Guarani Tribe Protests New Executive Order

Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s recently passed executive order has grave ramifications for protected indigenous lands in the Amazon. On January 18, 2019, the day of the first Indigenous People’s March in Washington DC, another group of indigenous people marched 4,000 miles away in Ubatuba, São Paulo. Representing 21 neighborhoods in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the group marched through the streets in opposition to President Bolsonaro’s executive order to transfer the National Foundation of Indigenous People (FUNAI) to the Ministry of Agriculture. The Guarani tribe demanded that lands already set aside for indigenous groups not be altered and also filed a lawsuit with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office to reverse the executive order.

Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil

Currently, there are about 305 indigenous tribes living in Brazil, which total to 900,000 people and constitute 0.04 percent of the Brazilian population. They live on 13 percent of Brazilian land, 98 percent of which is in the Amazon, making the conservation of these lands vital to the preservation of their culture. Although the Brazilian constitution recognizes the original indigenous ownership of all Brazilian land, it requires the government to physically mark these protected territories, which is one of the main responsibilities of FUNAI.

Created in 1967 and formerly overseen by the Ministry of Justice, FUNAI is the official indigenous organization of the Brazilian government. It coordinates and executes federal policies for all indigenous groups in Brazil and is responsible for the “demarcation, regulation and registration” of lands traditionally occupied by indigenous peoples. By moving FUNAI to the Ministry of Agriculture, Bolsonaro reduced its status and gave its oversight to an organization with a competing agenda.

NGOs and Indigenous Groups vs. Bolsonaro and the Farming Lobby

This move has created concerns to many indigenous and environmental groups as the executive order pushes Brazil toward a pro-farming agenda and away from the conservation of the Amazon and its indigenous lands. During his election campaign, Bolsonaro discussed the need for land reforms, stating that he wanted to change the ownership of indigenous lands from communally-held, tribal lands to smaller land parcels held by native individuals. This would empower these native individuals to sell their land to powerful agricultural corporations, who have been lobbying for years for access to the Amazon. Currently, cattle ranching operations as well as soybean, sugar cane, and palm oil farms are the leading cause of Amazon deforestation. With conservation of the Amazon so crucial to preserving indigenous land rights, traditions, cultures, and ways of life, any threat of deforestation directly impacts the people who depend on the Amazon and its resources.

As Bolsonaro pursues his pro-farming agenda, he is also limiting any potential resistance to his actions. In the same executive order which transferred oversight of FUNAI to the Ministry of Agriculture, he also gave broad powers to the Secretary of Government to “monitor and accompany activities” of NGOs working in Brazil. This action threatens many watchdog organizations as it gives the government the ability to restrict their activities if they oppose Bolsonaro’s agenda. Anticipating a backlash, the President defended himself in a tweet days after the order was issued, blaming NGOs for keeping indigenous people “isolated from true Brazil” and calling for their integration into Brazilian society.

Tereza Dias: Bolsonaro’s Pro-Farming, Right-Hand Woman

To help make Brazil more farming-friendly, he appointed Tereza Cristina Dias as the Minister of Agriculture, who is also an adversary to protecting the Amazon. As the only woman in his cabinet, Dias is the leader of the Parliamentary Front of Agriculture, a pro-farming congressional caucus with ties to agribusiness. During her time as a federal deputy in Congress from 2015 to 2018, she helped pass a bill that would legalize the use of pesticides. She also recently criticized model and Brazilian public figure Gisele Bündchen, a UN Honorary Ambassador for the Environment, for harming Brazil’s reputation by condemning Amazon deforestation “without knowing the facts.” Currently, she is under investigation for taking bribes from pesticide companies for her re-election campaign.

Economic Promises vs. Environmental Protection

Brazil’s economy relies heavily on its export of raw materials, with soybeans, iron ore, and raw sugar making up 47 percent of Brazil’s exports. Due to this reliance on raw materials, expanding large-scale farming and increasing agricultural productivity is a top priority for Bolsonaro, who promised to kick start the economy and achieve a budget surplus by 2020. However, the question is how far he will go in eroding indigenous land rights to achieve that goal and whether he will bend to public pressure from celebrities like Bündchen and legal action from indigenous leaders and environmental NGOs.

There are still constitutional protections of Amazon lands which prevent any outright confiscation of indigenous lands by Bolsonaro. However, only a weakened FUNAI stands between changes to tribal lands and coercion by the agribusiness lobby to sell these lands. Indigenous leaders’ only recourse would be legal action in Bolsonaro-sympathetic courts. Under Bolsonaro, Brazil is heading for the largest deforestation of the Amazon in its history.

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It’s no secret that mankind’s industrial explosion has precipitated global climate change for over a century. As industrialism continues worldwide at a seemingly interminable rate, greenhouse gases are incessantly spewed into the atmosphere. Evidence gathered in 2009 demonstrated that since the onset of industrialism in the mid-18^th century, global carbon dioxide levels rose 38% and methane levels 148%. And, if that doesn’t make our impact on Mother Nature clear enough, a recent report compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reveals that the 21^st century has proven to be the warmest century on record by far.

Despite the obvious, few nations have taken sufficiently aggressive measures to curb the destructive effects of economic expansion. The feat is certainly a challenging one to achieve, considering the dependency of many industrial economies on natural resources. Arguably one of the most important habitats to the global environment is the Amazon Rainforest, of which 13% is situated within the boundaries of Peru. The trees that canopy the lush jungle are so massive and so numerous that the Peruvian Amazon is one of the largest stores of carbon in the world. In other words, the forest is one of the most critical sources of clean, breathable air for the entire human race.

However, the Peruvian economy has threatened world health with its mining industry. With large reserves of gold, silver and copper pocketed within the depths of the Amazon, mineral mining composes approximately 15% of the nation’s total GDP and 60% of exports. And, because of this, trees continue to fall staggering rates.

Of course the significance of the Amazon to the atmosphere is no foreign matter to the government of Peru—the country established the Ministry of Environment in 2008 as a condition in signing a free-trade agreement with the United States. Even so, the Ministry’s influence has now been reduced to null as recent economic interests have trumped environmental concerns. Lackluster investments and decreased mineral exports have prompted the government to loosen up on environmental restrictions on the mining industry, effectively depriving the Ministry of its purpose and placing much of the Amazon under the control of corporations.

But long-term global environmental concerns take on an exponentially higher sense of urgency when they levy extreme abuses of human rights and give rise to oppression. The mining industry has had a profound effect on the quality of lives of Peruvians situated in Amazonian regions. To cite but one example, a report compiled this past June by the human rights organization Front Line Defenders (FLD) cites that nearly half of the Cajamarca region is under mining concession. Despite two decades of mining activities in the area, it seems that the locals have no privilege of reaping a share of these economic benefits; 52% of the population lives in poverty—the highest in Peru.

Not only are mining corporations snatching up all the profits, but they are also concurrently destroying the habitats of the Cajamarca’s food sources. Much of the region’s settlers are indigenous and depend on farming to sustain themselves, and mining activities have destroyed significant amounts of farmland and have rendered much land unfertile. Water sources have been polluted with mercury and other toxins. The natural wildlife has been distorted. Local communities have been displaced both by excavation projects and a necessity to relocate to habitable environments. It seems that not even the well being of its own citizens fazes the Peruvian government in its pursuit of economic development.

What’s more is that the Peruvian government is effectively purging mineral-rich territories of any citizens that stand in its way in order to pursue economic gains. In 2011, three individuals were killed and several others injured when the national army brutally dispersed rural Peruvians who were protesting the development of the Tia Maria mine. Instead of recognizing its violation of basic human rights and granting environmental defenders their freedom of speech, Lima instead opted to provide soldiers and police officers a “license to kill” protestors, even if they were not endangered. The law safeguards government officials by granting total immunity for committing tyrannical violence against its own citizenry. This is all under the “state of emergency” that has been declared by President Ollanta Humala, which further underscores the extent to which profit eclipses a regard for human rights.

This type of repressive response towards protesters intervening in governmental environmental exploits is by no means a new matter for Peru, however. In 2009, during President Alan García’s term, police officers responsible for “protecting corporate interests” were discharged to quell a protest being held in the city of Bagua shortly after the signing of a Peru-US trade agreement that would unconstitutionally allow for the seizure of land from indigenous Awajúns and Wampis by oil and logging companies. The event infamously became known as the “Bagua Massacre,” and resulted in 20 deaths and over 200 injuries. When police forcefulness prompted a violent clash, García outlandishly accused demonstrators of “committing genocide” against his police force.

Peruvians were optimistic for an end to this oligarchical oppression with the election of current President Humala in 2011. The majority of support for Humala’s campaign came from indigenous and left-wing demographic groups within the country. However, their optimism was swiftly erased once it became clear that Humala would follow in García’s footsteps. It was shortly after his election that the Tia Maria mine demonstrations began, and rather than break from the style of his predecessor, Humala once again sent in the army to defend economic interests against the disquiets of his own citizens.

Environmental protesters are not only deprived of their freedom to express themselves, but have lost their freedom to privacy as well; according to the same FLD report, many individuals involved with protests against the government’s exploitations of the environment stated that they believed that they were almost always under physical or electronic surveillance. Some of these protesters who contributed to FLD’s report actually testified that they were certain that they were being kept under close watch, having been notified of their surveillance by intelligence services. Several accounts also indicate that personal homes were broken into while homeowners were away, with nothing stolen or broken, suggesting that these individuals were under surveillance and the break-ins were premeditated means of intimidation.

By prioritizing its economic gains over the freedoms and security of its own citizens, Lima is making a bold and dangerous statement: money matters more than the people of Peru. The nation is shifting from a democracy to a plutocracy as corporate interests dictate every politician’s move. Officials have levied an assault against their own people instead of making the effort to address protests in a diplomatic manner. And, with the government planning to continue expanding mining activities, there is no doubt that the bloodbaths are far from over. Humala is risking sacrificing stability and his nation’s international “democratic” reputation for economic gains, which in the long run will do little if human rights continue to be undermined. The Peruvian government must reform its methods of response to address protests in a nonviolent and conversational manner and reach compromises between both citizens and economic interests. This is the only way in which Lima can secure stability—through regaining legitimacy and the support of rural and liberal interests, which compromise a significant portion of the national demographic.

Given the current state of chaos ensuing in the Peruvian Amazon, it is imperative that this year’s UN Climate Change Convention, which is slated to take place in Lima in December, prioritizes the reinstallation of stringent government restrictions on environmental exploitations by corporations. The destruction of the carbon-rich jungle is of vital interest to the rest of the world given the fact that global air quality will continue to deteriorate from deforestation. And, because national stability is always interlinked with international economic relations, it is no question that the growing instability of Peru will have a negative impact on global trade markets as well.

It is imperative that all nations present in discussion frame environmental concerns in a manner that simultaneously serves to institute safeguards against the violation of citizens’ basic human rights. By reaching an agreement on curtailing corporate control of the Amazon in order to preserve the environment, the onslaught on the well being of indigenous communities will consequently come to a halt. Because it seems as though the quality of life of its citizens are of little interest to Peruvian officials, this change will most likely be brought about successfully only if introduced under the pretext of an extremely legitimate global environmental concern. Although Peru’s economy continues to progress, true national development will remain absent until the government can agree to respect the rights of its citizens and find middle ground on which to continue economic development in a sustainable matter while fostering political stability and concord.

The views expressed by these authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

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Every minute, an area the size of 50 soccer fields is destroyed in the Amazon Rainforest.  Over the past 40 years, nearly 20% of the forest has been destroyed – an area roughly the size of Alaska. Simply put, in less than half of a century more of the rainforest was destroyed than in the previous 450 years – combined.  High-resolution satellite images tell a story of devastating deforestation in the planet’s largest and most diverse rainforest. Many areas that were once a sea of lush greenery have been transformed into a barren, muddy landscape.

The Amazon represents more than half the remaining rainforest on the planet.  Humans depend on these ecosystems as a source for the planet’s carbon, water, and climate systems. Thus, it isn’t surprising that losing 2.3 million square kilometers of forest in a mere 13 years, as new research indicates, is of great concern to both environmental groups and national governments. While the majority of the Amazon is located in Brazil, the forest expands across nine countries making deforestation an international crisis.

With 20% of the forest already cut down and another 20%, as expected by scientists, to be on the chopping block over the next two decades, it is only a matter of time until the Amazon’s ecology will begin to collapse. Adding global warming to the mix makes the outlook seem worse. Over 100,000 miles of illegal roads, forged by loggers who aim to reach the prime hardwood trees deep in the forest, snake through the labyrinth of vegetation. Consequences of these new roads turn out to be equally as destructive as the actual logging. Land sharks slide in unnoticed and claim the land making land thievery a common crime. As is the case with many lucrative businesses, with high profits comes violence and corruption. Armed guards, hired gunmen, and corrupt government officials all help to facilitate these illegal activities.

It isn’t all bad news for the Amazon, however. Since the devastating revelation in the early 2000s, Brazil and other South American countries have committed to reversing the damage. New data shows that while Brazil still suffers from very high rates of forest clearing, the country has cut the annual rate of forest loss to half of what it once was. In turn, many of the strategies that Brazil has implemented as a deterrent to deforestation will help policymakers in other countries respond to the troubling rates of forest decline.

Nonetheless, the deforestation rates of 2013 were far from encouraging. It is clear that changes have to be made, as deforestation is threatening the local populations’ basic needs. In the most recent Amazonia Security Agenda, it was reported  “compromising Amazonia’s ecosystems, deforestation is now threatening not only the wellbeing and rights of the region’s people, but also the economic sustainability of the very industries that it has enabled.” Scarcity of food, water, and even energy are all threatened by exploitation of the Amazon.

Escalations in forest clearing are primarily being blamed on the weakening of legal protections in the Brazilian Forest Code that were passed under Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The reform was riddled with controversy, and was heavily supported by members of the farmer’s lobby known as the ruralists. In Brazil, where agriculture accounts for 5% of the country’s GDP, lobbyist influence has indirectly led to increased deforestation by loggers and farmers. At the United Nation’s Summit on Climate Change, the environment minister, Izabella Teixeira, chose to focus on Brazil’s triumphs, noting the overall trend was has been positive. She attributed the elevation in deforestation to organized crime and acknowledged that the government had taken steps to fight back, saying: “What is happening are crimes, we have 3,921 police investigations, some of them involving civil servants. We are cutting into our own flesh.” Teixeira strongly emphasized that eliminating illegal deforestation remained the goal in the eyes of the government and the crimes of loggers would not be tolerated. Going forward, it is up to the Brazilian government and their counterparts, as well as the global community, to secure the future of the world’s most important forest.

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