Our Voice
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To protect the forest, defend the defenders
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Dear community,
Who defends the defenders? This question has been on our minds for the last two months, ever since Sumaúma became acquainted with the story of human rights defenders threatened with death in Pará, which is the Brazilian state that has the highest number of people killed in land conflicts. We listened to reports from people who found open graves with their names in their own backyards, had guns pointed at their heads in front of their children and grandchildren, were forced to flee their homes, leave the food they had planted with their own hands, to live far away from everything and everyone, trapped in a type of prison and fear while their executioners went free and destroyed everything. These are people who put their own lives on the line against powerful enemies to keep the forest standing and in this way help ensure the survival of everyone – humans as well as non-humans. Yet it is sometimes these same defenders who are abandoned and sometimes even humiliated by the Brazilian State.
In the special SUMAÚMA report that kicks off this newsletter, reporter Catarina Barbosa, and I delve into the world of the Human Rights Defenders, Communicators, and Environmentalists Protection Program, a federal scheme that was created during the first Lula government, but which in 2019 began to be managed in Pará by the state government. The program’s main objective was supposed to be keeping people safe in their homes, whilst fighting against invaders who want to plunder their territories and profit from the forest. In more serious situations, where there is an imminent risk of death, the program was supposed to remove the defenders from their homes and place them in temporary residences in an undisclosed location until the danger had past and it was possible to return. On paper, a perfect public policy. In practice, a human rights program that violates human rights.
This is what makes the humiliation even more cruel, the fact that it comes from the State itself. The families are placed in houses that flood and where there is sewage coming out of the drains; their refrigerators are normally empty, because the allowance from the program does not arrive at the end of the month; and they have to beg, in pain, to be taken to the doctor, in unfamiliar cities. Those who defend life have almost nobody to defend them. But, even so, they carry on fighting. And now they want to discuss with the government how to make sure that they will be treated with respect. They have set up an association for this purpose and will be taking their demands to Brasília next month.
The federal government has told SUMAÚMA that it will be overhauling the protection policy for defenders this term. There is no doubt that this is something which is urgently required, but this alone will not resolve the problem. What is needed is to investigate, judge and punish those who destroy the forest’s bodies and soul. It is necessary to restart the land reform program and quickly resolve the conflict in the countryside which is on the increase. Solving these conflicts also involves the demarcation of indigenous lands.
We need to learn from the original peoples —and from those who defend the forest— to build a new world.
A world full of life for all of us,
Talita Bedinelli
Cofounder and editor of SUMAÚMA |
READ HERE
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Voices of the Forest
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Femalize, indigenize, jaguarize: the indigenous language revolt
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For 19 years, the annual Terra Livre encampment has been a fulcrum of Indigenous cultures and campaigns. This year, for the first time, activists in the movement are able to celebrate their presence in the centres of power and unveil a strategy for unifying politics in the form of an indigenous village. SUMAÚMA records this historic moment with pictures taken by our photographers Matheus Alves e Fernando Martinho |
SUMAÚMA, BRASÍLIA (DF)
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Voices of the Forest
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Land Women, Seed Women
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They have moved to the front line of the indigenous movement and now occupy central positions in the federal government. For indigenous women warriors, the defence of territory is the defence of life and their own bodies. At the 2023 edition of the Free Land Camp, they demanded a national policy to combat violence against indigenous women and began to organize a national rally in September. SUMAÚMA records this historic moment with pictures taken by our photographers Matheus Alves e Fernando Martinho |
SUMAÚMA, BRASÍLIA (DF)
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Podcast
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ManioQueen: from the roots to the runway
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The journalist Maickson Serrão talks to the indigenous artist Sioduhi, of the Pira-tapuya people. Born in the village of Mariwá, in the Alto Rio Negro Indigenous Land, in the State of Amazonas, in the middle part of the Uaupés River, the designer and creator of the Sioduhi Studio brand grew up in the district of Lauaretê, lived for a few years in São Paulo – where he worked in the fashion world – and returned to the Amazon region. In this interview, he talks about these movements and his latest collection, ManioQueen. (Portuguese only) |
SUMAÚMA Radio
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