Alcohol plant tries to guarantee farms in indigenous land – 08/30/2023 – Environment

An alcohol and sugar plant that appears on a list of the largest companies in Brazilian agribusiness seeks to secure ownership of farms within a territory where isolated indigenous people live, in the northwest of Mato Grosso. For this, the company tries to erase the existence of indigenous people. This existence has been attested by Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples) for over 20 years.

Coprodia (Agricultural Cooperative of Cane Producers from Campo Novo do Parecis), which claims to produce 180 million liters of ethanol and 2.7 million bags of sugar per year, claims in Federal Court the right to explore two farms in the Indigenous Land Kawahiva do Rio Pardo, in the region of Colniza (MT), on the border with Amazonas.

Documents on the properties, records from Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) and reports on the occupation of the area show that Coprodia has rural properties within the indigenous land.

The information was confirmed to Sheet by the cooperative’s lawyer, Francisco Faiad.

“We carried out two inspections, and there is no trace of indigenous ownership. A request is in the Federal Court for the Coprodia area to be withdrawn from this demarcation in quotation marks”, said Faiad. “The investigations found neither indigenous people nor traces.”

The first interdiction of the area was carried out in 2001 by Funai, in view of the existence of kawahivas that chose to isolate themselves in the region. Expeditions carried out until 2006 found 45 temporary indigenous camps.

In 2007, Funai validated the conclusions of an anthropological report that attested to the existence and presence of indigenous people in isolation. In the same year, the agency determined a restriction on the use of the area until definitive demarcation. Admission is only authorized for Funai members.

“The Kawahivas isolated from Pardo live by gathering, fishing and hunting, in that order of importance”, cited the expert. “Due to the state of permanent flight to which they are subjected, the Kawahivas reached a high degree of specialization in moving throughout that territory, strategically planting dozens of camps.”

Different indigenous peoples call themselves Kawahivas. In 1913, according to Funai’s technical report, three subgroups were contacted by Marshal Cândido Rondon, a Brazilian military man and sertanista. French ethnologist and anthropologist Lévi-Strauss spent two weeks with a small Kawahiva group, 25 years after Rondon, according to the document.

“The data we have so far lead us to consider that the Kawahiva local group of Rio Pardo is composed of at least two extended families and whose total population must be between a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 26 people” , pointed out Funai in 2007.

In 2016, the Ministry of Justice declared the territory of 411,800 hectares –almost three times the area of ​​the city of São Paulo– as the permanent possession of indigenous peoples. To date, there has been no definitive homologation of the indigenous land, an attribution of the President of the Republic, which has been fueling conflicts, deforestation and land grabbing on the edges of the territory.

Even with the identification of isolated indigenous people, preparation of a technical report on the existence of Kawahivas groups and an ordinance restricting the use of the area, Coprodia had an area embargoed by Ibama for irregular deforestation.

The embargo took place in 2009, and involved a piece of Fazenda Cafezal I, according to public data on the embargo. At the request of the report, ISA (Instituto Socioambiental) crossed the geographic coordinates informed with those of the indigenous land and found that the farm is within the traditional territory.

The Simex (Lumber Exploitation Monitoring System), which uses satellite images to map locations with this type of activity, detected exploitation within the territory in 2021. The analysis is carried out by the organizations Imazon, Imaflora, Idesam and ICV (Instituto Centro de Life).

According to Coprodia’s lawyer, logging took place “many years ago, 10 or 15 years ago”. Faiad said that he was unaware of any notification of an area embargo by Ibama.

The cooperative says on its website that it collaborates with the preservation of the Amazon rainforest. “Since December 2006, Coprodia has maintained an area of ​​17,000 hectares of native Amazonian forest reserve in Colniza, contributing to the environmental preservation of this important biodiversity asset for future generations.”

In a ranking made by Forbes in Brazil of the largest agribusiness companies in 2022, the plant appears in position number 89. The group’s revenue, according to the ranking, was over R$ 1 billion.

According to an analysis carried out by Funai, the titles that are at the origin of the possessions of areas in the indigenous land are “all of them precarious titles and granted in this condition by the Land Institute of Mato Grosso”.

The area has become an oasis of forest in the midst of accelerated occupation in its surroundings.

“Currently, the Kawahiva Indigenous Land of Rio Pardo is surrounded by land grabbers and loggers who settled in Amazonas and Mato Grosso, in what can be considered a true ’embrace of death'”, said the OPI (Observatório dos Direitos Humanos dos Povos Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples) in a technical note released in May of this year.

There has been a significant increase in deforestation in neighboring extractive reserves, and an illegal road opened by land grabbers and loggers –which passes less than 3 km from the indigenous land– has served as a route for invaders who “threaten the existence of the isolated people”, according to OPI .

The Ministry of Justice authorized the use of the National Public Security Force in the region in 2021 and 2022, given the conflicts and invasions.

Opan indigenist (Operação Amazônia Nativa) Elias Bigio, former general coordinator of Funai’s area of ​​isolated indigenous people, says that there was an exit of occupants from the area in 2017, in addition to embargoes by logging companies. But the pressure goes on, both in the courts and in the vicinity of the territory. “There is an access point through the extractive reserve, and that’s where invasions occur.”

Cases such as that of the Kawahiva do Rio Pardo Indigenous Land may have their course decided from the vote on the time frame in the STF (Federal Supreme Court), whose judgment is expected to be resumed this Wednesday (30).

The time frame is defended by ruralists and owners of areas such as Coprodia. According to the thesis, the indigenous people who were in the area at the time of the promulgation of the Constitution, in October 1988, have the right to demarcation. The thesis limits the demarcations, as it ignores the history of conflicts, expulsions and displacements of indigenous groups.

Ministers Edson Fachin and Alexandre de Moraes voted against the time frame. Nunes Marques voted in favor.