Without a time frame, indigenous areas could reach 38% of Europe

If the time frame thesis is indeed overturned by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), as indicated by the vote so far (5×2) and the ministers’ speech, the indigenous people will gain the prospect of doubling the size of their lands in Brazil, leaving the current 14% of the national territory to more than 28%.

Comparatively, adding the areas that are already demarcated (621), with those that are under study (120) or being claimed (487) by the so-called original peoples, Brazil will be able to allocate to the Indians an area equivalent to 38.4% of Europe ( disregarding Russian territory on the continent, Kazakhstan and the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia).

Instead of appeasing, such a radical rearrangement of the land issue in the country could fuel conflicts. As a principle, indigenous lands are demarcated to avoid territorial disputes and guarantee the descendants of these original peoples the usufruct of the lands, which remain under the Union’s control.

This fraction would correspond to the sum of the territories of France, Spain, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Serbia and Switzerland. A total of 2.36 million square kilometers. The data comes from Funai and was collected by the Agricultural Legal Observatory, linked to the Instituto Pensar Agropecuária (the report continues after the map).

For lawyer Francisco de Godoy Bueno, from the Brazilian Institute of Agribusiness Law (IBDA), the expansion of indigenous territories goes against this perspective.

“It creates new conflicts, by increasing territorial demands over territories already titled and occupied by non-indigenous people. The safe solution to these conflicts requires an objective criterion, different from anthropological reports. If we depend, as it is today, on an anthropological report that will indicate whether or not this cultural appropriation exists, we will continue in a conflict that occurs repeatedly due to the abuse of administrative processes for recognizing indigenous territories, and we will continue in an environment of total insecurity legal”, he highlights.

Toffoli stated that he trusts Funai’s discernment

In his vote this Wednesday (20), Minister Dias Toffoli rightly highlighted the prevalence of the anthropological report endorsed by the National Indian Foundation (Funai) as a “fundamental element for demonstrating the traditional occupation of the indigenous community, determined in accordance with their uses, customs and traditions”, a position that had already been defended by minister Edson Fachin.

The absence of a time frame opens up space to question the value of property titles from decades ago, some even centuries old, issued by the State itself. “The logic of original law overriding constituted law is in line with the discredit of State institutions, which is very dangerous”, warns Godoy Bueno.

Toffoli acknowledged that there are more than one hundred requests for review of already demarcated indigenous areas, and stressed that this “resizing”, as the Xokleng Indians in Santa Catarina want, “will only be possible in case of non-compliance with the constitutional text, otherwise the expansion of previously demarcated lands that no longer fit”.

At this point, Minister Gilmar Mendes toyed with the thesis that even Copacabana could be claimed as indigenous territory. “Then your apartment in Copacabana comes under suspicion,” he told Luiz Fux, who once lived in the famous Rio neighborhood.

Self-declared Indians make up 0.83% of the Brazilian population

For senator Zequinha Marinho (Podemos-PA), however, the allusion to consolidated areas of urban occupation should not be seen as a joke.

“Without a deadline for the demarcation of indigenous land, any area of ​​the national territory can be questioned without any type of compensation. This applies to both rural and urban areas. The great postcard of the capital of my State, the Feira do Ver-o -Peso, if requested by any indigenous descendant, could be annexed as indigenous territory”, he stated.

Currently, according to IBGE data, there are 1.7 million self-declared Indians in Brazil, which corresponds to 0.83% of the population, of 203 million inhabitants. However, only 622 thousand Indians live on indigenous lands, while the majority live in cities.

According to a survey by the Agricultural Legal Observatory, the average area allocated per Indian in Brazil, which is already 134 hectares, would jump to 264 hectares. Well above the proportion of other countries that live with indigenous peoples, such as Australia (164 hectares per indigenous person), Canada (38), Colombia (24), South Africa (17), United States (9) and Bolivia (4) .

An aggravating factor in the potential for conflict and legal uncertainty is that the indigenous lands under study are expanding precisely to the areas that generate the highest productive values ​​from agricultural activities in the country, in the Center-West, South and Southeast. Currently, the average is already 929 hectares of land per indigenous family, which could rise to 1837 hectares, if the demands are met.

The country’s competitors fight against the time frame

The time frame thesis does not prevent new indigenous lands from being demarcated, but it guarantees that if the Union wants to demarcate outside the established criteria (areas that were not in dispute or occupied until the date of promulgation of the 1988 Constitution), it will have to acquire the lands by paying the market value of the property, and not just compensating for improvements – that is, without expropriation.

The case being judged by the STF involves an appeal filed by Funai against the decision of the TRF-4, which granted repossession to the Environmental Institute of Santão Catarina (Ima) of an area claimed by the Indians in Ibirama.

A possible cancellation of the time frame will, in practice, represent playing the game defended by Europeans and Americans. Perhaps no other document has better summarized what this game is than the one prepared by the North-American consultancy David Gardner & Associates, in 2011, entitled “Farms here, forests there”.

In summary, the paper American, financed by the NGO Partners against Deforestation (Adpartners) and the American Farmers Union (NFU), proposed the freezing of agriculture in the tropics, for conservation measures, to benefit agribusiness in the northern hemisphere.

“Protecting tropical forests through climate policies will boost the income of American farmers and loggers by between US$190 billion and US$267 billion by 2030,” the document pointed out, concluding that “among the biggest beneficiaries of forest conservation are producers of soybeans, vegetable oils, meat and wood in the United States.”

“Farms here, forests there”: a prophecy that comes true

Since the publication of the study “Farms here, forests there”, more than a decade ago, American interests in freezing Brazilian agriculture have only increased, as the tropical competitor took the global lead in soybean exports (in 2013) and corn (in 2023).

In forestry activities, Brazil became the largest producer and exporter of cellulose in 2022, with annual revenue of R$250 billion, surpassing Canada. This is even with 66% of Brazilian territory destined for conservation.

From Europe, in addition to increasingly severe environmental requirements hampering the treaty with Mercosur, there is a concentrated effort pushing for the rejection of the time frame.

Deputies from Germany and the Netherlands sent letters to the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, expressing “concern” about the measure. In a video on Instagram, with subtitles in Portuguese, members of the European Parliament raised their voices against the approval of the time frame already in the Chamber’s vote. Declaring themselves “committed to preserving the land rights of indigenous peoples and fighting against destructive deforestation in the Amazon”, they appealed: “Stop this project!”

Report of this People’s Gazette has already shown that the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States pressured giant agricultural commodity trading companies to impose on Brazil an environmental plan with requirements above national law in November 2022, at the 27th United Nations Climate Conference (Cop-27, no. Egypt).

Thus, from 2025 onwards, they warned that they will not buy any product that has come from new areas opened by Brazilian agriculture, regardless of whether they have been converted respecting the preservation percentages of the Forest Code. In relation to the Cerrado, the embargo will be against any area converted to livestock farming after August 1, 2020.