Conflicts over land in the Amazon rise 30% under Bolsonaro – 04/18/2023 – Daily life

The Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government left a balance of increased violence in the countryside, especially in the Amazon. This is what the data from the Caderno Conflitos no Campo Brasil 2022, from the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), released this Monday (17) indicate.

Between 2019 and 2022, 3,462 incidents of conflict over land were registered in the region, an increase of 29.8% compared to the previous four years.

Considering only the last year of the former president’s term, the growth in the number of this type of dispute in the Amazon (33.2%) was double that registered in Brazil as a whole (16.7%). In 2022, 59% of the country’s land conflicts took place in the region.

The numbers take into account the disputes faced by indigenous peoples, quilombolas, small farmers, riverside communities and other communities, both in territories officially recognized as traditional and in areas not yet approved.

The North region had the highest number of occurrences of conflicts over land in the country (626 cases), followed by the Northeast (496), Midwest (278), Southeast (94) and South (78). In the states, the highest numbers were in Bahia (179), Maranhão (178), Pará (175), Amazonas (152) and Mato Grosso (147).

The Pastoral also counts the total number of conflicts in the countryside, which includes confrontation actions that take place mainly in disputes over water and labor conflicts, in addition to those over land. In the whole country, this index grew 31.6% in the last four years, in comparison with the period between 2015 and 2018: it went from 6,019 to 7,925 occurrences.

In 2022 alone, 2,018 cases were recorded, which corresponds to an average of one conflict every four hours in Brazil. The occurrences involved more than 909,000 people and exceeded 801,000 km² of disputed land.

Most of the conflicts resulting in death were concentrated in the Amazon, with 34 of the 47 murders in the countryside registered last year. The number represents almost three quarters (72.3%) of the Brazilian total.

Among the deaths in disputes over water are that of indigenist Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips, killed while investigating illegal fishing in the indigenous land of Vale do Javari (AM).

The CPT report is the main survey on this subject in the country.

Dom José Ionilton, president of Pastoral da Terra, explains that several factors drive conflicts in the region. “The advance of agribusiness is leading to violence, as well as mining – both that within the law, which brings a lot of damage to those who live in the Amazon, and also illegal mining, mainly gold mining”, he says.

The numbers also reflect the advance of other negative indicators, such as environmental crime (evidenced mainly by successive records in deforestation), invasions of indigenous lands and the quantity of weapons.

Army data obtained by the Sou da Paz and Igarapé institutes show that the arsenal in the hands of CACs (hunters, sport shooters and collectors) grew 744% from 2018 to 2022 in 7 of the 9 states of the Amazon – in Brazil, the increase was 259 %.

“The past government facilitated access to weapons, which also made possible the increase in murders”, he points out, adding that another point of conflict was actions involving the eviction of properties.

“Although there was a decision by the STF not to carry out evictions because of the pandemic, there have still been many actions and threats of eviction in recent years. There were people who lost their land and who had their lives taken in defense of their lands.”

Causers and Affected

The CPT report also points out the main causes of conflicts over land. Last year, landowners were responsible for 23% of the occurrences, followed by the federal government, with 16%, businessmen, with 13%, and land grabbers, with 11%.

Dom José is bishop in Itacoatiara, in Amazonas, the state that had the highest growth in land conflicts from 2021 to 2022, a jump of 120%. He points out that this is because other states in the region already have a large number of conflicts, mainly related to agribusiness and mining.

“Amazonas has the largest conserved area in the Amazon, but each year we lose a little because of this advance”, says the priest. The south of the state, in particular, has emerged as a new frontier for deforestation, where environmental crime penetrates even deeper into the forest.

The Amazon region concentrates the majority of indigenous lands (ILs) in the country – according to the Instituto Socioambiental, of the 732 indigenous territories in the country, 424 are in the Amazon and represent 98% of the extension of all Brazilian ILs.

Pastoral highlights that, since 2019, the original populations are the ones that suffer most from land conflicts. Last year, nearly a third (28%) of these incidents involved indigenous peoples.

“There was a very strong speech by the last government, even by the president, who could not leave wealth under the ground and the indigenous people on top”, recalls Dom José. “There is a direct relationship between the growth of conflicts in the Legal Amazon with this look of interest and exploitation of TIs.”

Last year, Bolsonaro and the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), an ally of the then president, even used the war in Ukraine as a pretext to try to speed up the vote on the bill that allows mining on indigenous lands.

Next in the ranking of most affected populations are the squatter families (19% of the cases), quilombola (16%), landless (11%) and land reform settled families (9%). Other categories, such as extractivists and riverside dwellers, appeared in a smaller percentage.

“We need to take better care of those who take care of the land. Indigenous peoples, small farmers, quilombolas are the ones who actually make nature conserved, because they live off the land and water, but without destroying the environment”, he points out.