The Costs of Losing Indigenous Lands is More than a Localized Problem
By: Yasmeen Farran
“To us, the earth is the basis of our existence and we need to retain her whole with all the variety of nature and we cannot negotiate her price or forget about her.”
-Evaristo Nugkuag Ikanan
Evaristo Nugkuag Ikanan serves as an indigenous leader in the Amazon Basin where he has established organizations dedicated to protecting the lives of indigenous communities in South America many of which inhabit and depend on the Amazonian rainforest.[1] A majority of the earth’s highest levels of biological diversity are in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples.[2] These areas are referred to as the “Biological 17.”[3] This includes the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.[4] It is one of the most important natural resources in the world.[5] Attacks against the Amazon substantially affect the environmental health of the entire world.[6] However, the groups most immediately threatened by the harm inflicted on the Amazon rainforest are the indigenous communities that call the rainforest home.[7] As the Brazilian government turns a blind eye to those pillaging the rainforest for monetary wealth, these Indigenous Brazilian tribes have stepped up to fight back and protect the Amazon.[8]
For these tribes, fighting back is necessary for future survival as many tribes have witnessed firsthand violence, death, and the destruction of entire indigenous communities.[9] Legal steps have been taken to protect the rainforest and indigenous communities, but they have proven insufficient.[10] The mobilization of indigenous communities to protect the rainforest is currently one of the few on the ground defenses against deforestation and should be supported through substantial and tangible legal action not just symbolically because these acts are destroying communities and threaten to harm the entire world.
The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, adopted the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (“The Convention”) in 1989 which Brazil ratified.[11] Specifically, Articles 13 to 19 concern Land.[12] Under Article 15 of The Convention, “The rights of the peoples concerned to the natural resources pertaining to their lands shall be specially safeguarded. These rights include the right of these peoples to participate in the use, management and conservation of these resources.”[13] If the state does wish to extract resources from the land,
[G]overnments shall establish or maintain procedures through which they shall consult these peoples, with a view to ascertaining whether and to what degree their interests would be prejudiced, before undertaking or permitting any programmes for the exploration or exploitation of such resources pertaining to their lands. The peoples concerned shall wherever possible participate in the benefits of such activities, and shall receive fair compensation for any damages which they may sustain as a result of such activities.
Although Brazil is a signatory, this signature often appears to be symbolic than actually applied in governmental practice.[14] The benefits laid out in The Convention are often threatened by illegal resource extraction.[15] This threat to Brazil’s indigenous Amazonian communities was further aggravated by Jair Bolsonaro’s Presidency that commenced in 2019.[16] President Bolsonaro took actions that directly threaten indigenous peoples.[17] Most severely, he has revoked the legal protection of the boundaries that constitute indigenous territories.[18] When the boundary lines are extinguished, it leaves indigenous lands vulnerable to resource exploitation.[19] Additionally, Bolsonaro has cut funding to groups committed to protecting indigenous lands and has assigned the responsibility of protecting indigenous lands to the Ministry of Agriculture which is aligned with businesses that desire access to the resources that sit within indigenous territories.[20] Actions such as this exhibit the undercutting of the Constitutional and Conventional rights of indigenous communities in Brazil.[21]
However, indigenous communities plan on fighting back and made this clear in a statement.[22] Legal defenses against President Bolsonaro’s policies have proven unsuccessful as President Bolsonaro has clearly disregarded the legal rights of indigenous communities and lacks any forms of repercussions for violating those rights.[23] After well-organized political and legal movements by indigenous communities proved unsuccessful, the people that call the Amazon home, had to find another way.[24] Threats to their native homelands and threats to the health of their communities led to the creation of the “Guardians of the Forest” (“The Guardians”). The Guardians are tribal fighters who patrol and protect the Amazon from illegal loggers and others looking to illegally extract and pillage the Amazon’s resource.[25] In addition to protecting resources, these indigenous groups are protecting their lands against President Bolsonaro’s revocation of indigenous boundaries.[26] Indigenous groups have started a self-demarcation movement in Brazil.[27] Indigenous communities are forcing other Brazilian’s to recognize their land boundaries with a multiple stage self-demarcation plan.[28] The Guardians protect their homelands by tracking down illegal logging operations, storming the operations, and capturing illegal loggers for Brazilian police.[29] Many have recognized the international ecological impact these forest protectors have[30], but others ignore the concerns of the Guardians and instead criticize the forest protectors for hindering development in the country.[31] The issue has sparked great controversy throughout Brazil.[32]
This contention has led to violence.[33] This violence escalated recently, when a leader of the Guardians, Paulo Paulino Guajajara, was murdered while hunting by illegal loggers.[34] As indigenous communities become more aggressive in trying to save the Amazon rainforest, the Bolsonaro administration further encourages opening up Indigenous land holdings to commercial exploitation.[35] In response to the killing of Guajajara, the Association of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples (“The Association”) released a statement.[36] In the statement, The Association asserted that,
The increased violence in indigenous territories is a direct reflection of their [The Government’s] hate speech, as well as their measures against Indigenous peoples in Brazil. Our lands are being invaded, our leaders murdered, attacked and criminalized, and the Brazilian state is abandoning Indigenous peoples to their fate with the ongoing dismantling of environmental and indigenous policies.[37]
There are clear threats against those living in the Amazon of Brazil, and although there are those trying to help, the rate of destruction that illegal pillaging is causing may be irreversible if immediate and united action does not take place.[38]
Although threats against Indigenous communities should be enough momentum to protect the Amazon, these threats have real and tangible international effects.[39] Scientists fear that if change does not happen soon, the ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest would change drastically into an African-style savanna.[40] This would result in a release of “140 billion tons of stored carbon into the atmosphere, causing an uptick in already rising global temperatures.”[41] In the summer of 2019 alone, the number of fires in the Amazon increased by 83% from the previous year.[42] This is in part due to fires set by people intentionally trying to clear the forest for resource extraction and in part due to already rising global temperatures.[43] Research shows that indigenous communities have positive impacts on maintaining and protecting biodiversity.[44] In one study, researchers compared lands managed by indigenous communities to conventionally protected lands and randomly selected lands in Australia, Brazil, and Canada.[45] What they found was that in many of the areas researched, Indigenous managed lands are higher than randomly selected lands and even still slightly higher than conventionally protected lands.[46]
[B]ecause Indigenous peoples currently manage or have tenure to roughly a quarter of earth’s land area, collaborating with Indigenous nations and organizations to support and/or enhance Indigenous land management practices clearly represent one potential route to achieving global targets for biodiversity conservation, and simultaneously advancing Indigenous rights to land, sustainable resource use, and human well-being.
This means that Indigenous groups having control over land benefits the health of the ecosystems throughout the world.[47] The anti-Indigenous and anti-environmental protection rhetoric of President Bolsonaro’s administration undercuts the positive impact that Indigenous Brazilians have had. By protecting the rainforest many Indigenous Brazilians call home Brazil would be protecting the only home we all have, Earth.[48]
The Indigenous groups in Brazil take protecting the Amazon rainforest, as we all should, with great seriousness. The health of the Amazon affects us all, and, if destroyed, could have substantial if not deathly repercussions on the world. However, when Brazil’s legal system fails to address the issues and international law guidelines are not enough what other legal routes can indigenous Brazilians take? Tensions between indigenous groups and resource extractors is growing in a fight that everyone in the world has a stake in. Action is necessary and needs to be immediate because threats against the Amazon are threats to the lives of Indigenous Brazilians and the health of our ecosystems.
#InternationalLaw #BlogPost #YasmeenFarran #Brazil #IndigenousLand
[1] Evaristo Nugkuag Ikanan, The Right Livelihood Foundation, https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/evaristo-nugkuag-ikanan/ (last visited Mar. 13, 2020).
[2] U.N. indileaflet10, Indigenous Peoples and the Environment (1992) https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuideIPleaflet10en.pdf.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] The Vital Links Between the Amazon Rainforest: Global Warming and You, World Wide Fund for Nature, https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/about_the_amazon/why_amazon_important/ (last visited Feb. 16, 2020).
[6] Id.
[7] The Uncontacted Indians of Brazil, Survival International, https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/uncontacted-brazil (last visited Feb. 16, 2020).
[8] Sam Cowie, Brazilian ‘Forest Guardian’ Killed by Illegal Loggers in Ambush, The Guardian (Nov. 2, 2019, 3:30 PM), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/02/brazilian-forest-guardian-killed-by-illegal-loggers-in-ambush.
[9] The Uncontacted Indians of Brazil, supra note 7.
[10] Id.
[11] International Labor Organization C169 (Jun 27, 1989).
[12] Id.
[13] Id. at Art. 15(1).
[14] Good Principles, Bleak Reality, World Wildlife Foundation, https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/about_the_amazon/people_amazon/indigenous_brazil/ (last visited Mar. 13, 2020).
[15]Anthony J. Bebbington, Et. Al., Resource Extraction and Infrastructure Threaten Forest Cover and Community Rights, 115 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 13164.
[16] Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, https://www.iwgia.org/en/brazil (last visited Mar. 13, 2020).
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Id.
[21] Deutsche Welle, Brazil’s Indigenous Communities Resist Jair Bolsonaro, EcoWatch (Jan. 17, 2020, 12:45 PM), https://www.ecowatch.com/brazil-indigenous-resist-bolsonaro-2644842722.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4.
[22] Povo Munduruku Expulsa Madeireiros de seu Territorio Durante Autodemaracacao, Conselho Indigenista Missionario (Jul. 29, 2019), https://cimi.org.br/2019/07/povo-munduruku-expulsa-madeireiros-territorio-durante-autodemarcacao/.
[23] Welle, supra note 21.
[24] Manuela Andreoni & Laticia Casado, ‘Guardian’ of the Amazon Killed in Brazil by Illegal Loggers, New York Times (Nov. 4, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/world/americas/brazil-indigenous-amazon.html
[25] Dan Harris, Brian Epstein, Evan Simon, Aicha ECastano, & Pete Madden, Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, Armed Tribesmen Battle Illegal Loggers for their Future- and Ours, ABC News (Feb. 14, 2020, 5:13 AM), https://abcnews.go.com/International/deep-amazon-rainforest-tribal-militia-battles-illegal-loggers/story?id=68976854.
[26] Povo Munduruku, supra note 22.
[27] Povo Munduruku, supra note 22.
[28] Id.
[29] Harris, supra note 25.
[30] Id.
[31] International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, supra note 16.
[32] Indigenous Land Demarcation Sparks Divisions in Brazil, Deutsche Welle, https://www.dw.com/en/indigenous-land-demarcation-sparks-divisions-in-brazil/a-40024186 (last visited Mar. 13, 2020).
[33] Andreoni & Casado, supra note 24.
[34] Id.
[35] Id.
[36] Id.
[37] Id.
[38] Morgan McFall-Johnsen, The Amazon Rainforest is About to Cross an Irreversible Threshold that will Turn it Into a Savanna, Top Scientists Say, Business Insider (Dec. 20, 2019, 2:00 PM), https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-rainforest-reaching-tipping-point-deforestation-experts-warn-2019-12.
[39] Id.
[40] Id.
[41] Id.
[42] Id.
[43] Id.
[44] Richard Schuster, Ryan R. Germain, Joseph R. Bennett, Nicholas J. Reo, & Peter Arcese, Vertebrate Biodiversity on Indigenous-Managed Lands in Australia, Brazil, and Canada Equals that in Protected Areas, 1001 Environmental Science & Policy 1, 1-6 (Nov. 2019).
[45] Id.
[46] Id.
[47] Id.
[48] Deutsche Welle, supra note 32.