As our Amazon Watch team heads back home from Brazil’s capital city, we’re celebrating a major victory for Indigenous peoples! Brazilian President Lula da Silva announced at this year’s Free Land Camp, or Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL), in Brasília that he is formally recognizing several Indigenous Lands and following through on his campaign promise to ”not leave a single Indigenous territory unprotected.”
Our ATL delegation included our Social Media Coordinator Dalia McGill, Digital Organizer Cinthya Flores, Brazil Legal Advisor Ana Carolina Alfinito, Brazil Campaign Advisor Gabriela Sarmet, and Brazil Program Director Ana Paula Vargas. Together we witnessed this historic moment at Brazil’s largest gathering of Indigenous peoples.
The theme of ATL this year was Demarcação Já, or “Demarcation Now!” Demarcation is the Brazilian government’s process for the formal recognition and titling of Indigenous lands. Lula’s announcement of six Indigenous Lands marks a historic milestone in the Indigenous resistance for the full respect and recognition of Indigenous rights, self-determination, and autonomous governments.
Now, one of the Indigenous territories entering the final steps of the demarcation process is Sawré Muybu, the Munduruku Indigenous land that 2023 Goldman Prize Winner Alessandra Munduruku and her community have been working to get formally recognized for decades. This is a major victory for Indigenous peoples, the Amazon, and our climate!
To inspire our movement to celebrate and remain energized toward a permanently protected Amazon, we are sharing photos and quotes from Indigenous leaders at ATL that we had the privilege of connecting with. Sawe!
“The commitment of Indigenous peoples is a commitment to life. There is no talk of the future if it is not an ‘ancestral’ future. In other words, our ancestry must be part of our future. Our wisdom and knowledge must be part of the future. We are the best protectors of the forest. I’m not the one saying this, the United Nations has been saying it. We, Indigenous peoples, make up 5 percent of the world’s population but we protect 82 percent of all biodiversity. So if the forest is still standing, it is thanks to the presence of Indigenous peoples. And today, this is the most important mission of our planet. Because it is a mission that not only guarantees our lives but guarantees the lives of all people. And there are no standing forests, there are no Indigenous peoples without our territories protected and demarcated. That’s why we’re here in this struggle asking and demanding demarcation now!”
Txai Suruí, activist of the Paiter Suruí people and coordinator of the Indigenous youth movement of Rondônia
“Lula promised here at last year’s ATL to resume land demarcation. We believe in him, and that’s why we agreed to take over the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI). But let’s not fool ourselves that now the fight will be easy. The Brazilian Congress is full of conservative and anti-Indigenous politicians. There are already seven measures presented in Congress to try to destroy the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and remove the demarcation of lands from the authority of the MPI and return it to the control of the Ministry of Justice. Land remains the main object of dispute for political power and economic power. But we remain attentive and organized. We will not solve 523 years of destruction in four years, but we will push on!”
Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples
“We, Indigenous leaders, have lost our liberty. We no longer have the liberty to walk in our territory because we are threatened. Today we are here [at ATL], but our struggle takes place everywhere: in our territories, in Brasília, and internationally. Alessandra Munduruku just received an award in the United States because she has fought against mining with us, she represents us. It is not easy being a mother, being a fighter, being the protector of our territories. This struggle will never be easy, but this struggle will always be like this, the resistance will always be like this, and the demarcation of our territories will always be like this. But this inspires us, because we know how to care for our territories, we know how to care for our children, and we know how to care for our communities.
Maria Leusa Munduruku, leader of the Munduruku people
We have been resisting for so long, against invasions, against mining, against Bolsonaro. We are here saying that we do not accept the invasion of our territory. We will continue monitoring our lands while they continue to attack us. We are against all these enterprises of death that are killing the Munduruku people… It doesn’t matter if the territory is demarcated or not, the territory is ours! We can’t keep waiting for the government, we need to take care of our lands. The territory does not belong to the government, it belongs to us. Even though now there are Indigenous peoples in the government, we must continue resisting. We must make it clear that we will not back down. Today we are here at the Free Land Camp with a large delegation of women and children, showing our resistance.”
“It is essential to decolonize the colonial view of who an Indigenous person is. We must go beyond the stereotype of the savage that should not be occupying these spaces, we also have to understand the pluralities that exist within our communities. We need to fight against racism and LGBTQ-phobia on a daily basis. It can be very difficult to talk about these two identities in the world today. If we don’t correspond to the stereotype of what an Indigenous person should be like, imagine what happens when we present ourselves as a member of the LGBTQ community as well. We experience double the prejudice, in a sense, which passes through our bodies and impacts us in a variety of ways.”
Danilo Tupinaky’îa, member of the TYBYRA collective and executive secretary of APIB
“The [Brazilian Supreme Court’s impending] judgment on the Marco Temporal will not only impact Indigenous peoples in Brazil. Above all, it is a judgment that will impact the global climate. Indigenous lands are responsible for the protection of our world’s biodiversity. When the Brazilian state demarcates fewer Indigenous lands, this protection is threatened. The impacts of this judgment will impact the lives of everyone on the planet, considering the fact that we are in a climate emergency. We, Indigenous peoples, are united here because we are the first climate activists before this movement was even called climate justice. We have always been responsible for the protection of these territories. Everyone who listens to this message must care about what is being discussed in this country. Global society must mobilize so that we can send a message to the Brazilian Supreme Court to reject the Marco Temporal.”
Mauricio Terena, APIB’s legal coordinator
We hope you’ll join us in celebrating this important milestone and in recognizing that we are steps closer to the permanent protection of the Amazon. Your solidarity was essential in this win and will continue to be vital as we work to guarantee formal recognition of all Indigenous lands across the Amazon against policies and threats like the Marco Temporal, or “time limit trick” in Brazil. Earth Defenders need us to maintain the pressure! Onward to the next victory.
You can support Indigenous-led media at events like ATL by contributing to Midia Indigena’s GoFundMe.
