A Brazilian Supreme Court ruling could permit the municipality that oversees the reservation to legalize the residence of farmers already infiltrating on the indigenous land.
Parakana people, who have for over three decades been fighting to protect their land in the Apyterewa reservation, in the northern state of Pará, fear there will be more deforestations, environmental degradation and injustice, as well as a loss of their culture, livelihood, and rights over their land due to the court ruling.
The Parakana people have been protesting and fighting legally to protect their land from illegal miners, loggers, and farmers who clear large swathes of trees.
Land rights activists state the court ruling which would make indigenous protected territories accessible for development, is ‘unconstitutional’.
Negotiations- referred to by the court as a conciliation – between Brazil’s government and the municipality of Sao Félix do Xingu were commenced in May by Justice Gilmar Mendes o
The municipality of Sao Félix do Xingu wants to decrease the size of the indigenous land for a local farmers’ association.
The negotiations are seen as a stepping stone for permitting the reduction of other indigenous territories across Brazil.
Commenting on the court ruling, Luiz Eloy Terena, a lawyer at APIB, Brazil’s main indigenous federation, said, “Rights to (indigenous) territories, as provided in the constitution itself, are non-disposable rights – they are not subject to any type of negotiation”.
Eloy stated how there are several other similar Supreme Court cases set for hearings in the coming months which might be influenced by the decision of the negotiations over Apyterewa case.
Eloy and other indigenous rights advocates also mentioned that initially Parakana people were not even asked to take part in the negotiations about their own land.
Talking to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Kaworé Parakana, the indigenous leader, stated how for the Parakana people, negotiations are not an option, the community only accepts the option of eviction of the invaders from their land.
“We don’t want to give them even a millimeter,” Kaworé said to the Thomson Reuters Foundation over the phone.
“With each day that passes there is a huge amount of deforestation. They create large fields. There has been a lot of smoke here lately at the bottom of the area,” he added.
It is important to mention that, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), last year, deforestation in Brazil increased by a further 25% in the first half of 2020, hitting an 11-year high.
Moreover, Apyterewa had the second-highest level of deforestation amongst indigenous territories in 2019, according to INPE.
Deforestation has taken place rapidly for purposes of land clearing to allow cattle ranching, soy cultivation, and illegal gold mining and logging.
Human rights groups claim Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro of motivating invaders to increase their activities in indigenous lands over the years as, according to the activists, the president plans to open mining and farming sectors in protected and indigenous lands in the Amazon region.
Adding to human rights groups claims, Kaworé said, “The government wants to exchange indigenous people for cattle. That is the government’s main interest – to transform the forest into farmland and put cattle on indigenous land.”
“If this happens to the Parakana people, the people will die together with the land, because how will we practice our culture? It could suddenly die. We don’t want that,” Kaworé added.