With the presence of isolated indigenous groups confirmed by Funai (Fundação Nacional do Índio), the Jacareúba-Katawixi Indigenous Land, in southern Amazonas, has been without the renewal of the ordinance for restriction of use for almost six months, an administrative mechanism necessary to avoid the risk of indigenous deaths.
For 78 days, the MPF-AM (Federal Public Ministry of Amazonas) has not responded to the recommendation made to Funai to renew the document under penalty of responding for the “genocide of isolated people in the region”.
Last Friday (20), Coiab (Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon), OPI (Observatory of the Rights of Isolated and Recent Contact Indigenous Peoples), ISA (Socio-Environmental Institute), Opan (Operação Nativa ) and Survival International sent a letter to the attorney working on the case, Fernando Merloto Soave.
In it, the organizations that are part of the “Isolated or decimated” campaign remind the MPF-AM of the history of the indigenous land, the risks of death of the isolated, the current mechanism of omission at Funai and the lack of response to the MPF-AM since March of this year, in addition to the fact that the protection ordinance expired on December 1 of last year.
“Without immediate action, we could witness the silent disappearance of the Katawixi, under violent and dramatically invisible conditions,” the note reads.
Jacareúba-Katawixi is located in the municipalities of Canutama and Lábrea, in the Purus region, and the study on isolated indigenous people in the region dates from 2007. According to the OPI, the ordinance restricting the use of indigenous land was renewed for ten years, but with the new government’s policy, the isolated lost the protection of the document.
Four of the six indigenous lands with the presence of isolated people in the Amazon protected by ordinances restricting the use of the area have their documents expired or whose validity period is considered by experts to be insufficient to guarantee their safety and life.
In two of them, Ituna-Itatá and Piripikura, Funai was forced to renew the ordinance by court decision.
In Amazonas, the MPF-AM opted for the recommendation, which remains unanswered.
“Any omissive stance will imply direct responsibilities on the part of the indigenist agency in relation to the risk of violence and extermination against the people of this indigenous group that maintains its proactive determination to isolate and refuse contact with the predatory forces of regional occupation”, states the letter from the organizations. to the prosecutor responsible for the case.
The letter from the organizations sent to the MPF-AM also says that the invasions and land grabbing resulting from the impact of the BR-319 in the region “tend to get worse” due to the lack of renewal of the ordinance restricting use.
In the report #IsoladosOrouDizimados released last year, the OPI made a projection indicating that deforestation in this region of the Amazon with isolated indigenous peoples could quadruple if the average of current records is maintained. The forecast is that it will reach 170,000 km² in 2050, which corresponds to four times the historical average for the years 2012 to 2016.
According to indigenist and OPI anthropologist Miguel Aparício, the region where Jacareúba-Katawixi is located is threatened by the activities of land grabbers, loggers and people who buy lots “even on the internet” and deforest the forest.
In the 1990s, according to Aparício, the region was experiencing another moment with demarcations and the creation of conservation units.
As of 2004, the anthropologist reports, a process began that he characterizes as the “Rondonization of the south of the Amazon”, with the expansion of deforestation to this previously preserved region.
“Today, the region has become a kind of fishbone with roads and disorderly occupation. What is our drama? The lack of monitoring, the risk of a genocide of the indigenous people”, he said.
According to the letter from the organizations sent to the MPF-AM, official data from PRODES/INPE indicate that by July 2021, 5,889 hectares had been deforested inside the indigenous land, equivalent to 3.3 million trees felled. Data from the same systems show that between August 2020 and July 31, 2021, deforestation increased by 60%.
“It’s chilling to think that we don’t know what could have happened or happened to the indigenous people,” said the anthropologist.
Chief Zé Bajaga Apurinã, executive coordinator of the Federation of Indigenous Organizations and Communities of the Middle Purus, said that invasions appear from all sides and it is distressing to live in the region without knowing how to protect “relatives” who decide to live without contact.
“What we ask of the State is to take a stand. Restrict the use, which was already there, and put a team again, a physical protection. There is no protection. What makes me more nervous is that they are increasingly more violent”, he declared.
The right to isolation of indigenous people is a guarantee provided for in the Federal Constitution and in Convention 169 of the ILO.
Sought after, MPF-AM and Funai, did not manifest themselves until the publication of this report.
