“To Burn the Territory is to Burn Our Bodies”
To understand the wildfires in the Amazon, listen to the people who live there.
The Slowdown has explored how making things better for the most vulnerable among us makes things better for everyone — like designing cities for the blind and signs for the directionally challenged. We wanted to see how this notion (sometimes called “targeted universalism” or the “curb cut effect”) can be applied to environmental catastrophe. So we asked Brazilian investigative journalist and doctoral student Carlos Tautz to bring us his reporting on the Indigenous people who are on the front lines of the wildfires in the Amazon. Most of us in the developed world won’t feel the effects of environmental catastrophe until it’s too late. Any solution that ultimately emerges surely starts with listening to those who are affected now.
Fires in the Amazon made for some terrifying headlines in 2019, including “Deforestation at highest rate in more than a decade,” and “The Amazon hasn’t stopped burning, and ‘more fires’ are in the future.” Largely lost in the noise: the accompanying violence against Indigenous people who are on the front lines of the fire, which skyrocketed in 2019.
The connection between the violence and the fires: illegal mining and logging operations. Fires set intentionally to clear land, or accidentally in the course of logging and mining operations, have been a major cause of destruction in the Amazon. The Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) has traditionally been charged with destroying equipment used in these operations, but last year was ordered to stand down from this long-time policy — effectively taking the side of the illegal miners and loggers.
The immediate victims of the new policy were the Indigenous people who live in the heart of the Brazilian rain forest. Assaults against Indigenous territories rose by 44% in the last 10 months, and by 101% in terms of the areas involved. This lead to President Jair Bolsonaro being denounced before the UN’s International Criminal Court (ICC) on November 27th of last year by two Brazilian civil society groups for “encouragement of Indigenous genocide.”
With that context in mind, let’s hear from some of these people whose homes and cultures are under attack. They speak for themselves, but I would only like to point out the inherent generosity of their attitude, in that they include non-indigenous people among those they advocate for. They are not asking for “special” treatment, only for the basic environmental justice that is the only hope for all of us.
Sonia Guajajara
Sonia Guajajara was born among the Guajajara people in the Amazonian rain forest. Last year, she became the first Indigenous woman in Brazil’s history to run for vice-president. I reached her in London, where she was on a tour of European countries called Indigenous Blood: Not a Drop More, along with seven other Indigenous representatives. Pressed for time, she chose to speak with me in Portuguese rather than wait for a translator of her native language of Guajajara language. What follows are her words, edited slightly for length:
These fires threaten our spirituality. We have our rituals, practiced daily, and suddenly we have to alter our way of life and traditions due to an act fomented by a government that wants, by all means, to exploit this place where we live. This promotes violence and takes out the quietness of our body, our soul, and our territory. The first march of Indigenous women [organized in August of 2019] had the theme “Territory: Our Body, Our Soul.” There’s nothing that’s not connected. For us, territory is the place that anchors the body, that shelters our souls — and our souls guarantee life and the connection to ancestry. So to burn the territory is to burn our bodies and our very existence.
All this [the fires] concerns us. And if it there is not a rupture with this predatory model of exploiting the land — looking at the land solely from the point of view of commodification and towards profit — for sure there will be no future generations. That’s why we are doing this resistance today, and why some leaders are paying with their own lives.
[There was] a recent case of a Waãpi in Amapa State, killed by illegal mining, and another one in Maranhao State, [where] a young leader named Paulino Guajajara, of the group Guardians of the Forest, in Rondonoia State [who was also killed].
We have got to give strength to alliances between different movements and people who are also vulnerable. We will only reach this point if the government enforces the demarcation and protection of these territories, the [legal] regulation of territories belonging to the remaining descendants of slaves [called Quilombolas], and … strengthens agroecology and family agriculture.
Raoni Metukire Caiapó
Raoni Metukire Caiapó is a chief of the Kayapo people who was recently put forward as a 2020 Nobel Prize candidate by a group of Brazilian anthropologists for a lifetime of work to protect the rain forest. When we spoke he wore, as ever, the labret, an adornment under his lower lip signaling his willingness to die for his lands. He spoke in his native Caiapó for this interview.
My struggle has always been and will always be for the protection of the forest, the rivers, the animals. I fight for you, for us, for everyone … The forest is decreasing in size, they are deforesting and burning, they are destroying everything. I see this and I get concerned. Stop destroying the forest. We need the standing forest to survive. The earth is getting hot, rivers flood, there are winds coming. I want you to think and reflect about everything that is happening.
Stop destroying so that everyone can survive.
I see people deforesting, and if they continue, Earth will not be able to take it, very strong winds will come and destroy our homes. Spirits showed me that that’s what going to happen if deforestation continues. Stop deforesting while there is still time, stop for all of us, for the protection of our lives to destroy our planet.
I also want to send a straight message to President Bolsonaro … you haven’t demarcated any Indigenous land. I supported the demarcation. This is my job, an appropriate job I am doing without speaking ill of [any] presidents … [but] you must change. You should listen to me. I am not angry with you, I am just listening to what you say and that’s why I am sending this message to you today. For you to think better.
Davi Kopenawa
Davi Kopenawa (Hornet, in his native language) is a representative of one of most endangered Indigenous people in the world, the Yanomami. In 2019, he received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” He spoke to me in Yanomami.
All the people of the city, all the peoples of the planet, [Indigenous and] non-indigenous, we are in on the same planet. The Amazonia’s lungs hold life on Earth. Now who is guilty, who fells thousands of trees and kills small and big animals — tapirs, cutias, pacas? Who fells the soul of the Amazon? Loggers. Responsibility belongs to Brazil’s government. We, the Indigenous, told the non-indigenous many times to respect the soul of the Amazon, but [that wish] has not been respected, and that’s why you are complaining about the fires. The guilty are the “commodities” peoples.
It’s their responsibility to heal the Amazon forest.
The [Right Livelihood] award is very important for all of us — the people from the cities, the villages, and the Indigenous villages. The world of the city recognized my struggle and found me worthy of being awarded. The award recognized the decency of the [Yanomami] people, [and the importance of our] health, language, traditions, and knowledge of all that is inside the planet. Who is Davi Kopenawa? Davi Kopenawa is natural, was born in the forest, grew up in the forest, and has learned and loves the forest.
To keep up with developments in the Amazon, and to get involved, check out the organization Amazon Watch.
Carlos Tautz is an investigative journalist and Contemporary History Doctoral student researching politics, macroeconomics, and international political economics.
