Demarcation of indigenous land drags on for 16 years – 05/15/2023 – Daily life

The process of demarcating the indigenous land where piassava exploitation is carried out in a rudimentary way, in a debt model that includes groups of Yanomami, has been going on for 16 years at Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples).

Documents of the process, obtained by Sheet through the LAI (Law of Access to Information), they record, from the beginning, the occurrence of the availability system for the extraction of piassaba, the indebtedness of indigenous people, the “overexploitation” of this labor force and conditions similar to slavery in the execution of the work extractive.

For this reason, associations representing the indigenous peoples of the middle Rio Negro region defend the demarcation of the Aracá-Padauiri Indigenous Land, adjacent to the portion in the Amazon of the Yanomami Indigenous Land, the largest demarcated territory in Brazil.

Requests for the delimitation and protection of a new area, as a way of preventing middlemen from acting in the piaçaba market, have already been submitted by seven governments and did not even result in the first necessary acts for the homologation of the territory.

The demarcation faces strong opposition and a campaign against piassava bosses, who control the purchase of the fiber by supplying food and fuel to workers. There is also resistance from politicians in poor cities that revolve around the business, such as Barcelos (AM). They are joined by businessmen in sport fishing.

Report published by Sheet this Saturday (13) showed that the extraction of piassaba, the fiber of an Amazonian palm tree used in the manufacture of brooms, includes the exploitation of Yanomami from villages in the indigenous land on the side of the Amazon – the Yanomami territory extends across Roraima.

There are indications of fiber removal from within the demarcated land, by people who do not live in the territory.

Indigenous people travel long journeys to communities on tributaries of the Negro River, such as the Padauiri River, to get supplies, that is, to obtain basic supplies –such as flour and biscuits– and gasoline necessary for the work of extracting piassava. Payment is made with the extracted fiber itself, and there is indebtedness in the course of this process.

Decoration is a reality common to indigenous people –mainly from the Baré ethnic group– in the neighboring, non-demarcated territory. Children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of rubber soldiers still live in the communities, Northeasterners who were taken to the Amazon to work in rubber plantations, where trimming also predominated.

The Funai process that deals with the demarcation of the Aracá-Padauiri Indigenous Land estimates that 800 indigenous people live in the territory. They are Barés, Tukanos, Baniwas, Tarianas, Desanas and Pira-Tapuias, according to Funai.

In Yanomami land, there are 10,300 indigenous people on the Amazon side. This portion is adjacent to the Aracá-Padauiri land. On the Roraima side, where a humanitarian crisis has been provoked due to the invasion of more than 20,000 miners, there are another 17,000 Yanomami.

The territory that can be demarcated is enormous, and there is no definition even of the extension to be included in an eventual delimitation of the area.

A preliminary survey pointed to the existence of 44 indigenous communities in the stretch between Barcelos and Santa Isabel do Rio Negro (AM). These communities are located on the Negro River and on tributaries such as the Padauiri, Aracá, Preto and Demeni rivers – piassaba is exploited along the first three tributaries.

Claims for demarcation resulted in separate processes. The Aracá-Padauiri Indigenous Land initially comprises 18 communities, including Tapera and Nova Jerusalem, which are piassava warehouses for bosses and which rely on flows of Yanomami active in the fiber extraction process.

The first demands for demarcation took place in the 1990s, according to the ongoing process at Funai. In 2001 and 2002, during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), letters from Asiba (Indigenous Association of Barcelos) to the Ministry of Justice and Funai formally requested the delimitation of the territory.

The letters denounced the impacts of “jungle tourism”, including damage to piassaba extraction. The documents already demanded the installation of a WG (technical group) by Funai.

“In this region, the system of recruiting indigenous labor is still in force for extractive work”, stated a Funai coordinator in a December 2002 document. constitutes a recurrent element of this system.”

In the same month, an anthropologist from the agency cited, in another official letter, notes made by Asiba regarding the exploitation of indigenous peoples by piaçaba bosses. This system generated “huge, disorganized lists of debts.” “Debt still represents an effective way of mobilizing indigenous labor,” he said.

A WG was only instituted by Funai in 2007, during the second Lula (PT) government, for studies to identify the indigenous area. New WGs were formed in 2009 and 2010. In 2011, the MPF (Federal Public Ministry) requested an urgent schedule for the demarcation. “The social situation in the area is serious,” he said.

Both Asiba and FOIRN (Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Rio Negro) communicated to the MPT (Public Ministry of Labor), in 2011, the existence of indebtedness of indigenous people in relation to piaçaba bosses, the “same system of payment of rubber in the 19th century”.

The MPT, the MPF and labor auditors carried out actions to rescue workers in conditions of slavery in piaçabais in 2014. In that year, the Federal Court gave Funai 45 days to present a report on the delimitation of the territory; the demarcation should take place within a period of two years, according to the decision, which complied with a public civil action filed by the MPF.

The decision was not carried out. In September 2015, a Funai document pointed out: “The legacy of the past is notable, since, until the present day, the aviamento system persists: the advance of goods on credit, by the so-called bosses, with the aim of promoting the indebtedness of the local indigenous population.”

The document was prepared by the coordination of identification and delimitation of indigenous lands. “Deprived of any other possibility than the sale of their labor at ridiculous prices, [os indígenas] they start to work in extractive settlements, subjecting themselves to conditions analogous to slavery.” This would justify the need for demarcation, according to Funai technicians.

In the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, which promoted the dismantling of Funai, the process was practically at a standstill. The agency constituted a new WG, in August 2019, to “carry out studies of a land and registry nature of the Aracá-Padauiri Indigenous Land”. In the process, at least until mid-2022, there are no records of progress in demarcation.

Since the 1988 Constitution, Bolsonaro was the first president of the Republic to erase both the declarations of possession –acts that precede the homologations– and the definitive demarcations of indigenous lands. Homologation is an attribution of the president.

The report was supported by the Amazon Rainforest Journalism Fund, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center