Residents accuse NGOs of condemning them to poverty in the Amazon

Environmental NGOs and members of federal authorities linked to the Ministry of the Environment are condemning residents of Acre who live in extractive reserves or close to protected areas in the Amazon to poverty, according to reports from senators who are part of the NGOs’ CPI.

The subject was one of the recent focuses of the CPI on NGOs, which takes place in the Senate. On Friday (20), senators went to Acre for CPI proceedings and for a public hearing at the State Legislative Assembly.

Parliamentarians reported serious complaints from residents of the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve. According to the inhabitants of the region, ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation) burdens them with excessive demands, hindering development.

“The residents of the Chico Mendes Reserve, men and women, feel persecuted, deceived, deceived, hopeless. I confess that I didn’t even know some things. The city council, to build a school, has to wait for ICMBio to grant permission” , said senator Marcio Bittar (União-AC).

NGOs working in the area also do everything they can to hinder development, according to reports. According to senator Plínio Valério (PSDB-AM), residents even reported physical violence.

State deputies from Acre reinforced the chorus against NGOs and federal authorities. Criticism even came from the local left.

State deputy Adailton Cruz, who is from the PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party), criticized the “lack of support and development for those who live in rural areas and riverside residents”. “I’m from PSB, the Brazilian Socialist Party, but I don’t share or defend any policy of delay and that condemns the neediest, most unassisted population to die in poverty, hunger, suffering, with a lack of development and support “, he stated. “We are here to give rights to everyone, including access to health, infrastructure, development. We have to use what is ours. We cannot allow the ideologies and power of capital from the developed world condemn us to failure and underdevelopment – ​​to return to prehistory, where we didn’t even have fire.”

Among the complaints brought to the senators by residents of the Chico Mendes Reserve are the boycott of infrastructure improvements, reports of the destruction of a bridge, impediment to the construction of a school, physical violence and death threats. Valério predicted that the CPI of NGOs will present this Wednesday (25) to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) a representation against ICMBio employees.

“We feel the obligation to act against ICMBio so that these abuses and arbitrariness cease. And we will take measures before the CPI ends. We need to fight this cancer that is ICMBio”, he stated.

NGOs block construction of road that could help reduce poverty in the Amazon

CPI participants also criticized the role of NGOs in blocking the construction of the extension of the BR-364 highway in Acre. The road, if completed, will be the first direct link between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific in South America.

In June, the Federal Court of Acre suspended the road expansion projects. The objective of extending BR-364 is to connect the cities of Cruzeiro do Sul, in the interior of Acre, to Pucallpa, in Peru. For Brazil, this would be an important route for a more efficient flow of production through the Pacific Ocean.

The project was the subject of controversy because the road route cuts through the Serra do Divisor National Park, an integral protection area on the border with Peru, and also crosses indigenous lands. In June, five NGOs obtained a decision in the Federal Court that suspended the project: SOS Amazônia, the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Juruá River (OPIRJ), the Pro-Indigenous Commission of Acre (CPI-Acre), the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) and the National Council of Extractive Populations (CNS)

For Luiz Antônio Vieira da Cunha, president of the Commercial Association of Cruzeiro do Sul, the new road would mean the end of poverty for thousands of inhabitants of the region.

“I only know NGOs when we do some development project for our region. Then they appear with 300 legal obstacles, with a lot of legal apparatus, to prevent us from having access, as they and as the world does, to goods essential for our survival. So, on behalf of isolated populations, who know what it’s like to live without access to everything. I ask here that this CPI help us break down these obstacles so that the Cruzeiro-Pucallpa connection can happen as soon as possible .”

For the mayor of Rio Branco, Tião Bocalom (PP), there are vested interests in the activities of NGOs.

“I’m not preaching that we should destroy the Amazon. I’m preaching that there are human beings here,” he stated during the CPI public hearing. “Do you know what it’s like for a person who lives in the middle of the forest and suddenly gets sick and has to walk in a hammock carried by two or four people, for three or four days until they get to the river, so they can catch a boat and, another five or eight days to get to where there is a hospital? So why do they want to stop our development?”, he criticized.

The victory of NGOs in court in the case of BR-364 is, for senator Plínio Valério, emblematic of how NGOs are a negative force in the Amazon, since there is not even a definitive project for the expansion of the highway: the associations managed even stop the bidding phase.

“This is a great example of the harm that NGOs cause us: preventing the study from being carried out. They anticipate the problem. And, as I heard on the reservation, even to live you have to ask for authorization from ICMBio. This can no longer continue “, he observed.