Tag: indigenous

Resisting Brazil’s Proposed Law #490/2007 to Block and Seize Indigenous Lands … Pt/ Esp/ Eng

from Barbara Crane Navarro Rainforest Art Project – Pas de Cartier ! by https://www.salsa-tipiti.org

SALSA Statement 27 June 2021

Strongly supported by the agro-industrial sector, Law #490/2007 provides for several changes in the territorial rights of Indigenous Peoples as guaranteed by Brazil’s Constitution.

The law applies the “time limit thesis” (marco temporal) to the question of demarcating Indigenous territories.

This fringe racist legal theory holds that Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples have the right only to lands they happened to occupy at the time of the promulgation of the Brazilian Constitution (October 1988), and not any that were stolen from them before that date.

If adopted, the marco temporal standard would likely prevent the demarcation of any additional Indigenous territories (237 territories are currently in legal limbo), while also placing at risk the 441 fully demarcated and registered Indigenous territories.

Furthermore, Law #490/2007 would open Indigenous territories to predatory activities, including mining, ranching, commercial agribusiness, and dam construction.

It goes so far as to allow the State to “retake” lands if there are significant “alterations of cultural traits” within Indigenous communities.

Read Full Statement.

Continue reading “Resisting Brazil’s Proposed Law #490/2007 to Block and Seize Indigenous Lands … Pt/ Esp/ Eng”

‘Our Governments Are Killing the Earth.’ Brazilian Indigenous Leader

Benki Piyãnko in his village, Apiwtxa, explaining about his work with agroforestry systems

Deforestation in the Amazon

Benki Pyãnko is a community leader from Apiwtxa, an Ashaninka community situated in the Amazonian state of Acre, Brazil. He has led projects to defend his community from deforestation and to defend Ashaninka rights and culture in the indigenous territory of Terra Kampa do Rio Amônia.
His community’s sustainability projects were awarded an Equator Prize by the U.N. in 2017.
As TIME reported in its recent special climate issue, the fires from the Amazon seen across the skies of Brazil in August “helped illuminate something the world can no longer ignore.” On the front lines of the fight to protect the land is 46-year-old Benki Pyãnko, who has experienced these significant — and devastating—changes to the environment firsthand.
A ambassador of the Ashaninka people, Pyãnko has led environmental and reforesting projects in his community of Apiwtxa, inhabiting the indigenous territory of Terra Kampa do Rio Amônia in the Brazilian state of Acre, located close to the border with Peru and covered by the Amazon rainforest.
This Australian documentary is about the indigenous Mundruku tribe and their efforta to stop illegal deforestation in the Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Altogether the Amazon is home to 300 indigenous tribes. All are threatened by multinational mining, agricultural and logging interests. This film also looks at the big threat to their way of life posed by the election of right wing populist Jair Bolsonaro as president.

There are around 3,000 Ashaninka people living across four indigenous land areas in Brazil, and over 120,000 Ashaninka living over the frontier in Peru. Pyãnko’s Apiwtxa community won the United Nations Equator Prize in 2017, a prize honoring indigenous communities, for its reforesting initiatives and defense of Ashaninka rights and culture.
As part of the Flourishing Diversity Summit at University College London, Pyãnko was one of several indigenous leaders invited from around the world to gather and share their experiences of protecting their environments. TIME spoke with Pyãnko about the solutions that indigenous people can offer to tackle climate change, and what lessons the rest of the world can learn from them.
Where we live, there is still a great deal of richness as far as forests, animals, plants. These species still exist because of the way we guarded and tended the forest since around 1986 when we began this work of preservation.
Our people still maintain our culture very protectively and very well, but with all that we have protected, we also carry great worry, because of all that surrounds us where we live. People who use the forest hunt animals to a great extent, take part in logging activities, and deforest the forest to make way for pastures.

Our rivers cannot exist without the forest, our animals cannot live without the forest, and we ourselves depend on these plants and animals for our consumption, for our existence.

Deforesting was one of the greatest catastrophes that happened in our territory. People felled our forests, and that made our rivers very dry. There were many species of fish that disappeared, as the forest has been cut down, many kinds of animals also disappeared, or disappeared from that region at least. We have experienced a lot more heatwaves now, almost unbearable heatwaves.

see also> Their duplicity was on display at the recent G7 conference, where the countries’ leaders collectively promised to donate $20 million to fight the Brazilian inferno. That’s about as effective as arming the firefighters with toy squirt guns. .. Most of the fires were deliberately ignited, and will continue to be ignited after the current blazes are extinguished, regardless of the amount ostensibly contributed for firefighting.

There would be rains during the summer time as if it were winter time, and also dryness during the rainy season. There’s been growing lightning storms and hurricane storms that would come and uproot many trees. We had great floods that caused many animals to die, and even people. Because of climatic changes, there are many species of trees whose fruits are borne before the correct time of the year.

All the people who live in the forest realize that over the last 30 years, the changes have been very significant.

It is man who has been perpetrating all this disaster. We see mining and oil business coming into our area and invading our rivers. There were gold mines, with many areas of the forest burned or logged, and we have seen many industries moving into the area that pollute the air, significantly. We see all the rubbish created by these industries, not only plastic but also cans and all the waste being thrown in our rivers.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday published the 165-page report “Rainforest Mafias: How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon,” outlining the ways gangs exhibiting this illegal, criminal behavior not only threatens the world’s largest rainforest but also the people who live in and around it.Illustration for article titled Criminal Gangs Are Behind the Destruction of the Brazilian Amazon

All our worry about the destruction that is happening makes us take our message as indigenous peoples to the whole world, speaking about these problems. Our environment, our natural fruits, animals and plants are the security of our lives.

And if we don’t take care of all these species, of this richness of nature, we are heading towards a great catastrophe that may affect us in a very deep way. That’s why my work as a leader is to try to show people how we can change this attitude, and we can change all of this.

That’s why I have come out of my village to go outside and show to other people with my projects what can be done to protect our environment. MORE

 

Water Protectors Resistance Actions Shut Down Pipelines

In the last few days, Water Protectors across the so-called US have taken action against a variety of pipeline projects. This includes both Embridge’s Line 3 pipeline, which saw action and construction stoppages on the Fond Du Lac Ojibwe Reservation, in so-called Manitoba, and outside of a Wells Fargo in Minneapolis, a bank which is helping to finance Line 3.

Actions in the ‘Hell Bender Autonomous Zone’ in the Appalachian territory also continue against the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines, and the L’eau Est La Vie camp continues to throw down against the Bayou Bridge Pipeline in so-called Louisiana.

Here’s a roundup of actions that have kicked off the last several days.

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As Anti-Colonial Land Defense wrote:

Today Anti-colonial Land Defense and many other individuals from different groups united as a gathering of Indigenous and non-indigenous Water Protectors to stop Enbridge pipeline Line 3 construction on the Fond Du Lac Ojibwe Reservation; we shut down work all day yesterday! Continue reading “Water Protectors Resistance Actions Shut Down Pipelines”

Indigenous Environmental Defender killed as logging mafia targets tribe

The Guardians of the Amazon recently destroyed a logging truck they discovered in their territory.The Guardians of the Amazon recently destroyed a logging truck they discovered in their territory.© Guardians of the Amazon

shared with thanks from Survival International   A leader of an Amazon tribe acclaimed for its environmental defenders has been killed, the latest in a series of deaths among the tribe.Image result for guardians of the amazon

The body of Jorginho Guajajara was found near a river in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. He was a leader of the Guajajara people, acclaimed internationally for their work as the ‘Guardians of the Amazon’ in the most threatened region in the entire Amazon. Continue reading “Indigenous Environmental Defender killed as logging mafia targets tribe”

Brazil Victory: Key Supreme Court rulings in Favor of Indigenous Land Rights

 text in part from http://www.survivalinternational.org

 

All is NOT LOST.  Aug 16th 2017

Brazilian Indigenous Nations celebrate Supreme Court decision AGAINST a legal precedent from the far right usurpers in power which would have decimated their heritage.

The ‘Marco Temporal’ refers to an arbitrary cutoff date, Oct 5th  in 1988. Under the proposed new legal policy if the lands were not occupied by the indigenous people on that date their right to the lands would be abolished. Hence the campaign ‘Our History Didn’t Begin in 1988’.

Indigenous activists and human rights campaigners around the world yesterday celebrated Brazil’s Supreme Court ruling unanimously in favor of indigenous land rights.

video here

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fradioyande%2Fvideos%2F1171888952920744%2F&show_text=0&width=560

Thousands of Indigenous peoples marched to Congress in the capital of  Brazil in April 2015 to protest the destruction of their land and human rights by the far right usurper government headed by Temer. they were received with tear gas and bombs by shock troops

Brazilian Indians have been protesting in Brasilia against the government’s anti-indigenous proposals.

Indigenous people occupied highways, to protest and later (above) to celebrate the Court victory

In two land rights cases, all eight of the judges present voted for indigenous land rights and against the government of Mato Grosso state, in the Amazon, which was demanding compensation for lands mapped out as indigenous territories decades ago. Continue reading “Brazil Victory: Key Supreme Court rulings in Favor of Indigenous Land Rights”

COLOMBIA: US backed Terrorists Continue Vile Murder Campaign

 COLOMBIA: THE MASSACRE OF SOCIAL LEADERS AND THE WESTERN MEDIA SILENCE

Image result for colombia social activists murderedColombian Social Leader Emilsen Manyoma and her Partner Murdered

The number of social and human rights defenders killed in the last 14 months now stands at at least 120, according to a Friday press release from the Defense of the People.The murders of social leaders continues in the face of the inaction of the authorities, who insist on denying the systematicity of the death squads campaign.

In the last days three more social leaders were murdered, while the Western Media Mafia and the UN continue silencing such crimes, implying their legitimacy and support for the neo-fascist terrorism of the oligarchy..

Colombia Paramilitaries Won’t Stop Killing Human Rights Leaders

“The retreat of the FARC from the zones where they previously exercised control has allowed for the entrance of new armed actors who fight for territorial and economic dominance,” states the report referring to the US armed far-right terrorists who infest the country. This marks a concerning trend requiring immediate action since the attacks are “pertaining to groups with similar characteristics, and which occurred in the same period and geographic area,” it adds.

Plan Colombia was a counternarcotics and counterinsurgency military aid package launched in 2000 by then U.S. President Bill Clinton to put down leftwing resistance to the oligarchy, the ‘Mafia of the Rich’  who have long plagued Colombia, and indeed Latin America, … Continue reading “COLOMBIA: US backed Terrorists Continue Vile Murder Campaign”

Interview and Gallery: Gord Hill, Indigenous Artist and Anarchist

By  CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective      Gord Hill is an anarchist artist and a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation who has been active in anticolonial and anticapitalist struggles for decades. Over the years, his art and criticism have been an inspiration and challenge to us.
Gord is the author of two comic books, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, The Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book, as well as 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, and runs the website Warrior Publications. He also draws and writes under the pseudonym Zig Zag.

 

Obviously, there have always been intersections between art and resistance, but we’d like to hear how you see those intersections for yourself, and how you see those intersections playing out in society today.

I believe art is an important part of resistance in that it contributes to an overall culture of resistance. Art inspires, educates, motivates, and helps to maintain a history of resistance as well.

Continue reading “Interview and Gallery: Gord Hill, Indigenous Artist and Anarchist”

Indigenous Communities unite to fight Megaprojects in Chinantla Mountains, Oaxaca

 Etractivism is a war against the people

By Renata Bessi and Santiago Navarro F  at  Avispa Midia

The Chinantec people, inhabitants of the Cajonos River basin in the north of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, are carrying out an organizational process throughout their entire territory, the Chinantla, against economic projects that seek to commodify nature as a whole.

They are megaprojects such as mining, hydroelectric dams, highways, conservation projects, and, more recently, hydrocarbons. It is not a coincidence Chinantla is considered a priority of economic interest for the Mexican government. It houses the third largest tropical rainforest in Mexico. After the Lacandona jungle in Chiapas, and the Chimalapas in Oaxaca, it is the best preserved and one of the richest in biodiversity.

Unsustainable Extractivism destroys our land and water Continue reading “Indigenous Communities unite to fight Megaprojects in Chinantla Mountains, Oaxaca”

FORCED EVICTION ‘CANNOT EXTINGUISH THE FIRE THAT STANDING ROCK STARTED’

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Official Statement From Tom Goldtooth, of The Indigenous Environmental Network:

We are appalled by today’s forced evacuations of indigenous people at the Camp at Standing Rock, they are a violent and unnecessary infringement on the constitutional right of water protectors to peacefully protest and exercise their freedom of speech. It hinders the camp clean up process and creates confusion and chaos that puts the Missouri River at risk of pollution from construction and camping debris.

Today’s expulsion is a continuation of a centuries old practice, where the U.S. Government forcefully removes Indigenous people from our lands and territories.

see also: Activists Occupy Pipeline in North Florida

We urge supporters of the water protectors to continue to resist this travesty by organizing mass mobilizations, distributed actions, speaking out against the violations of the Treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation, and continuing to source up the capacity for litigation and grassroots organizing against the Dakota Access pipeline.IEN release
Our hearts are not defeated. The closing of the camp is not the end of a movement or fight, it is a new beginning.

They cannot extinguish the fire that Standing Rock started. It burns within each of us. We will rise, we will resist, and we will thrive.

We are sending loving thoughts to the water protectors along the banks of the Cannonball River, today. May everyone be as safe as can be. #noDAPL

see also…How to Stop a Pipeline: Trump, DAPL and the Power of Mass Action 

and… Update on Getting the Sabal Trail Pipe-Sitters out of Jail 

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