Several Indigenous communities, who had reclaimed their ancestral lands taken away by companies, have recently been targeted by armed fazendeiros (agrarian latifundists) mobs in different regions of Brazil.
The official recognition of these areas as Indigenous land can be an arduous process. It’s often hampered by legal actions carried out by the fazendeiros, and the current Brazilian president has made a commitment to not demarcate an inch of Indigenous lands. After decades of dispossessions, some Indigenous people are trying to reclaim their traditional land by means of occupation, even though they face the threat of attacks by organized armed fazendeiros mobs.
Reclaim of farm Brasília at Indigenous land Barra Velha
On June 26th, a mob of fazendeiros (agrarian latifundists) and gunmen in a long column of dozens of cars and pickups headed to the Fazenda Brasília, in the municipality of Prado, south of Bahia, Brazil, where the Pataxó Indigenous community had decided to re-claim their ancestral land.
NB: in this Youtube video, the agrarian lobby refers to the Indigenous people who claimed back their land as “false indians” in an attempt to undermine their right to claim back the ancestral land. Extract: “The farmers of Southern Bahia, all the rural landowners, are getting together to remove the ‘false Indians’ from Fazenda Brasília. We are bringing everyone together to do what they are doing in Mato Grosso do Sul. From now on it’s going to be like this: if you invade a property, everybody is going to jump on you”.
Only a few days earlier, in another Brazilian state, a similar mob of fazendeiros attacked the Indigenous Guarani Kaiowá who were trying to re-claim their territory at Fazenda Borda da Mata, in Amambai, Mato Grosso do Sul. The military police intervened (apparently without judicial mandate), killing an Indigenous man.
Indigenous communities are the rightful owners of Fazenda Brasília, as it is inside the limits of the Indigenous land Barra Velha do Monte Pascoal. Its demarcation process as an Indigenous territory has been initiated, according to the Brazilian Constitution. The agrarian lobby filed six complaints to the Supreme Court (STJ) about it in the past but, in 2019, the STJ decided that the demarcation of the Indigenous land Barra Velha do Monte Pascoal was legitimate and valid.
Another farm that was also reclaimed last week, in the south of Bahia, is one that produces eucalyptus for Brazilian paper giant Suzano. Last week, the Pataxó Indigenous people reclaimed the Santa Bárbara farm, located in the Indigenous territory TI Comexatibá. This farm is a partner of Suzano, who sources its eucalyptus supplies from the fazenda.
Suzano recently became one of the world’s biggest pulp & paper producers. In 2021 it produced 10.9 million tonnes of pulp, growing 1,400% in ten years from 2011, when it produced just 765,000 tonnes. Its plantations expanded over entire landscapes, and being eucalyptus an exotic plant that consumes high volumes of water, they affected entire regions.
“Pulp companies are exploiting the area by planting eucalyptus and this is causing serious environmental damage to the entire region, including deforestation and excessive use of pesticides. These practices are affecting the water resources that still exist in the region”, said a Pataxó spokesperson. “We want our water, quality land, and our biome recovered. We do not accept this shame, this destruction”.
In an evasive note, ABAF, the forestry association of Bahia of which Suzano is a member, confirmed that the farm where the incident happened (without specifying which farm) supplies the pulp industry. Suzano indicated that it is aware of the incident in the area of its forestry partner and is “following the case”.
The only way to actively follow up on the case would be for Suzano to immediately suspend the partnership with all plantations operating on Indigenous lands, but the company has not yet expressed any intention to remediate the situation.
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