Indigenous Communities Push Back Against Amazon Development
Indigenous communities fight plans for development and deforestation in the Amazon (Cr: Eraldo Peres/AP)
By: Jonathan Stormer Pezzi
New York — After the Amazon shrank at unprecedented rates last year, many indigenous peoples living in countries covered by the trans-national forest have fought back against policies of deforestation and mining orchestrated by South American governments.
On January 14th, Brazilian indigenous leaders met for a tribal gathering to plan their campaign against President Jair Bolsonaro, a notable opponent of Amazon conservation.
In 2019, deforestation levels were at their highest in several years. According to the World Wildlife Fund, “Brazil is responsible for half of the deforestation in the Amazon, but deforestation in the Andean Amazon countries – namely Bolivia and Peru – is increasing.”
Bolsonaro's administration has castrated the powers of Brazil's environmental ministry and has suspended the Amazon Fund, a mechanism meant to assist Brazil in maintaining the rainforest.
The Amazon is believed to be home to 10% of known species on Earth.
Since Bolsonaro took office just over a year ago, he has expressed his desire to integrate Brazil’s approximately 900,000 indigenous people into the country’s society.
This rhetoric has led to controversy, as The Association of Indigenous Peoples filed a lawsuit against the president after he claimed on social media that indigenous people are “evolving and becoming more and more, a human being like us”. The president is accused of the crime of racism, an infraction that can carry a maximum five-year sentence in Brazil.
However, indigenous leaders are fighting back in various other ways.
Joenia Wapichana, the first indigenous lawyer in Brazil and the President of the National Commission for the Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, wrote a bill proposing funds collected from environmental fines be directed back to native peoples.
According to Monga Bay, an environmental non-profit, “The text also says this money can serve as revenue for the indigenous peoples, to be used for environmental preservation and to compensate for the impacts that environmental violations crimes have had on the people and the lives of the communities.”
In neighboring Peru, a judge recently ruled to protect lands from new oil and mining projects. The decision came after a 2017 lawsuit by the Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the East calling for the company Perupetro to halt the development of three oil fields located in Peru’s northern Amazon.
An oil auction for 500,000 acres of rainforest was blocked by indigenous and environmental advocates in Ecuador recently as well.
This decision comes after the newspaper Folha de San Paulo, announced that Brazilian oil and gas production broke historical records last year, reaching more than 1 billion barrels of oil produced in one year.
The international community is also taking action against the more frequent deforestation.
Norway and Germany, the Amazon Fund's primary benefactors, have pulled out due to concerns of Bolsonaro violating the terms of their funding agreement. He had also pushed to reduce Germany and Norway's influence in deciding how their donations were spent.
President Bolsonaro had this to say regarding the cessation of funds, "Isn't Norway that country that kills whales up there in the North Pole?" He continued in his statement, "Take that money and help Angela Merkel reforest Germany.”
However, Bolsonaro has recently conceded to some of this criticism. On January 21st, he announced he will create an Amazon Council to “coordinate diverse actions within each ministry focused on the protection, defence, and sustainable development of the Amazon.”
The council will be led by Brazilian Vice President General Hamilton Mourao.