contrary decision. The frustration would be greater”, he said at the time.
Discover the declared Native Lands
Apiaká for Pontal and Isolated Native Land
The area was declared as permanent possession by the people of Apiaká, Munduruku and groups isolated by the MJSP it has 982.3 thousand hectares. Located in Apiacás, Mato Grosso, the TI delimitation process began in 2008, when the first Technical Group for identification and delimitation studies was established. Funai recognized the area three years later, in 2011.
Partially superimposed on the Juruena National Parkthe declared area has been paralyzed for many years in terms of demarcation due to a conflict of interest between the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and Funai. With the slow progress of the processes, the Federal Ministry of Public Affairs (MPF) in 2013, it even initiated a Civil Public Action and a Civil Public Inquiry so that the necessary administrative measures could be taken to complete the limitation.
The region where the IT is located, on the border between Mato Grosso, Pará and Amazonas, is under intense pressure from an increase in agricultural and mining activity. According to Funai’s Detailed Identification and Limitation Report (RCID), there are at least five overlapping properties on the IT.
In addition, another pressure on the territory comes from the construction of the São Manoel hydroelectric plant, located on the Teles Pires River, (MT and PA), in 2014. In the same year, said the Attorney General of the Republic at the time, Rodrigo. Janot , an application to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to suspend the environmental licensing of the plant to guarantee the protection of the isolates that Funai has known about since the 1980s.
Despite the fact that the Office of the Federal Attorney General (AGU) recognized the regularity of the plant, the MPF filed at least seven actions to stop the operation of the project due to the failure to comply with mandatory conditions and measures to prevent the damage caused to the to compensate affected communities. . The plant is still active.
According to Funai’s report, the Apiaká believe that the isolated indigenous people with whom they share the territory are actually relatives who chose an autonomous life due to violent encounters that led to epidemics and deaths at the beginning of the 20th century.
Terra Indígena Maró
To the people of Borari and Arapium de Santarém (PA), it was declared to be in permanent possession the area of 42.3 thousand hectares, whose identification studies were also started in 2008 and approved by Funai in 2011.
The MPF also acted in the region, starting with a Public Civil Action against a court decision that declared that the two ethnicities “did not exist”. The sentence was overturned in 2016.
According to the RCID, over the past four centuries Arapium and Borari have been affected by various areas of economic expansion, forcing the survivors of the first contacts to establish marginal relations with the colonists. With the 1988 Constitution, which recognizes a multi-ethnic State and guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples, these peoples were able to recreate their stories of belonging and their own history.
Also according to the report, “the integration of indigenous people into the surrounding society through the commercialization of products such as flour is described by chroniclers who passed through Baixo Tapajós in the 17th and 18th centuries, and continues to this day. It is worth noting that the hidden difference between the Borari and the Arapium in this inter-ethnic relationship is the collective way of using land and agricultural production, which is very different from those required by other neighboring populations in west of Pará.”
The Maró TI populations continue the tradition of production on their farms, basing their main economic activity on it. The relationship with the forest, hunting, fishing and gathering for food and medicinal purposes continue to be essential activities of their lives and are based on exchange with the people who live in the forest.
Cobra Grande Native Land
It was in 2008 that studies identified the 8.9 thousand hectares, now declared as permanent possession of the Arapium, Jaraqui and Tapajó communities by the MJSP, which initiated.
According to the RCID, the people of Arapium, Jaraqui and Tapajó suffered a process, which began around 1800, of trying to destroy their traditional ways and recognize them as indigenous. In this context, it was in the 1970s that communities began to demand – for a long time – their rights.
“The continuity of the indigenous history in the Arapiuns river valley can be seen, above all, in the fundamental aspects of their current way of life. It is evident in both its traditional mixed economy and its forms of socio-political and cosmological organization,” the report says.
Among the pressures against the territory is the construction of state highway PA-257, in 1980. Located in a border area, the highway accelerated the irregular progress of cattle farms, logging and small subdivisions.
In 2013, the communities began to build a consensus regarding the demarcation proposal and the implementation of a well-being plan, seeking the protection and sustainable management of the territory, while waiting for official recognition, as detailed in the report. Since 2015, the process has not progressed.
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