Invasion, land grabbing, deforestation and illegal hunting are current challenges for the maintenance of the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve (Resex) in Acre, a state where the rate of forest loss has doubled since 2018. The worrying picture is reported by activist Ângela Mendes, executive president of the Chico Mendes Committee and the eldest daughter of the rubber tapper leader who was murdered in 1988.
The situation is aggravated by the omission of the public power, says Ângela, who also highlights the threat of the bill (PL) 6.024/2019, which is being processed in the Chamber of Deputies. The text, authored by Mara Rocha (PSDB-AC), proposes the reduction of the Resex area, today with almost 1 million hectares (something like 1 million soccer fields).
“The local government does not give any answer to this, because it has a very close relationship with the agribusiness sector, which is precisely the sector behind the PL’s articulation”, he evaluates.
Another challenge for Ângela is to help strengthen the identities of forest peoples and ensure the maintenance of young people in extractive reserves. “The education system today alienates these young people from their culture,” he says.
This Monday (5), Day of the Amazon, Angela is invited by the European Parliament for a speech. Among the topics she will address, she says, is Europe’s responsibility for forest conservation.
“The Amazon is explored a lot because of a demand that comes from Europe itself. From the demand for cattle, wood, soy”, he says. “If Europe consumes these products, it needs to consume it consciously. It needs to guarantee that it will not be driving violence and deforestation.”
Against the conflicts and murders in the region, in fact, such as those that cost her father’s life and, recently, that of the indigenist Bruno Pereira and that of the journalist Dom Phillips, Ângela reinforces the need for Brazil to improve its policies to protect activists and investigation transparency.
“My father was murdered [em 1988]but much earlier there was also Wilson Pinheiro [líder seringueiro acreano morto em 1980]. With the murder of Bruno and Dom Phillips, we end up bringing to light something that is normally hidden.”
Acre and Resex Chico Mendes have registered high rates of deforestation in recent years. How has the government responded to this and how does it affect the lives of the population? The Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve is today one of the most attacked and threatened conservation units. Here in Acre it is annually the most deforested. Today we are also fighting against the bill (PL) 6024, which aims to reduce the limits of Resex.
The local government does not give any answer to this, because it has a very close relationship with the agribusiness sector, which is precisely the sector that is behind the PL’s articulation, which is also behind the invasions, the land grabbing. We see not only in Chico Mendes, but in a much more accentuated way in Chico Mendes, the performance of these groups.
So, on the one hand, we have invaders who are coming from Rondônia, but also from other states, and who meet there with illegal hunters and factions. And, on the other hand, the public power, which does not give any answer to this.
The governor of Acre, Gladson Cameli (PP), defends the expansion of agricultural production and the creation of a development zone that would unite Amazonas, Rondônia and Acre, called Amacro. What is the opinion of extractivists about this project? Well, there is no opinion from extractivists, just as there is no opinion from the majority of the Acre population, because this is not an open issue for the population. It is treated under lock and key by the governments involved and their teams. It is a project involving exactly the most conflicting regions: the south of the Amazon is today the scene of the great agrarian conflicts, as is the part of Rondônia and the part of Acre that make up this Amacro.
We are very sorry about the lack of transparency, because of course the discourse is to organize sustainable development for this region, but this development is thought from the perspective of those who are in government today. There has never been a public hearing on this project.
You have repeatedly argued that the standing Amazon is a central part of climate solutions, but how to make the protection of forests also a response to the needs of the Amazonian population, to raise socioeconomic indices? What catches this in relation to the Amazon is the extremely predatory exploitation, the view that the Amazon is just a source of raw material, which only serves to meet the market demand, whether for meat, soy, or wood. . But the set of populations that make up the Amazon is also the set of solutions.
The UN is already there saying that indigenous peoples and their territories protect the forest. And we have another set of populations that also play the same role of guardians based on their uses, knowledge and practices of their territories. Now, you cannot think that we will have large-scale production of this and that. We’re talking about keeping identities.
For example, the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve has 1 million hectares, which would already be on the ground if it weren’t for the extractive reserve that, despite its problems, plays this important role of keeping almost 1 million hectares of forests standing.
Could you exemplify this set of alternatives? We have here, for example, in Acre, Cooperacre, which is a center of small cooperatives for the residents of the extractive reserve that absorbs the production of rubber, nuts, açaí, everything that is produced in the forest.
We have initiatives, for example, the work of artisans. There are people in the forest who make beautiful things from the forest itself. There is so much happening in the Amazon that is not visible because we only talk about the Amazon when it comes to deforestation, when it is to say that the Amazon, in many cases, is seen as a delay in development.
How have you been working to strengthen the Chico Mendes Committee on this agenda in recent years? What are the priorities? The committee was born with the mission of protecting my father’s legacy, understanding the importance today that extractive reserves have in combating the climate crisis. He was a guy who had a vision far ahead of his time. When he talks, for example, about youth.
So we’ve been working a lot inspired by the letter to the young people of the future that he left. We understand the role, for example, of youth today, strategic for the maintenance of the territory, the identity, the culture of the peoples of the forest, especially the extractive peoples who exploit chestnuts and rubber. Since 2016, we have strengthened the voice of these youths, especially from the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve.
How to reconcile young people’s demand for more education, which they identify with going to big cities, and maintaining this bond with the territory, with the rubber plantations? How do you approach this issue? The education system today separates these young people from their culture, from their identity. It has nothing to do with it, right? In this sense, we have been thinking about alternatives with Ifac (Federal Institute of Acre) and Ufac (Federal University of Acre), to propose a model of pedagogy for the forest as well.
The committee participates in the Amazônia de Pé campaign. What are the main proposals of this movement? The Amazônia de Pé campaign seeks to protect public lands in the Amazon, in order to implement the demarcation of indigenous lands, the creation of extractive reserves and other conservation units, and the correct destination for these populations. The idea is to protect the territories, but also these populations, so that they actually make the social use of the land, as the Land Statute says.
We believe that this would greatly reduce conflicts over land. But it is not enough to create either, it is also necessary to have the right instruments to consolidate these territories and implement public policies to guarantee and maintain the lives of these people in these territories.
For example, Chico Mendes: she is unfortunately an example of many things that should not happen. It is so big, so extensive, and ICMBio [Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade] It doesn’t have the structure to handle it. They need to be met by public policies, whether in education, in health, or in valuing forest production chains, so that we can consolidate this model.
You are traveling in Europe. Does her agenda have anything to do with the murder of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips? What is the role of the international community in combating violence in the Amazon? Yes, we cannot leave such an important issue aside. my father was murdered [em 1988]but much earlier there was also Wilson Pinheiro [líder seringueiro acreano morto em 1980]. With the murder of Bruno and Dom Phillips, we end up bringing to light something that is normally hidden.
Today we have, for example, the Escazú Agreement, which guarantees transparency in the processes and the participation of the population in the investigation of disappearances, as was the case with Dom and Bruno.
If Brazil had already done its homework, we would have been able to monitor things in a very clear and transparent way, but we know that was not the case, right? Nobody had access to the correct, clear information, so these instruments really need to be consolidated and implemented.
Brazil has a task, and we need it to be fulfilled — both to ratify, to operationalize this agreement, even to make it a law. It is necessary to improve and update the national program to protect human rights defenders, social communicators and activists.
Will that be the focus of your speech to the European Parliament on this Amazon Day? Not just this one. What we are going to say there, in fact, is also: the Amazon is explored a lot because of a demand that comes from Europe itself. From the demand for cattle, wood, soy. So we need to think of a method to control this demand. How can we guarantee that by serving this market, we will no longer be inducing these situations of conflict in the Amazon?
If Europe consumes these products, it needs to consume them consciously. It needs to ensure that it will not be fueling violence and deforestation.
What would you say is the main legacy of Chico Mendes? Look, he left a lot, he was so amazing. His notion of collectivity is very contemporary, so the Aliança dos Povos da Floresta [projeto desenvolvido nos anos 1980] it was that feeling of collective. Extractive reserves were this feeling of collectivity, of caring.
I think what he left most beautiful was not even this concreteness of territory, but this notion that things done together, collectively, gain more strength. Individualism also ends up being responsible for much of what we are experiencing today.
X-RAY
Angela Mendes, 52
Technologist in environmental management, she is the current executive president of the Chico Mendes Committee. The eldest daughter of the rubber tapper leader and trade unionist, she was born in the Cachoeira rubber plantation, in Xapuri (AC). As a socio-environmental activist, among other actions, she launched, in January 2020, an alliance against public policies of the Jair Bolsonaro government in the environmental and indigenous areas together with chief Raoni and the politician Sônia Guajajara (PSOL).
UNDERSTAND THE SERIES
Planeta em Transe is a series of reports and interviews with new actors and experts on climate change in Brazil and around the world. This special coverage also follows the responses to the climate crisis in the 2022 elections and at COP27 (UN conference in November in Egypt). The project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.
