Timeframe disregards long-term consequences – 06/04/2023 – Marcia Castro

On the 30th, the bill that creates the time frame was approved by the Chamber of Deputies and now depends on approval by the Senate. The project proposes that the demarcation of indigenous lands be restricted to those occupied at the time of the enactment of the Federal Constitution (5/11/1988).

In addition, it makes it impossible to expand areas already demarcated and proposes that these may be retaken by the Union if cultural traits of the indigenous people have changed. It also proposes that infrastructure projects (such as roads and hydroelectric plants) can be implemented in demarcated areas without consulting the indigenous communities that live there.

This proposal is lethal in several dimensions.

It is lethal to indigenous peoples. It is absurd to use the date of the Constitution, or any other date, to define the right to possess land that has always belonged to indigenous peoples. For centuries, indigenous peoples have suffered from diseases brought by colonizers, invasions and predatory exploitation of natural resources, slave labor and cruel massacres such as the one that occurred in 1963, in which about 3,500 members of the Cinta Larga indigenous people were murdered and their villages burned .

If even in demarcated areas, such as that of the Yanomami people and isolated peoples in the Javari Valley, illegal invasions, exploitation, conflicts and violence intensified during the last government, imagine in the non-demarcated areas. This is aggravated by the provisional measure (MP of the Ministries) approved by the Senate on the 1st, which transferred the attribution of demarcating indigenous areas from the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to the Ministry of Justice.

The time frame is lethal to the environment. Deforestation data show that the demarcation of indigenous lands is a determining factor for forest preservation, contributing to the maintenance of biodiversity and climate regulation. More deforested areas in the south of the Amazon already receive less rain.

The timeframe is lethal to agribusiness. The idea that the change would bring legal security to rural landowners is biased and does not consider the long-term consequences, since the reduction in rainfall in deforested areas affects agribusiness.

A 2021 analysis estimated that soy and cattle production could see a loss of around US$1 billion (about R$4.9 billion) annually due to accelerated deforestation in the southern Amazon. A recent report by the World Bank estimates that the value of the preserved Amazon, more than US$ 317 billion (about R$ 1.5 trillion) a year, is about seven times greater than the estimated value of exploration linked to extensive agriculture , logging or mining.

The time frame is lethal to the vision of Brazil as a country that respects human rights, committed to the preservation of the environment and of its original peoples. After the weakening of the Ministries of the Environment and Indigenous Peoples (MP of the Ministries), the approval of the timeframe would be a lethal blow for the future of the Amazon and Brazil and a shame for the country that will host the Climate Conference in 2025 .

Today, one year after the deaths of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, cruelly murdered for protecting the Amazon rainforest, Brazil suffers a setback in the environmental and indigenous cause with the approval of the MP from the Ministries, which could be even worse if the time frame be approved.

The herd continues to pass, led by parliamentarians who, instead of representing the will of the Brazilian people and cherishing the future of the nation, prioritize greedy and predatory interests.

That senators have the common sense and wisdom to veto the time frame

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