In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the indigenous tribes residing in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has another issue at hand: genocide. Brazil's far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, and the supporters of his government are dismantling rules that are protecting the reserves.
Fighting for Amazon
Environmental officials, environmentalists, and indigenous leaders fear that the coronavirus pandemic is being used by the government as a smokescreen for a new assault on the rainforest. They say a presidential decree awaiting congressional approval and new rules at the indigenous agency Funai effectively legalize land grabbing in protected forests and indigenous reserves.
According to Alessandra Munduruku, an indigenous leader from Para state, the indigenous people are not alone and that they have to fight against the virus, the loggers, and the wildcat miners. They do not know which is worse.
Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, is infamous for his racist remarks about indigenous people and a national argument in favor of developing the Amazon, which is popular among wildcat miners, farmers, land grabbers, and loggers. He said that Brazil's largest indigenous reserve, Yanomami, was too big and he attacked environment agencies for fining people for environmental crimes.
In December 2019, Bolsonaro issued a decree known as MP910 that allows farmers to squat up to 2,500 hectares within government-controlled reserves to legalize it. The previous law in 2017 allowed this for land squatted until 2011 and Bolsonaro's decree extended it until 2018.
Critics of the decree called it the "land grabbers decree". Grabbing land on federal reserves by burning the dead trees, deforesting it, and putting cattle on it to consolidate possession is a practice in the Amazon. The decree has until May 19 to be approved by Congress and lawmakers from the agricultural lobby are pushing for a vote before then, even though the world is in the middle of the pandemic.
On April 22, Funai published a new rule to allow land grabbers on indigenous reserves to regularize their land, as long as the reserve has not completed the demarcation process. The demarcation process can take decades to complete and it requires presidential approval.
The Funai employees' association said that the new rule will turn Funai into a real-estate notary for land grabbers, squatters, and land developers in indigenous lands.
The National Council of Human Rights called for the rule to be revoked and noted that 237 indigenous reserves had yet to complete the demarcation process and another six were restricted use areas with reports of groups who have no immunity to diseases such as flu. Land grabbers could now claim the title if the rule is applied.
The defenders of land grabbers stated that they will help regularize the chaotic land ownership situation in the Amazon. It will allow the farmers to title land they squatted in the past and it lets them access credit and improves productivity, and it will reduce their need to expand further into the forest.
Environmentalists argued that the government has a project and that it is advancing over the forest, over indigenous peoples, to benefit those who want to cut the forest down.
Deforestation in Brazil
The deforestation in Brazil began in 2013, after more than 10 years of decline and a year after an overhaul of Brazil's forest code by former president Dilma Rousseff included an amnesty for people who deforested before 2008. Under President Bolsonaro, deforestation increased and reached 9,800 square kilometers in the year to July 2019.
Related Article : Azerbaijan Pit of Fire Never Stops Burning for 4,000 Years
