There is disorder in the atmosphere. One year of exacerbated floods, another of severe drought. “Either the root dries up and doesn’t produce manioc, or it gets soaked, rots and doesn’t produce manioc in the same way,” says indigenous leader and biology student Samela Sateré Mawé.
The explanation is accompanied by a requirement: if indigenous peoples are among those most affected by climate change, they must have a place at the tables where decisions are made.
As one of the representatives of the Uma Concertação pela Amazônia initiative, which brings together members from different sectors of society to rethink the development of the region, Samela went to Stockholm, Sweden, last week, to bring an indigenous vision to the debates that celebrate the 50th anniversary. of the first UN environmental conference.
THE Sheet, the woman from Manaus tells about the search for indigenous representation, responds to prejudiced views and assesses the challenges for young and female protagonism, inside and outside the villages. “Only women who are outside the territory have a voice and a voice.”
What message did you try to convey to the Stockholm+50 conference? We seek to take a decolonial view of what development is, which is the proposal of involvement. We want the involvement of indigenous peoples in everything that touches our biome. If big companies and investors want to have some work here in the Amazon, we want to be consulted, we want to be in decision-making spaces.
We see [nessas conferências globais] rich people with great purchasing power. It’s like we’re bargaining chips. As if we were there for them to negotiate for us.
For a long time, we’ve had a lot of people speaking for us: what they think, what they think. But we believe that nothing is for us without us.
The people who are debating there do not suffer from climate change on a daily basis, they do not depend on the river and the land to survive. Indigenous people are one of the main affected by the effects of climate change.
What effects do you already deal with? We live in the North, in the Amazon. We have never seen so many floods as now. One year of flood, another of severe drought. When there is little rain, there is no time for the garden to germinate. The roots dry up, not enough cassava to make flour. When it rains a lot, everything rots, it gets very wet, you can’t make the flour in the same way.
This crazy period also influences the reproduction of bioindicator animals, such as earthworms, beetles, which we use both for soil fertility and for fishing. When these cycles change, they either fail to reproduce, or they reproduce too much, with too much heat. It ends up having a disorder in the climate.
What are the social consequences of this disorder? Hungry. It is very large in indigenous territories, brought about by climate change and also by invasions, deforestation and fires, which also cause climate change.
But this is not debated in major climate change events. What is debated there is carbon credit, big companies, big profits, environmental offsets. What about small populations that depend on the climate?
At COP26, the last UN climate conference, the world heard the voice of the Txai Suruí indigenous leadership. You were together then and now at Stockholm+50. In your opinion, what stimulated the protagonism of indigenous youth? The rise of the internet. We have mastered a tool that our elders have not mastered yet. And it is an efficient tool within the indigenous movement, we saw it during
the pandemic.
The internet has mobilized many people to help indigenous peoples. And it is helping with complaints about what is happening in our territory. We are leading the fight of our parents and grandparents with our new weapons, which are cell phones and the internet.
How did your engagement in the indigenous movement begin? I was born within the indigenous movement, in the Sateré-Mawé Indigenous Women’s Association. My grandmother was the founder, and when she passed away, my mother became the coordinator.
My first memories of the indigenous movement are of painting, because my mother would take papers that she won at the meeting and give it to me to paint and be quiet during the meeting.
When I entered the university, through the quota policy, in 2015, I started to have a permanent place and voice within the university. Because there we saw that indigenous students enter every year, but we didn’t see anyone asserting themselves.
So we made a movement of self-affirmation within the universities. And since I was always in the movement, I was invited to speak at meetings. I was developing speech, pronunciations.
Is this female protagonism recent in the indigenous movement? How did it develop? It is a new movement, but the association is not new. Only women who are outside the territory have a voice and a voice.
We only managed to do this because they were taken from the territory in the 1970s by the current Funai. It had all the social impact of going to Manaus, working with a family, not being able to study. So they organized themselves into an association in order to survive in the city. As they were all women, the role was female. But in the territory it is still masculine, because the people are patriarchal.
In the national indigenous movement, there are few women’s organizations. Last year, we organized the Anmiga (National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality).
Now, when we think of indigenous leaders, we think of women’s names. This is very good for me, because they are my inspiration, like Sonia Guajajara, Alessandra Munduruku and others who also suffered great difficulties within their territories, with violations and men looking the other way. It is very difficult for women to get up. Mainly youth.
How do you assess the treatment given to indigenous peoples by the current government? When you have a presidency that declares war on indigenous peoples, other people also feel free to threaten our territories, because they think they go unpunished.
We see a dismantling of environmental protection agencies and also cuts in education. We are being pruned so we cannot respond to the actions against us.
There was no demarcation of indigenous lands for many years, since previous governments. But in this government this was accentuated, because it was openly said that there would be no demarcation and an exacerbated prejudice against indigenous peoples was announced.
What is your response to prejudiced speeches? It is useless to say that indigenous people are obstacles to development, because our territories are the smallest we have had since the invasion. We only have 13% of indigenous lands demarcated. We were a country of 100% indigenous lands. And in these 13% is where there is the greatest conservation of biodiversity.
When people deforest, seize land, it is not to improve the country’s economy. It is not to end the country’s hunger. None of this stays in the country. The production of soy and cattle is for export and this money goes into the pockets of a few people.
Although the presidential race draws more attention, much of the environmental and indigenous rights setbacks are articulated in Congress. How do they intend to influence this configuration, now in the electoral context? We are investing in more indigenous representation in politics. We only have one indigenous representative, which is Joenia Wapichana (Rede-RR). And with her entry, a lot has already changed the game for us.
At Acampamento Terra Livre, we launched the headdress bench, with candidacies from indigenous women in the states. We need to be in the spaces where laws are voted on.
