Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil’s incoming head of indigenous affairs recently went through every corner of the agency’s headquarters – even its coffee room – as he sought help from the ancestors during a ritual cleansing.
The ritual took on extra meaning for Jonia Wapichana, Brazil’s first indigenous woman to take charge of the agency protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. Once she is sworn in next month under newly elected President Luiz Inacio da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean house at an agency that critics say continues to exploit the Amazon’s resources at the expense of the environment. has allowed.
As Wapichana performed the ritual, indigenous people and government officials enthusiastically chanted “Yoohoo! Funai is ours!” – a reference to the agency she will lead.
Environmentalists, indigenous people and voters sympathetic to his cause were crucial to Lula’s narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign promises he made on a range of issues, from expanding indigenous territories to halting the increase in illegal deforestation.
To meet these goals, Lula is appointing well-known environmentalists and indigenous people to key positions in FANAI and other agencies, which Bolsonaro filled with aides from agribusiness and military officials.
In Lula’s last two terms as president, he had a mixed record on environmental and indigenous issues. And he is sure to face hurdles from pro-Bolsonaro state governors who still control swaths of the Amazon. But experts say Lula is taking the right first steps.
Jorge Porto Ferreira, an analyst with Brazil’s environmental law firm Ibama, said the federal official Lula has already named in key positions “has a national and international reputation for undoing all the environmental destruction that we’ve seen under the Bolsonaro government.” Suffered in four years.” -enforcement agency.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro’s supporters fear that Lula’s promise of stronger environmental protections will hurt the economy by reducing the amount of land open for development, and penalize people for activities that were previously permitted. Some supporters of agribusiness have been accused of providing financial and logistical support to the rioters, who stormed Brazil’s presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court earlier this month.
When Bolsonaro was president, he denounced FANAI and other agencies responsible for environmental oversight. This enabled deforestation to reach its highest level since 2006, as developers and miners who took land from indigenous peoples faced some consequences.
Between 2019 and 2022, the number of fines handed out for illegal activities in the Amazon is set to drop by 38% compared to the previous four years, according to an analysis of Brazilian government data by Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.
One of the strongest signs yet of Lula’s intentions to reverse these trends was his decision to return Marina Silva to lead the country’s environment ministry. Silva previously held the job between 2003 and 2008, a period when deforestation declined by 53%. A former rubber-tapper from Acre state, Silva resigned after clashing with government and agribusiness leaders over environmental policies she deemed too liberal.
Silva is a strong contrast to Bolsonaro’s first environment minister, Ricardo Salles, who never set foot in the Amazon after taking office in 2019 and resigned two years later following allegations that he illegally Export of cut wood was facilitated.
Other measures Lula has taken in support of the Amazon and its people include:
– Signing a decree that will revitalize the Amazon Fund – the most important international effort to preserve the rainforest. The fund, which was trashed by Bolsonaro, has received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway, to help pay for Amazon’s sustainable development.
– Revoking Bolsonaro’s order allowing mining in indigenous and environmental protection zones.
– Creating a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which would oversee everything from land boundaries to education. The ministry will be headed by Sonia Gujazara, who is the first indigenous woman in the country to hold such a high government position.
“It will not be easy to cross 504 years in just four years. But we are ready to use this moment to promote the spiritual power of Brazil to take back,” Guajara said during his inauguration ceremony, which was delayed by damage to the presidential palace by pro-Bolsonaro rioters.
The Amazon rainforest, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. But Bolsonaro sees the management of the Amazon as an internal matter, dealing a blow to Brazil’s global reputation. Lula is trying to undo that damage.
During the UN climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula pledged to end all deforestation by 2030 and announced his country’s intention to host the COP30 climate conference in 2025. after he was elected.
While Lula has ambitious environmental goals, the fight to protect the Amazon faces complex obstacles. For example, getting cooperation from local authorities will not be easy.
Six of the nine Amazonian states are run by Bolsonaro allies. These include Rondônia, where residents of European descent control local power and have passed environmental legislation through the state legislature; and Acre, where a lack of economic opportunities is driving rubber-tappers, who have long fought to preserve the rainforest, to graze cattle.
The Amazon has also been plagued for decades by illegal gold mining, which employs tens of thousands of people in Brazil and other countries such as Peru and Venezuela. Illegal mining causes mercury contamination of the rivers that indigenous people rely on for fishing and drinking.
“The main reason for this is the absence of the state,” says Gustavo Geiger, a forensic expert with the federal police who has worked in the Amazon for more than 15 years.
One area where Lula has more control is in designating indigenous territories, which are the best protected areas in the Amazon.
Lula is under pressure to create 13 new indigenous territories – a process that stalled under Bolsonaro, who kept his promise not to give “another inch” of land to indigenous peoples.
It would be a huge step to expand the size of Uniuxi, which is home to 23 people, in one of the most remote and culturally diverse regions in the world. The process of expanding Unixy’s boundaries began four decades ago, and the only remaining step is the presidential signature, which would increase its size by 37% to 551,000 hectares (2,100 sq mi).
Kleber Karipuna, a close aide to Gujajara, said, “Lula had already indicated that he would have no problem doing so.”
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)