April 19, 2022

14:04

Bruno Pacheco – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – In a country where deforestation is increasingly a routine agenda, Brazil has in the native peoples the hope to save the forest from destruction. This is because it was confirmed by a study of MapBiomas, published on Tuesday, 19, the day that is celebrated the Day of Indigenous Peoples, that Indigenous Lands are among the most protected areas in the last 30 years.

The survey shows that, in Brazil, the overall loss of native vegetation in the last 30 years was 69 million hectares, but only 1.6% (1.1 million ha) of the deforestation falls on Indigenous Lands. On the other hand, in private areas, the loss of native vegetation reached 47.2 million hectares, which represented 68.4% of the total loss in the country between 1990 and 2020.

In Brazil, the Indigenous Lands occupy 13.9% of the territory and contain 109.7 million hectares of native vegetation, which corresponds to 19.5% of the native vegetation in 2020. According to the study, in the last 30 years, the Indigenous Lands in the country lost only 1% of their area of native vegetation, while in private areas the loss was 20.6%.

Indigenous Lands are barriers

For Julia Shimbo, scientific coordinator of MapBiomas and researcher at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the data of the study reinforce the thesis that the Indigenous Lands are like barriers or shields to the advance of deforestation. To CENARIUM MAGAZINE, the expert stated that it is these territories that are protecting nature in a scenario of increased forest destruction.

“It is these territories that are maintaining and protecting the Amazon Rainforest in a scenario of increased deforestation in recent years and that are even being threatened by mining invasions, logging and illegal deforestation,” she explained.

Increase

According to MapBiomas, there has been an increase in deforestation in Indigenous Lands in the Amazon in recent years. The data were detected by the alert system of the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), the Deter, which observed an acceleration multiplied by 1.7 in the average of the last three years when compared to the average from 2016 to 2018.

“This increase in deforestation in the Amazon is due to the lack of enforcement and investment of public policies to combat and prevent illegal deforestation, which has also favored other illegal activities, such as land grabbing, mining, illegal logging and that are destroying the Amazon Forest,” pointed out researcher Julia Shimbo.

Worsening in the Bolsonaro Government

The MapBiomas study also compares Deter deforestation alerts in indigenous territories between 2016 and March 2022, where the numbers show successive jumps, with emphasis on the years of the Bolsonaro Government. The increase occurs in both deforestation in general and deforestation by mining.

Mining

The MapBiomas survey also reveals data on mining. According to the study, which mapped mining areas from 2010 to 2020, the area occupied by mining in Indigenous Lands grew 495%.

The largest areas of mining in Indigenous Lands are in Kayapó (7602 ha) and Munduruku (1592 ha) territory, in Pará, and Yanomami (414 ha), in Amazonas and Roraima. According to the study, 93.7% of Brazil’s garimpo in 2020 was concentrated in the Amazon.

Sacredness for indigenous people

The indigenous leader and president of the Association of Indigenous Women of the Upper Negro River (Arman), Clarice Gama, of the Tukano people, explains to the CENARIUM MAGAZINE that the original populations have a strong relationship with the forest and that, for them, nature means something “sacred” that must be respected. For her, the data from MapBiomas clearly shows that indigenous peoples are the ones who truly care for nature.

“Nature means, for us [indigenous peoples], a sacred thing, and we revere, with all due respect, nature. For us, nature is always interconnected with life and that is why we respect life. About the private areas losing 20.6% of the territory in 30 years, for us, it means that this side aims at profit and not life, it doesn’t respect nature”, commented the indigenous leader.

For Clarice Tukano, the advance of deforestation in private areas compromises the regions where the indigenous people live, who end up suffering from climate changes or extreme events caused by the destruction of the forest. Besides the impact on the native populations, Clarice recalls, there are also the animals that depend on the environment to survive.

The president of Arman also stresses that the forest represents the mother and the identity of the indigenous people and that in it there are mythological, cosmological, and philosophical stories that contemplate all the lives of these populations. Because of this, points out Clarice Tukano, deforestation negatively impacts these stories and the sacredness of the traditional peoples.

“The Western worldview in the wake of the industrial revolution ‘objectifies’ nature. And the indigenous peoples consider nature on an equal footing, as worthy as human beings, in a harmonious relationship. Of kinship, ancestry, and bond with the other levels of existence. The white man has commodified nature, making it inferior to mere merchandise and a means to accumulate wealth,” concluded Clarice Tukano.