I have seen various types of foreign invaders enter my indigenous territory over the years. But today, it saddens me even more to see people take advantage of the pandemic, and continue to carry out illegal activities such as predatory fishing within our lands, because the law is no longer enforced in the context of Covid-19.

The violations are mostly taking place in the Pixaxa River, which delimits the boundaries of the Menkragnoti Indigenous Land (IL), and the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon.

Our land was recognized by the Brazilian state and has been clearly demarcated since 1993. Menkragnoti IL contains approximately 6 million hectares of preserved tropical forest in southwestern Pará state, near the border with neighboring Mato Grosso. The local municipality of Altamira has become one of the most deforested areas in Brazil in recent years.

Many people across the world have heard of the great chief, Cacique Raoní. Through him, many know of the existence of the Kayapó people, but most are unaware of our history and current reality. Our real name is Mebêngôkre, not Kayapó, as the white man refers to us.

We are warrior people. We prefer the borduna (a handmade wooden weapon with a cylindrical shape) to the bow and arrow, and we preserve our culture and rituals. We speak our own language – Kayapó – and are divided between Metyktire, Gorotire, Kuben-Krân-Krên, Kôkraimôrô, Kararaô, Xikrin and Menkrãgnoti. (The latter means “red faces”.) We occupy four ILs that extend from the north of Mato Grosso state to the south and west of Pará.

Constant Invasions

Encroachments on the Menkragnoti IL did not begin during the pandemic. For centuries, we have tried to live in peace in our natural habitat, unthreatened by non-indigenous society. We do not want loggers, miners, or other invaders on our territory because our land is a sacred place. It is where our elders walked, where our traditional medicines grow, and where our true “free market” is.

I imagine that many of these people do not know what the territory means to us. Cacique Raoní and other leaders fought hard for the demarcation, and it is up to us to honor their fight and protect these lands.

It is not “too much land for Indians”, as some say. We do not think of getting “rich” or of having a better life by using the land as farmers do: they pollute with poison and kill the real wealth that is the forest.

We are already rich because we can access everything we need to survive – water, fish, fruits, vegetables, and medicines – freely, without exchanging it for money. What they call “too much land” is actually too little compared to the amount of land we had before the Portuguese arrived in 1500. We defend it not only by thinking of ourselves but also the future – a future that belongs to us, the youth, and future generations.

Ancestral Knowledge

We defend the collective, the animals, our food, the old villages of those who came before us and our ancestral medicine. We also defend our elders, who pass on knowledge that goes beyond what any kuben (white man) could bring to the indigenous people.

Only a few can be initiated as pajés (shamans). It is a long and deep process that takes many years, and the practice only begins after becoming a grandfather. It is not like earning a university degree. Everything is learned orally and through practice.

The apprentice must be humble and demonstrate their willingness to learn with the shaman throughout the process, until the time comes to demonstrate the knowledge acquired. If the apprentice does not show he is ready, he will not get another chance.

When someone needs a cure, the person’s family looks for a shaman to obtain treatment. He examines the person, asks about the symptoms, and discovers exactly what is going on. He looks for the medicine in the forest and takes it home to prepare it.

The Arrival of Covid-19

To try to control the encroachment of logging, predatory fishing, and other threats, we have set up a monitoring base on the edge of the Menkragnoti IL, in the village of Pykatoti.

Every week, six warriors from six villages take turns inspecting the territory for potential invaders. But that doesn’t mean we’ve managed to reduce encroachment and predatory fishing.

We have frequently encountered unauthorized fishing in the Pixaxa. We approach the people doing it and explain our role, which is to inspect the perimeter every week to expel non-indigenous strangers, and inform them that carrying out this type of activity on indigenous territory is a crime.

With cases of Covid-19 in most of the villages, two indigenous people decided to take on the risk and resume surveillance work

This year, we held a meeting in Kubenkàkre village, where I was born, grew up, and live to this day. There we agreed to suspend all activities at the base to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.

Unfortunately, Covid-19 did arrive in the village, and the question remains: who brought this virus? We have no answer to this.

The only people who had access to the village were health workers from the Indigenous Health Department (DSEI Rio Tapajós), who came in small planes from Itaituba to transfer patients to hospitals in the cities.

With cases of Covid-19 in most of the villages, two indigenous people from Pykatoti, where the base is located, decided to take on the risk and resume surveillance work. There were many reports of encroachment, and the Pixaxa was becoming dirtier and dirtier: something that did not happen before.

With the base back in operation, Pykany village was the first to delegate six people to carry out surveillance activities for a week. I was part of that group.

We spent a week travelling up the Pixaxa, searching for buchas: small, improvised bridges that the invaders build so that their tractors and logging trucks can access protected lands. We did not find buchas, only invading fishermen who we asked, peacefully, to leave. We explained the importance of the law, which does not allow fishing in our rivers. And they left.

We returned to Pykany. Five days later myself and two other colleagues started to experience symptoms of Covid-19. Our first tests came back negative, but after ten days, we took a second test and found out that we really did have Covid-19. We must have been infected when we were on the base to patrol our territory, and came into contact with invaders.

The pandemic may be something new to the kuben, but not to us. Thousands and thousands of indigenous people were killed during the white man’s invasion, otherwise known as “contact”.

Before then, our elders lived isolated in the forest, and they had no diseases. With the kuben came the flu, coughs, diarrhea, and many other conditions my grandparents had never experienced before.

Then came measles. For us, measles was a pandemic of its own: it killed most of the population. There was no traditional medicinal treatment, as we had never seen anything like it.

Many of those contaminated had to be isolated. We learned a lot from this experience, which prepared us for fighting the coronavirus today. But, instead of realizing that they have a lot to learn from us, the kuben are still stubborn, believing that they have more knowledge than the indigenous people.

I overcame Covid-19 with the medicine the shamans found in the forest, made up of leaves, vines, and roots, which I drank as tea all day. They bring these medicines for both for the infected and for others in the villages, as a form of prevention.

At the beginning of the pandemic, there were no drugs for treatment at the village health posts, so health workers had to send infected patients to the nearby city of Novo Progresso.

According to a report from one of the infected patients, he arrived at the city’s municipal hospital. He was isolated without receiving medical care, starving, and without receiving visitors for two days. He survived because he decided to flee the hospital.

He took refuge in an indigenous health center (one of the Casas de Saúde Indígena, or CASAI), but there, he was also isolated and left without adequate care. It was then that he asked his wife to send him traditional medicines from the jungle. After a few days of treatment with our medicine, he was finally cured.

Most of the people in the Menkragnoti IL became infected with Covid-19: a total of 282, according to DSEI Rio Tapajós, as of 18 September 2020. All were treated with the same medicine. Nobody died. No one.

We Will Continue to Resist

For those who do not know our reality, we live among the Brazilian fauna and, for some years now, we have been persecuted by the government. There are plans for large projects in or around our territory because we have a lot of natural resources within the Menkragnoti IL.

They want to exploit the land and the people who live there at any cost. They think that there is no life there, but there is – and lots of it!

We depend on the forest and the river to survive. We are part of the forest, and the forest is part of us. We will continue to resist. To fight for our rights, we created our own NGO called the Kabu Institute. Today, the Kabu Institute performs the function that should belong to the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), such as monitoring and controlling the territory.

For us, FUNAI no longer exists. Today, it is run by politicians in favor of extractive and agribusiness interests. We are the ones who continue the work and will always defend our indigenous territory because we are the greatest guardians and protectors of the rainforest, the Amazon, and Brazilian biodiversity.

It is time for non-indigenous people to recognize that we are the first inhabitants of this land. We are not occupying your lands, which would otherwise be “productive”. You have invaded us and are living on our land.

You must recognize and respect indigenous people and our history in this territory, which you now call Brazil.

Pho Yre Mekragnotire is a young indigenous communicator of the Kayapó Mekragnoti Media collective, a member of Engajamundo and works in Rede Xingu.

This article appeared originally in Open Democracy – https://www.opendemocracy.net/

The far-right leader’s comments come as Brazil goes through its deadliest week of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 1,900 deaths per day.

“Enough with the Fussiness, Stop the “Mimimi. Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?” Bolsonaro said as he called for easing restrictions. “We regret the deaths … But where’s Brazil going to end up if we just close everything?”

The South American country of 212 million people has had an outbreak of cases, partly due to a variant of the virus detected in the Amazon rainforest.

Bolsonaro previously compared Covid-19 to a “little flu” and promoted hydroxychloroquine as medication, despite studies showing its inefficiency against the virus.

At least 260,000 people died in Brazil because of Covid-19.

What reaction has there been to President Bolsonaro’s comments?

The comments were met with a furious response from São Paulo’s governor, João Doria, who has been particularly scathing of Mr. Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.

Mr Doria called President Bolsonaro “a crazy guy” for attacking “governors and mayors who want to buy vaccines and help the country to end this pandemic”.

“How can we face the problem, seeing people die every day? The health system in Brazil is on the verge of collapse,” Mr Doria said.

President Bolsonaro has consistently opposed quarantine measures introduced by governors, arguing that the collateral damage to the economy will be worse than the effects of the virus itself.

“Unfortunately, Brazil has to fight, at this moment, two viruses: the coronavirus and Bolsonaro virus. This is a sadness for the Brazilians,” Mr Doria said.

A Deadlier Variant

The coronavirus pandemic has worsened considerably in Brazil. One reason is the Manaus variant of the coronavirus but there are others. Experts say a hard lockdown is needed to prevent disaster.

The numbers are alarming. On Tuesday, a new daily record was broken when 1,726 people died of COVID-19 in Brazil. The average death rate over the past week was 1,274. That’s almost 25% higher than two weeks ago.

“We are currently experiencing the worst moment of the pandemic, with daily death tolls breaking new records and overburdened intensive care units all over the country,” microbiologist Natalia Pasternak informed.

Over 257,000 Brazilians have died of COVID-19 already. But the spread of the virus has picked up dramatically. On Tuesday, almost 60,000 new cases were registered.

Earlier this year, it took 34 days for the death toll to rise from an average of 1,000 per day to 1,100. But then it was only three days before this had risen to 1,200.

Experts assume that the situation has been exacerbated by the P.1 variant first detected in Manaus, the state capital of Amazonas. On Monday, researchers from Oxford University and the Institute of Tropical Medicine in São Paulo, along with other institutes, published preliminary results that found this variant is between 1.4 and 2.2 times more transmissible than the original virus.

Furthermore, it is thought that even patients who have recovered from COVID-19 can get it again and transmit it.

Pasternak said that the reason why this variant was even able to emerge lay with the lack of measures to combat the coronavirus in Brazil and the lax attitude to protective measures.

“Like all variants, the Manaus variant emerged because the virus was able to circulate uncontrolled,” she said.

“So, it cannot be said that the variant itself caused the rising numbers. Precautionary measures were lifted, and people did not isolate, which has led to variants that are more contagious and thus more likely to fuel the spread of the disease.

WHO Warns

The arrival of Covid-19 vaccines should not tempt countries to relax efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic, top World Health Organization officials said on Friday, citing concern that Brazil’s epidemic could spread to other countries.

“We think we’re through this. We’re not,” Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergency expert, told an online briefing. “Countries are going to lurch back into third and fourth surges if we’re not careful.”

Record Covid-19 deaths have been reported in Brazil this week and its hospital system is on the brink of collapse, driven partly by a more contagious variant first identified there.

On a global level, Covid-19 case numbers reversed a six-week downwards trend last week despite the delivery of millions of doses of vaccines in recent weeks, WHO data showed.

“Now is not the time for Brazil or anywhere else for that matter to be relaxing,” Ryan added. “The arrival of vaccines is a moment of great hope but it is also potentially a moment where we lose concentration.”

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the epidemic in Brazil as “very, very concerning” and warned of a possible regional spillover.

“If Brazil is not serious, then it will continue to affect all the neighborhood there and beyond,” he said.

Indians Welcome Vaccine

An army helicopter flew to two isolated indigenous villages in Brazil’s Amazon jungle this week with a welcome cargo – coronavirus vaccines.

The Hupda communities lined up to get their shots.

Traditional medicine prescribed by a shaman is highly respected here, but there was no resistance to receiving the vaccine by China’s Sinovac Biotech.

“We are grateful for the vaccination, so we will not catch the disease,” said Hupda chieftain Jorge Pires in the village of Santo Antanasio, near the Colombian border and a 25-minute helicopter flight from the nearest military outpost.

Following criticism by indigenous leaders that echoed internationally last year that their vulnerable communities were being “decimated” by Covid-19, Brazil’s Health and Defense ministries have mounted a vaccination campaign reaching remote reservations and villages.

So far 265,244 indigenous people have had a first dose, and 124,063 the second dose, of 400,000 covered by the ministry’s indigenous health service Sesai.

According to the service, 50,000 indigenous people have been infected and 589 have died from COVID-19.

That does not include half of Brazil’s 800,000 plus indigenous population not covered by Sesai because they have moved off traditional lands and reservations.

Brazil is battling a Covid-19 outbreak that is worsening, with record deaths reported in the last three days, reaching 1,910 dead in 24 hours on Wednesday. So far, 260,000 people have died and 10.8 million infected, the second-deadliest after the United States.

In the second village of Taracuá Igarapé, there have been no cases of Covid-19 thanks to its isolation, but preventing coronavirus from taking hold is paramount to protecting indigenous communities that live under one roof and cannot practice social distancing.

The challenge of reaching 20,000 indigenous people living in a jungle area the size of Portugal is enormous, and requires helicopter travel, because travel by meandering rivers takes days, said Army Colonel Sylvio Doktorczyk.

“When we talk about Amazonia, everything is superlative, including the difficulties! Particularly the great distances and long rivers,” the colonel heading the mission said.

It was a return visit to the two villages to inoculate those that missed the first dose because they were out hunting or fishing, and to gives other their second shot of CoronaVac.

“My people liked to have the vaccine. My community like the vaccine and like when medical people come here,” said Jovino Pinoa, after getting his second shot.

DW/Reuters/MP

Álvaro Fernandes Sampaio Tukano is the chief of the 260,000 hectares Balaio Indian Reservation of the Tukano people on the upper Rio Negro in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. For decades, the 67-year-old defends the rights of the indigenous peoples, their territories and traditions.

Alvaro is considered one of the most important political leaders of Brazil’s indigenous peoples. In the 1970s he co-founded the indigenous movement in Brazil and in 1984 co-founded the umbrella organization of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA).

How do you describe the situation of indigenous peoples in Brazil in general and today?

Álvaro Tukano: I would like to thank you for the opportunity to talk about the reality of the indigenous peoples and my people who live on the border between Brazil and Venezuela, in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira. My ceremony name is Doéthiro.

Doéthiro was the first man of my people called Yepa Mahsã. We are descendants of Doéthiro. Today I am 67 years and my father is 114 years old. He is one of the last survivors of the ancients, because most of them are gone and took a lot of traditional knowledge with them.

Generally speaking, Brazil has a history that is not pleasant for its indigenous peoples. We have lost peace since the day the “white man” entered our country. And our country was torn apart by the greed of the invaders. To date, we face prejudice and the Brazilian authorities are watering down our rights. The reality is that the “whites” have been robbing us since 1500, and they are still robbing us.

Such as the thousands of illegal gold miners in the Yanomami and Munduruku reservations…

Álvaro Tukano: The Brazilians know what the real situation is in this country. We are simply not taken into account. And because our rights are not respected and implemented by the government today, we find ourselves in an unfortunate situation with invaders like land robbers, timber companies, gold miners (garimpeiros) and a lack of justice and the murder of our leaders.

And all of this is done in the name of the development of Brazil and the exploitation of our resources for the world. It would be good if we were respected so that we would not be constantly manipulated in the name of progress. This is very bad for us.

And the Covid 19 pandemic has further worsened the situation of the indigenous population…

Álvaro Tukano: We are fed up with living in this world of injustice. And now the new corona virus was added. Without support, we lack the minimum conditions to face this pandemic.

Nevertheless, our wise healers with their traditional knowledge try to fight the disease. The majority of the indigenous people who had the coronavirus survived in my territory of the Tukano people. They escaped death with the help of shamanism and medicinal plants from the rainforest.

It is also a sad fact that COVID-19 has already hit a total of 140 Indian reservations and more than 620 indigenous people have died from the virus according to the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB).

Álvaro Tukano: Mainly the indigenous people who were treated in non-indigenous public hospitals have died. They died because they did not believe in our traditional healing methods and medicines and because of the lack of traditional wisdom. The loss of traditional knowledge makes us dependent on the state healthcare system, and this system is expensive and not good.

Other native peoples such as the Xavante in Mato Grosso and the Kayapó in Pará have lost important leaders and chiefs because of the corona virus. A big loss was the legendary Paulinho Paiakan.

Álvaro Tukano: Unfortunately that’s the truth. We have lost the great Paulinho Paiakan, the defender of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. He was a long-time colleague, a big star of the indigenous movement and the Kayapó people. In southern Brazil, we lost chief Nelson Xangrê, who was one of the first known leaders of the Kaingang and who also fought alongside me for the indigenous rights over the years. He also died of COVID-19.

Chiefs of the Xavante also died, and all because the indigenous world is becoming smaller and smaller due to the immense expansion of agribusiness. The agribusiness continues to advance with its pesticides and “roasts” the Cerrado, the Amazon and the rest of the country. The contamination happens day and night. Unfortunately we are facing this sad situation.

As a long time indigenous leader, what is your assessment of the previous government, the 14 years of PT, the Workers’ Party in power?

Álvaro Tukano: To touch that subject is to touch an open wound. I will touch the wound. As a leader for 30 years I took this banner of PT, the Workers’ Party, to many regions of the country. Despite being unemployed, we spoke as if we were factory workers, salaried men. I am not a wage earner, I am independent, like many indigenous people. However, it was good to dream about a better Brazil.

Unfortunately here in this country, the extremists on the right and the left, they are very quarrelsome, each defends his group, his dogma and forgets us, the indigenous peoples. So, I can’t say if that was a good time or that Lula was good. I cannot.

When that government of Lula da Silva was in power, it had the pen in its hand. But it was weak in the face of other programs that were of interest to large transcontinental companies such as hydroelectric power plants, dams, the transposition of the São Francisco River and other mega projects such as large football stadiums. And that was not in our interest.

Our interest was that the government demarcated and approved all indigenous territories – which did not happen. So it is really hard to say that it was good for us.

What is needed to improve the situation of the indigenous peoples of Brazil?

Álvaro Tukano: We need more resistance against the oppression we are suffering here in this country. These are, for example, the agricultural companies that threaten the future of Brazil and especially the future of the indigenous peoples.

International organizations also need to recognize where the real difficulties are. Many First World countries have given Brazil economic support to maintain and defend the Amazon and its peoples. This money is in the Brazilian development bank BNDES, more than a billion dollars. But this money does not reach the indigenous peoples who defend the Amazon day and night.

In November 1980, at the 4th Russell Tribunal in Rotterdam, I accused the Brazilian military dictatorship and the Salesian missionaries in the Amazon of ethnocide, which cost me dearly. Then in 1990, as a representative of COICA, I traveled through Europe to sign an agreement with European cities which should provide financial support for the defense of the Amazon rainforest.

You mean the Climate Alliance and the Manifesto of European Cities on an Alliance with Amazonian Indian Peoples, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Álvaro Tukano: Yes. Since then, many NGOs have taken over the funds that were intended to protect the Amazon. Instead of benefiting the indigenous peoples, the money remained in the offices of the large NGOs – until today. Nothing came to us. That has to be said.

So it’s not just the Brazilian government that stands in the way. There are also people on the management levels of NGOs who hinder us, boycott and reject our projects. But we don’t really care. We will continue as we are.

We don’t want alms, sweets, glass beads or mirrors. It is respect that we want from the non-indigenous world, equality in dialogue and equality before the law. Brazilian society should support the indigenous peoples and respect our rights.

What else is necessary?

Álvaro Tukano: Brazil has 314 indigenous peoples who speak 272 languages. We are all together less than 1 million indigenous people in Brazil, we are survivors. There is Brazil’s state agency for indigenous affairs FUNAI, which basically has good employees to demarcate and protect our territories. But if FUNAI, like today, has no support from the government, this is bad for us. That is why we experience so many invasions by logging companies, gold miners and others.

What is your wish for the near future?

Álvaro Tukano: I would like to say to the young indigenous leaders in Brazil: we must never forget our origins and never be ashamed of our origins. We have to revive our traditions, maintain our ethics. And keep the simplicity that has always been the nobility of our chiefs, and don’t let anyone manipulate you.

This interview was conducted by Brazilian sociologist Márcia Gomes de Oliveira and journalist Norbert Suchanek from Rio de Janeiro.

Although it has been incorporated into the modern world system since the 16th century, Amazonia is still widely regarded as a lush, beckoning frontier of untapped natural resources.

This matters because stereotypical images effect how the region continues to be treated in terms of international politics, commercial ventures, environmentalist interventions and developmental prescriptions.

The modern reassertion of Amazonia as untapped nature, also currently wrapped in a globalist eco-package – lungs of the Earth, bio-diversity, carbon sink – offers license for rapacious commercial exploitation.

One of the implications of the ‘frontier still to be conquered’ is that Amazonia offers the comparative advantage of ‘cheap nature’ and is not seen as a social landscape. This is an idea that is captured in the subtitle of the archaeologist Betty Meggar’s influential book Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise.

This process of erasing the idea of a social landscape proceeds in part by denying the viability, or indeed history, of the numerous social landscapes of Amazonia, past and present.

We’re seeing the building of highly destructive roads and hydroelectric dam programs, such as those currently pursued in the Tapajós and Xingu basins. The region is also currently succumbing to little-regulated extraction of minerals and commercial foodstuffs, such as soybeans, as well as timber felling and cattle-ranching.

But the region does have a history, albeit one that is little understood. And one period of this history in particular demonstrates how such mythologising plays into the hands of non-Amazonian interests, rather than Amazonian constituents.

The ‘Boom’

The rubber industry, which flourished between 1820 and 1910, is perhaps the best-known historical epoch of the region. At its height, the industry attracted as many as 300,000 people, mainly immigrants from northeastern Brazil, and there were direct shipping lines between New York and Liverpool and the ports of Manaus and Belém. The Opera House in Manaus exemplified the cosmopolitan character of ‘rubber society’.

But it has been idealized, too. This 100-year-long extractive industry, upon which industrialization in Europe and North America depended, is conventionally depicted as a ‘boom’, an unexpected and transitory event that transformed the region and promised much, only to be followed by an equally dramatic regional decline. But re-examination of the period challenges this portrayal.

Amazonian rubber (primarily Hevea brasilensis) was extracted from trees that were naturally distributed in the forest, not from plantation cultivation. The growth of the industry was therefore dependent on increasing the number of tappers, not on technical changes that might enhance productivity.

With the development of vulcanization in the mid-19th century, the uses to which rubber was put increased dramatically. So, therefore, did the range and intensity of extractive enterprise, including enslavement of Indian tappers, notoriously in the Putumayo.

But change was incremental. The ‘boom’ of the rubber industry applies better to the global growth of the range and volume of industrial applications of rubber than it does to the industry on the ground at the time.

We might compare the output of Amazonian rubber at the height of the so-called boom with that of Southeast Asian plantations (initially, mainly Malaysian). Output from Amazonia (which peaks in 1910-1912) is about 60,000 metric tons. (Some published figures would place it just under 90,000 tons – but in terms of the broad picture, this is an inconsequential difference.) This is a number that pales in the face of plantation output, which in just a few years overtook Amazonian output.

But despite the precipitous collapse of the price of wild rubber in 1910, when plantation rubber came onto the market, Amazonians continued to produce rubber for decades. They did so not as a central cash crop, but in combination with other autosubsistent and low-key market activities.

Wild Rubber

And so to regard Amazon production as a ‘boom’ that failed to be converted into a mature plantation industry utterly misrepresents it. The industry’s collapse was not the result of intrinsic Amazonian shortcomings, but because of the cheaper sourcing of rubber from Southeast Asian plantations, which were not susceptible to the leaf blight that plagued attempts at Amazonian cultivation.

Although the rubber period is hailed as an age of commercial success, it is also invoked as an example of the chronic failures of flawed South American enterprise. That failure is variously attributed to a shortage of entrepreneurial zeal, the fatal lassitude characteristic of ‘the tropics’, truculent peasants and ‘the Dutch disease’, among many other suggested flaws.

The collapse of rubber is cited as the immediate predecessor to the economic stagnation said to have characterized Amazonia throughout most of the 20th century. It is said that the rubber industry singularly failed to transform the region and provide a lasting basis for integration into the modern world economy.

But none of this can be blamed for the local ‘bust’. The global character of the rubber industry is disregarded in these portrayals of a regional phenomenon.

Modern Frontiers

It is as though after the supposed industry ‘boom’, blossoming ‘Amazonian society’ merely devolved back into, or was overwhelmed by, a natural regime. In light of this, it is not surprising that in the recurrent myth-making apparatus of ‘the lost world’, ‘the land people forgot’, ‘the last frontier’ and so on, a general picture of ‘non-indigenous’ Amazonia as a land of inept and barely coping colonists resurfaces.

Thinking of the rubber industry as a ‘boom’ reinforces the notion that attempts to ‘tame the Amazon’ are precarious because of the intractability of the forest. And now that the portrayal of Amazonia as fundamentally a natural and durable space, inimical to humans, has returned, the developmental emphasis is on the gross extraction of raw materials, not the supported settlement of Amazonian communities.

The renewed commercial extractive exploits in the region appeal to the same old ‘conquest of empty frontiers’ and the rational exploitation of ‘natural wealth’.

But these are actually being conducted against the existing, but ill-defended interests of Amazonians – indigenous, peasant, and colonist alike – who have occupied those ’empty frontiers’ for centuries, and whose voices and presence are too often overwhelmed by the iconography of a regal, Amazonian tropicalism.

Stephen Nugent is an Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/stop-mythologising-the-amazon-it-just-excuses-rampant-commercial-exploitation-91343

Known officially as the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Lands, the reserve is located in the state of Roraima, in the North region of Brazil. The decision was controversial. The land is located on borders with Venezuela and Guiana (the military was upset about giving borderland to Indians). Also, large tracts of the area were used for rice fields, run by non-indigenous farmers.

This Monday, April 19, 18,000 Indians were present for a visit by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to a community called Maturuca inside the reserve to celebrate the anniversary of the “homologação” and Indian Day.

The main reason for celebrations by most of the Indians is that a year ago, following the Supreme Court decision, non-indigenous rice growers,  who had taken the place of cattle ranchers and gold prospectors, all of them tradition nemeses of the indigenous peoples, were forced to exit the area, finally leaving it to the Indians.

However, since then the Indians themselves have divided into two bickering groups, called CIR (Conselho Indígena de Roraima – Roraima’s Indigenous Council) and Sodiu (Sociedade de Defesa dos Indígenas Unidos de Roraima – Society for the Defense of Roraima’s United Indigenous), which are disputing the future of the area and its peoples.

One group is in favor of allowing non-indigenous people on the land. The other group is radically opposed, so much so that they want to expel even non-indigenous men who are married to Indian women.

One recurrent problem is the non-indigenous use of alcoholic beverages – strictly prohibited on Indian lands.

“Cachaça (sugarcane liquor) is destroying our communities,” claims Rossildo de Oliveira, a member of the largest indigenous group, the Macuxi, who threatens to make a complaint to the local outpost of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).

“They should be more careful about what comes into the reservation. We need an inspection post to control the entrance of prohibited merchandise,” says Oliveira.

In a number of ways, life has gotten more expensive since the rice growers left. For example,  Manoel Albuquerque, a Macuxi farmer, says he used to buy ration for his cows from rice growers who made it from discarded parts of rice plants.

It cost 8 reais (US$ 4.6) for a sack of 30 kilos. Now he has to pay 30 reais (US$ 17) for the same amount and travel 170 kilometers (106 miles) to Boa Vista to get it. And another problem: with the rice growers gone, traffic has dwindled on the roads around the indigenous lands. In the past it was easy to hitch a ride with someone. “Now,” says Albuquerque, “there ain’t nobody going anywhere”.

With the expulsion of the non-indigenous rice growers, the Indians have not been able to agree on how to work the rice fields left behind. One thing is for sure: with the exit of the rice growers, the job market collapsed.

Amazonina Carneiro, another Macuxi, who is married to a non-indigenous, says she is sad now because after the big rice farms closed her boys left home and went to the big city (Boa Vista, capital of Roraima).

“There’s no work here anymore. No way to make a cent,” she says. “You know, a lot of people thought that after the “homologação” the Indians would come together and work things out. But that never happened. Indians have never been united. Never in history. And it was not going to happen here.”

April 13, the general coordinator of Sodiu-RR, Silvio da Silva, said it was quite possible that the two indigenous groups in Raposa Serra do Sol would go on the warpath against each other.

“Somebody is going to be sacrificed,” he declared. The situation is so tense that a federal judge (“desembargador,” basically a lower court judge) has ordered representatives of the two groups, CIR and Sodiu-RR, to meet with him next week and try to iron out some of their differences.

ABr

Zamin owns 50% of Bamin a joint venture with Kazakhstan Eurasian Natural Resources Corp that is developing a mine at Caetité in Bahia state in the Brazilian northeast.

The mine will start operations in September 2012 and produce up to 25 million tons a year of iron ore concentrate. Iron ore reserves in the area are estimated at 2.5 billion tons.

Pramod Agarwal CEO of Zamin said the company is also in the early stages of prospecting a 6 million ton per year iron ore project called Greystone to the south of the Caetité mine. He said that elsewhere in South America, Zamin is developing another iron ore project slap bang in the middle of neighboring Uruguay near the town of Valentines.

Mr Agarwal said “Although the ore quality is low grade, it is easier to process into concentrate”. He anticipated that he will be present Friday, alongside Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the laying of a foundation stone marking the beginning of work on Brazil West-East Railroad, a critical link in developing the Caetité reserve.

The railroad will provide the key 535 kilometer line from Bamin planned port terminal to the mine. Earlier this week, Brazil Ministry of Transport said a tender prospectus for the US$ 3.3 billion 1,500 kilometer railroad would be issued by this weekend.

Mr Agarwal said construction of the port is expected to go ahead by August.

A Zamin spokesman said the railroad, being developed by Valec Engenharia an engineering company controlled by the Brazilian Ministry of Transport, has enough ring-fenced funding around BRL 1.7 billion to cover expenditure for at least the section of interest to Bamin.

While the Brazilian government will pay for the railroad infrastructure, Bamin will buy 15 to 20 locomotives and 1,000 wagons to carry the ore to its private deepwater terminal to be built near Ilhéus, Bahia.

Mercopress

Funasa, currently responsible for indigenous care, over the years, has been accused of corruption and diversion of funds.

The measure depends on the approval of the Congress. The creation of the secretariat has been a banner in the struggle of the indigenous movement for many years.

In 2008 the issue of indigenous health was highlighted in the Acampamento Terra Livre. This motivated the creation of the Indigenous Health Working Group, within the Ministry of Health, composed of members of government and indigenous leaders. It incorporated discussions on the creation of the secretariat.

In the same year indigenous leaders succeeded in preventing the government from creating the Secretariat of Primary Care and Promotion of Health, which would not have dealt specifically with the question of indigenous health.

The creation of the Special Secretariat totally changes the management of indigenous health care. It becomes responsible for oversight of all demands and for the creation of public policies exclusively for indigenous health, delineation of which are in turn to be based on directives approved by the National Conferences of Indigenous Health, through the Arouca Law, through Labor legislation and public administration, as well as the Federal Constitution.

For the Vice-President of the Indigenist Missionary Council, Robert Liebgott, the creation of the Secretariat returns these constitutional responsibilities to the competency of the federal government.

“The policy that had been developed was considered unconstitutional because it had been founded in the logic of outsourcing of services. Now the Federal Government is once again responsible for providing indigenous health care,” he stated.

As it is to be structured, the Special Secretariat will be a connective link with the Special Indigenous Sanitation Districts (DSEIs), which through the legislation will have administrative and financial autonomy in the provision of services to the communities.

The Districts are responsible for the development of district plans, in which all demands will be presented, services and actions carried out, as well as equipment, vehicles and necessary medicines.

These units are responsible for conjoining technical activities of health care. They promote the reordering of the health network and sanitation practices, organize administrative/management activities and stimulate social control.

With the administrative autonomy of the Districts the indigenous community is to be more proximate to the management of resources with regard to basic care. With this there will be greater agility in providing services, reducing response time in the actions developed by the institution.

It was the approval of Recurso (appeal) No. 182 that finally unlocked the lawmaking process again. This Recurso had been presented on December 6, 1994, after a previous Recurso had locked it – causing the Statute to disappear way down in the drawers of the parliamentarians.

Now the leadership of the Câmara can set the calendar for debates on what is formally knows as Bill (Projeto de Lei) 2057/91.

The president of the Câmara, Deputy Michael Temer, announced the news during a meeting with the representatives of the National Commission of Indigenist Policy (CNPI-Comissão Nacional de Polí­tica Indigenista).

Over the last few years the CNPI has worked to create a new, modernized proposal for the Statute, involving intensive nationwide discussion among the over 220 different indigenous peoples in Brazil.

The final result was approved off by over 1000 indigenous leaders in May, 2009 and is also supported by various organisms of the federal government that take part in the CNPI.

On August 6, the Minister of Justice, Tarso Genro and Márcio Meira, the president of the National Foundation of Indigenous Affairs (Funai- Fundação Nacional do índio) delivered the proposal to Temer.

Now the Bill joins the original proposals of the Indigenous Statute, as an amendment. The indigenous peoples press for analysis and approval of this and other amendments by a special commission composed of deputies that are familiar with indigenous matters.

"There are many proposals discussed in parliament that are bad for the indigenous. For that reason I hope that you look at this statute, because it was created by us, indigenous", the Kayapó leader Akyaboro stressed.

The president of the Câmara noted that the parliament is a space for debates, therefore there would be divergences, but affirmed that, "this Statute will only be born if the indigenous peoples are in agreement over it."

Anastácio Peralta, Guarani Kaiowá, emphasized that the Statute would serve as parameter for relations of the federal government, states and municipalities with the indigenous peoples. It would eliminate the uncertainties that exist today and improve the execution of public policies.

"We, the indigenous appear a lot in the negative discussion, for example about suicide, assassination of indigenous… Now we want to appear as participating in the creation of this law, showing the legislators co-operating with us."

Cimi

The act happened after the Regional Reunion on the Indigenous People Statute in Ilhéus.

The participants sent out a motion that repudiates the police action that left ten indigenous of the Serra do Padeiro village injured by rubber bullets and that destroyed school transport vehicles, furniture of the local school, agricultural fields and houses, among other things.

They equally repudiated the decision of the Federal Court that determined the evacuation of the Tupinambá of their villages, as to comply with the reintegration order. The attempt of the federal police to evacuate the indigenous ended in a violent raid.

The indigenous demanded an immediate police inquiry to corroborate the claims of torture, abuse of authority, damage of public and private patrimony and robbery by police officers during the raid.

They also demand that the absence of authority of the Federal Court of Bahia and of the Federal Ministry be evaluated.

They equally solicited that the National Council of Justice determine regulations to avoid violations of human rights when court orders are carried out, also in territories occupied by indigenous communities in search of their recognition.

The two days workshop on the Federal Indigenous Statute had specifically addressed the way the police act in indigenous territories. In fact, various indigenous communities in Bahia encounter abuse by the police. The proposals resulting from this workshop will be handed over to National Committee on Indigenous Policy (CNPI).

This CNPI will gather all suggestions coming from the 10 regional workshops about the Statute. It is via the Committee that the indigenous people of Brazil will submit their proposal for the Indigenous Statute. Currently, the Law proposing the new Statute has been lingering in the national congress for 13 years now

Besides representatives of the indigenous people, also NGO's like CIMI (Indianist Missionary Council) and ANAI (National Association of Indian Support) participated in the workshops, as well as governmental organs like the Foundation for Indigenous Affairs, the ministries of Environment, Justice and Social Affairs development, and universities.

Costa was sleeping on a square bench after attending a party, and could not defend himself when the male youngsters – a 18-year-old and two minors (12 and 13) – began to kick him in the head.

According to the team of the Brazilian Indianist Missionary Council (Cimi) office, which follows up on activities in the region, this violent action cannot be considered as an isolated fact. It took place within the context of the fight of the Xakriabá people for reoccupying their territory.

Avelino was directly engaged in the struggle for the land. He was a member of the group that reoccupied an area in the region of Dizimeiro, located in the Peruaçu valley, in April 2007. This murder shows how the Xakriabá people are neglected and discriminated against. In the 1980s, three of their members were killed because of land conflicts.

Since they began to reoccupy their territories, the Xakriabá people are being threatened. Several police reports were filed in the police stations of São João das Missões, Manga and Itacarambi. All these police reports were also communicated to the Federal Prosecutor's Office and to FUNAI, but no action was taken.

The leaders feel threatened by the lack of protection from the State. Santo Xakriabá, from the Morro Vermelho village, agrees and stresses, "If this neglect on the part of Funai (National Indian Foundation), which abandoned us, continues, more people can die."

After Avelino's murder, three assaulters were arrested in the city of Manga (state of Minas Gerais). Edson Gonçalves is 18 years old. The assaulters told the police that they did not mean to kill Avelino. They just wanted to scare him. "We only wanted to beat him, take off his clothes and then leave," they said.

The team of the East Cimi office is following up on this case together with the indigenous community and the legal authorities. "We intend to follow up on each step taken by the courts, so that society and its institutions may know that people cannot do something like this and get away with it," stressed Wilson Mário Santana, the coordinator of the East Cimi office.