Featured image: Archer Daniels Midland soy silos in Mato Grosso. On the side of the BR-163 highway, where Amazon rainforest once dominated, one sees little except soybeans and the large silos owned by transnational commodities companies. Photo by Thaís Borges
Over the last 40 years the north of the state of Mato Grosso has profoundly changed. This far-reaching transformation — matched almost nowhere else in the world — is largely due to the rapid expansion of industrial agribusiness, particularly soybean production, which has destroyed huge swathes of savanna and tropical Amazon rainforest.
“There are certain regions, near Brasnorte [to the west of Sinop], for example, where you can look completely around, 360 degrees, and not see a single tree,” says anthropologist Rinaldo Arruda, a lecturer at the Catholic University (PUC) in São Paulo.
Map showing the extensive deforestation occurring in the northern part of Mato Grosso between 1986 and 2016. In just 40 years, the advance of agribusiness has radically reduced forest coverage. Map by Maurício Torres
There is much talk about the prosperity that agribusiness has brought to Mato Grosso state, but, according to Andreia Fanzeres, coordinator of the indigenous rights program at the NGO Opan (Operação Amazônia Nativa), the traditional communities, which had inhabited the region for centuries, were not consulted, nor have they benefited from the rise of soy: “The indigenous communities and the family farmers, rural communities in general, were always outside the decision-making process as to what type of development they would have”.
According to Antônio Ioris, lecturer in human geography at the University of Cardiff, who has carried out research into the advance of agribusiness in Mato Grosso, the start of this growth period was heavily supported by the federal government’s agricultural research body, Embrapa: “New technologies developed by Embrapa produced solutions for the acidic [nutrient-poor tropical] soils and other problems. The farming sector went through a crisis in the 1980s. Then soy arrived and ‘rescued’ it”.
The large-scale meteoric expansion of soy came at the end of the 1990s, when, Ioris says, “it benefitted from both the [global] commodities boom and the liberalization of the [Brazilian] economy”. Soy production is highly mechanized, and works most efficiently on very large plantations, so that led to the concentration of land ownership in Mato Grosso state among a small number of wealthy companies and individuals.
Where savanna and rainforest once stood, now only soybeans grow. The Brazilian ruralista agribusiness lobby’s goal is for large-scale soy plantations to penetrate even deeper into the Amazon rainforest. Photo by Thaís Borges
Then as commodities like soy boomed on the world market, the Brazilian economy became increasingly dependent on the millions of dollars brought in by soy exports. Ioris explains: “This gave the [large-scale Mato Grosso] soy farmers enough political clout to demand the paving of the roads and the creation of further logistic support, including waterways.” He concludes: “Today agribusiness blackmails the country”.
Driving along the BR-163 highway through the largely depopulated Mato Grosso countryside, one sees evidence of the new bosses in the region — the multinationals, who sell the farmers their seeds and chemicals, and who buy the farmers’ produce. Rising above a sea of soy are the occasional soybean silos, emblazoned with the logos of the multinational commodities companies that now control the region: Bunge, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill.
There too are silos belonging to Amaggi, a powerful Brazilian commodities player. The Amaggi company was built by André Maggi and is now run by his family, including his son, Blairo Maggi. Once known as the “Soy King” and formerly the governor of Mato Grosso state, Blairo Maggi was chosen last year as Brazil’s agriculture minister by President Temer. Maggi’s rise in influence has paralleled the rise in power of the bancada ruralista, the industrial agribusiness lobby that today holds sway over much of the National Congress.
After accumulating a fortune through planting, processing and exporting soy, Amaggi has now joined the big players on the international market, cultivating a particularly close relation with Bunge, with which it jointly owns grain terminals in Miritituba, the new commodities port on the lower Tapajós River. The soy crop now flows by truck from north Mato Grosso down newly paved BR-163, to Miritituba, where the commodity is transferred to barges for the trip down the Tapajós to the Amazon River and on to foreign ports, especially in China.
On the side of the BR-163, one sees little except soybeans and the large silos owned by multinational companies, as well as those of the largest Brazilian soybean farming group, Amaggi. Much of the soy crop is bound for China. Photo by Thaís Borges
Agribusiness as usual
Some credit soy production with bringing “modernity” and “development” to Mato Grosso. Aprosoja, the soy farmers’ trade association, speaks of “the positive socioeconomic impact of soy farming”. It claims that for each person directly engaged in soy farming, another eleven jobs are created, “taking into account all the employment produced along the whole productive chain”. Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, when he was a senator for Mato Grosso state in 2012, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper: “If it weren’t for soy, Mato Grosso would still be backward.… Today the soy farmer gets a 30 percent return on the capital he has invested.”
But for others, the 40-year soy expansion serves as just one more example in a long historical process in which the Brazilian rainforest has been cut down and rural indigenous and traditional populations disenfranchised — replaced by agribusiness monocultures owned by a very few who make the lion’s share of profit.
The sociologist José de Souza Martins, whose writings have become essential reading for Amazon scholars, showed that, while the military government in the 1970s spoke a great deal about attracting landless farmers to the Amazon (under the slogan “the land without people for the people without land”), powerful economic groups were the main beneficiaries of the money it poured into the region.
While the generals spoke of “occupying the empty land”, many large-scale landowners set up large cattle ranches that drove out many more people — including the “invisible” indigenous communities, rubber-tappers, and fisher folk — than they ever brought into the region.
Cândido Neto da Cunha, an agronomist employed by INCRA (the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), believes that what is happening with soybeans now is, to a large extent, just a continuation of the military programs. “Though ‘development’ has replaced ‘national security’ as the ideological driving force, the state is creating the same negative social consequences — rural exodus, deforestation and precarious labor conditions — through its support for agribusiness.”
Land ownership concentration in just a few hands, caused by the arrival of industrial agribusiness in the region, even impacts lands that were once set aside for agrarian reform, creating tension between small-scale and large-scale farmers. Photo by Thaís Borges
Soy’s unlevel playing fields
In its march north, soy appears in some surprising places. One of these is at the Wesley Manoel dos Santos agrarian reform settlement, created by INCRA in 1977. Located 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of Sinop, this settlement exemplifies the serious challenges faced by Brazil’s small family farms.
The land was originally bought up by the Brazilian subsidiary of the German company, Mercedes Benz, at the end of the 1960s. According to research by Odimar João Peripolli, a lecturer at Mato Grosso State University, the company set up ten separate subsidiary companies to get around the legal limits on land ownership. Each subsidiary bought “40,000, 50,000 or even 60,000 hectares, so that in the end it [Mercedes Benz] had acquired about 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres). The whole large estate became known as Gleba Mercedes (the Mercedes Holding)”.
The company was able to use its clout as a large-scale landowner to gain hefty federal benefits, mostly tax rebates from SUDAM, the Amazonia development agency. This money was supposed to be invested into the land, but wasn’t, according to testimonies gathered by Peripolli. The company’s vast holdings were “never, effectively, occupied by the company.” Mercedes eventually sold Gleba Mercedes to a São Paulo company, which in turn sold it to INCRA, which created an agrarian reform settlement with plots for 507 families.
But it’s not easy for a small-scale farm settlement to compete economically in a remote region where the government is actively promoting large-scale agribusiness. Lacking sufficient federal technical assistance, the settlement’s 500+ families tried several survival strategies. In the beginning, they reared dairy cattle and sold milk and cheese in the town of Sinop. Though this was the nearest market, it still took three hours to transport dairy products there — and that was when it wasn’t raining.
The venture went well at first, but then ran into government obstacles. Settler Jair Marcelo da Silva, known as Capixava, relates how the small-scale dairy farmers were very careful with hygiene, because it was their principle to only sell products that they themselves consumed. However, their common-sense approach didn’t satisfy the authorities. “The food safety bodies don’t think like ordinary people, they think very differently”, says Capixava.
To prepare the land for mechanized agribusiness, the forest must first be cut, then the roots of the felled trees must be removed — a labor and time intensive process that small-scale farmers are often unable to afford. As a result, large-scale landowners often pay for the work, while also largely gaining control of the land for soy production. Photo by Thaís Borges
The authorities made unrealistic regulatory demands on the small-scale farmers, and when they couldn’t satisfy those demands, the settlers were banned from selling their produce in Sinop. It was the end of their dreams. “I had six cows, from which I took on an average 90 liters of milk a day”, explains Capixava. “What was I supposed to do with this milk [if the federal authorities wouldn’t let me sell it]? What do you think? We gave it to the pigs! Just imagine that!”
The settlers tried rearing pigs and chickens, but once again they fell afoul of food safety regulators. Lacking any other income, some settlers trained to operate the sophisticated machines used by the large-scale farmers who had the money to comply with government health and safety rules. Others worked as day laborers. Women found jobs as maids in Sinop, leaving their husbands to look after the children.
In time, all attempts to use their land to earn a living were largely abandoned.
A sign welcomes drivers to the city of Sorriso, Brazil’s agribusiness capital. While soy production has brought prosperity and development to some in Mato Grosso, it has brought misery and poverty to others, including the indigenous and traditional people who lived here when the land was covered in rainforest and savanna. Photo by Thaís Borges
(Leia essa matéria em português no The Intercept Brasil. You can also read Mongabay’s series on the Tapajós Basin in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil)
Yoryanis Isabel Bernal Varela, 43, was a leader of the Wiwa tribe and a campaigner for both indigenous and women’s rights.
The Wiwa are one of four tribes that live on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a unique pyramid-shaped mountain in northern Colombia. The Sierra Nevada Indians believe it is their responsibility to maintain the balance of the universe.
Bernal Varela is the latest victim in a long line of attacks against Sierra Nevada leaders, who have been at the forefront of the indigenous movement in South America. Many Indians have been killed by drug gangs, left-wing guerrillas and the army.
José Gregorio Rodríguez, secretary of the Wiwa Golkuche organization, stated: “Indigenous people are being threatened and intimidated. Today they murdered our comrade and violated our rights. Our other leaders must be protected.”
The problem is not limited to Colombia. Indigenous activists throughout Latin America are being murdered for campaigning against the theft of their lands and resources. The murderers are seldom brought to justice.
“Na Sam” is a documentary film that sheds light on the modern Chorote way of life.
After being subjugated into a group of insecure land occupiers on their own land, the Chorote have arrived at a desperate pass.
Located in the central-western Chaco region of Argentina, the Chorote are witnessing the desertification of their homeland, widespread soil impoverishment and a loss of biodiversity stemming from indiscriminate felling of native forest and extensive cattle rearing enterprises
Industrial harm to the Pilcomayo River–a crucial source of fresh water and fish–has caused even more damage. The river now presents high levels of mercury contamination and other heavy metals due to spillages in the mining areas of neighboring countries.
Various other development plans, implemented on Chorote lands without consultation, have caused further alteration and degradation to areas of traditional use, leading to increased malnutrition and poverty and reduced access to fresh water.
Beneath this surface of harm, the Chorote are struggling now more than ever to maintain their language and traditions, and their cultural heritage, while adapting to this changing world.
Theirs is culture that is dueling to exist after generations of invisibility and oppression.
Featured image: A Yukpa woman tends laundry high in the clouds of the Yukpa lands, which rise over 3000 meters in the Sierra Perijá on the border of Colombia and Venezuela.
A community of indigenous Yukpa saw their land reduced to a third of what it once was due to violence and intimidation. Now Colombia’s Land Restitution Unit is helping the community return to their lands.
The spiritual equilibrium essential to the Yukpa community is off balance. Ancestral burial grounds have been desecrated by invaders; the trees that house the spirits are being cut down; and the wild game that Yukpa men once hunted with zeal is no longer available. The same limitations preventing the community from practicing its culture are preventing Yukpa parents from passing these activities, words, and stories down to new generations.
“The loss of culture is very real. Our children won’t know anything about the Yukpa if we aren’t rescued from extinction. If we don’t have space to preserve our culture, I guarantee that in thirty years, our culture will disappear,” says Andrés Vence, council leader of a Yukpa community consisting of 120 families living on 300 hectares in the Sierra Perijá on the border of Venezuela and Colombia.
“Culture’s longevity depends on territory.”
The yukpa believe that land is the key to allowing their culture, customs and beliefs to flourish.
There are an estimated 6,000 Yukpa remaining in Colombia, and the majority live on autonomous lands known asresguardos.Over the past thirty years, the Yukpa community living in La Laguna has been victim to abuse and intimidation stemming from the armed conflict. The community has also seen its ancestral lands become increasingly occupied by “outsiders,” whom they refer to as colonists. Now, the community is pushing back by launching an ethnic restitution claim that seeks to recover 964 hectares of land and allow the community the space it needs to flourish.
HUMILIATION AND ABUSE
In 1982, the guerrilla group known as the FARC came to Yukpa territory to recruit. Andrés Vence was abducted for eight days to be indoctrinated. He and the Yukpa resisted, but then another guerrilla group known as ELN arrived the following year. After the ELN abducted several young men, Vence and his men–armed with just bows and arrows–marched into the guerrilla camp and took their children back, saying the Yukpa would not participate in any war.
A Yukpa security guard, still armed with bow and arrow.
When the Colombian military entered the scene in the mid-1990s, the situation turned for the worst. Yukpa families could no longer move freely from house to house, leading to the systematic abandonment of more than 900 hectares of land. For years, military checkpoints restricted the flow of food between families. As if that wasn’t bad enough, paramilitary groups—who were often the same members of the military—came to the Yukpa villages at night to terrorize the community.
“They abused and humiliated us,” says Vence. “I think it was all in the hopes that we would open our mouths and say something that gave them the right to murder us.”
Andrés Vence, mayor and leader of the Yukpa community making the restitution claim.
DOCUMENTED HISTORY
In 2015, the regional Land Restitution Unit (LRU) in Cesar focused on “characterization studies,” an essential piece of evidentiary material that documents the background, victimization, and suffering of indigenous communities who wish to reclaim their land. Characterization is a critical step in substantiating an ethnic restitution claim. The USAID-funded Land and Rural Development Program* partnered with the LRU to expedite the process.
Over the course of six months, researchers visited the Yukpa, where they interviewed individual members and held focus groups. They also collected materials from the government, non-governmental organizations, academic texts, and the media. The end result was nearly 200 pages of history, mapping, experience, and evidence presenting how the armed conflict contributed to the decimation of the Yukpa’s culture, livelihood, and overall prosperity.
In addition to carrying out the characterization studies, USAID helped regional restitution offices improve coordination with partner members of the Victims Assistance and Comprehensive Reparations System and municipal officials.
“The partnership gave us operating capacity. Without this support, we would have taken another one or two years to get to this case,” says Jorge Chávez, Director of the Land Restitution Unit in Cesar.
The document will be filed as part of the Yukpa community’s land restitution claim, which will go before a restitution judge before the end of the year. By law, judges must issue a ruling within six months after a restitution claim is filed in the court. In Cesar, the Yukpa case will be the third ethnic restitution case to reach the courts, making the department an important player in the nationwide effort to heal the historic rift between the government and Indigenous Peoples.
Colombia’s indigenous communities are often the country’s most vulnerable. Over the past five years, Colombian restitution judges have issued three ethnic restitution sentences, delivering over 124,000 hectares of land back to indigenous communities.
There are currently over 24 ethnic restitution cases in the characterization phase that stand to affect over 10,000 families in Colombia.
“All over the country, there are ethnic restitution cases reaching judges. The LRU is in its fifth year and these cases are becoming more and more important to resolve. This particular case is very important because the Yukpa are losing their cultural identity, and we recognize that,” according to Chávez.
In its five years, restitution judges have issued three ethnic restitution sentences, delivering over 124,000 hectares of land back to indigenous communities.
As the Yukpa wait on the judge’s ruling, the case’s progress has emboldened Vence to mobilize the community—including the older citizens known asYimayjas—to transmit the collective memory and cultural skills like weavingmochilas, practicing spiritual rites, and crafting shields to fend off malignant spirits.
Every Wednesday and Friday, Yukpa children attend “Yukpa studies” at the only school in the resguardo.
A favorable ruling will be key to restoring Yukpa faith in the Colombian government. “We’ve put pressure on the government for many years to do this, so our hope is temporary. We watch television, and indigenous culture is never part of the conversation. Indigenous communities are the most vulnerable,” explains Vence.
* Nicholas Parkinson works for the Land and Rural Development Program.
Nicholas is an NGO writer currently based in Bogota, Colombia and working on a large land tenure program that sets out to strengthen government land administration agencies to better serve millions of victims displaced by the violence. Over the past six years, he has worked mainly on agriculture-focused projects in Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda and Somalia, among others. He specializes in NGO documentation and teaches local writers how to create attention-grabbing stories for their NGOs. On hisweblogyou can find stories from his immigrant life, some thoughts on development aid, and a strong dose of rock climbing and adventure.
From somewhere in the Cordillera del Cóndor, January 4th2017
To my Shuar brothers and sisters, to the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and Andes, to the men and women of Ecuador and the World.
As many of you know,recent days have been very dangerous for our people. These days have not yet ended and are, indeed, probably only the beginning of a great territorial dispute initiated by the National Government against the Shuar Arutam People.
Our jungle has been stained with tears, anguish and blood. The paths and trails that we used to travel in peace have now become unsafe and dangerous. Almost 30 years have passed since Ecuadorians spoke of us as the Warriors of Cenepa, the defenders of Ecuador, the country to which we belong.
But now it is necessary for people to know us through our own voice. No one has asked us but many have spoken on our behalf, including the Government and social and political leaders, some with good and some with bad intentions.
We were born here in this immense jungle of the Cordillera del Cóndor and on the banks of the Zamora and Santiago rivers. We did not know barbed wire or private property. The State declared that these were uncultivated lands and organized the colonization of our territory with the same conviction and self-legitimacy of any colonizer. When the settlers came to this land we received them well, because we knew that these were poor and hardworking people looking for an opportunity in their lives. From one day to another, large tracts of land no longer belonged to us because they had been sold to people we had never even met.
In the 1960s, we had to create the Interprovincial Federation of Shuar Centers (FICSH), which even today we refer to as our Mother, so that the State would recognize what has always been ours: the territory, our living spaces and our culture. It was only in the 1980s that we began to legalize our lands with community deeds. We began to be recognized, not only for the Cenepa war, but because we have taken care of these immense millennial forests in peace, protecting the borders.
In 2000, a group of Shuar leaders toured these lands and founded the Shuar Arutam Territorial Area, as provided for in the Constitution. This was not a simple process; there were hundreds of meetings and discussions that allowed 6 associations to unite their 48 centers (communities) and establish a continuous territory of 230,000 hectares in the Province of Morona Santiago on the border with Peru.
FICSH declared us its pilot plan, to test a new form of indigenous government within the Ecuadorian State, like a special regime government in a Shuar territory. In 2003 we wrote our Life Plan, which forms the axis of our organization. This is the guide which tells us which areas we can pass through, for we must navigate rivers, and the areas where we should not even walk. Our Life Plan addresses fundamental issues such as health, education, the economy, conservation and the good management and control of the forest and its resources. We are almost the only group in the country to organize our territory in categories of sustainable use and we leave more than 120,000 hectares under strict conservation, for the benefit of all Ecuadorians.
In 2006 we were legalized by the Development Council of the Nationalities & Peoples of Ecuador (CODENPE) as Shuar Arutam People. Two years later we signed an agreement with the Government to maintain the forest in perfect condition for 20 years and receive contributions that allow us to develop and implement our Life Plan. This agreement is calledSocio Bosque(Forest Partner).
In 2014 we updated our Life Plan. Once again our Ordinary General Assembly pronounced against medium-scale and mega-mining within our territory.
Because, as we said to President Correa, do not tell us that you undertake mining projects to get us out of poverty because we, with our way of life, do not feel poor. Instead, tell us how you will protect us as a people and our culture.
In the context of this history comes the conflict in Nankints. Since 2008 we have been requesting an institutionalized dialogue with the national Government but, despite our efforts, we have been unable to establish a serious, sincere, honest and equal conversation within the framework of the Plurinational State. This is the reason for the lack of interpretation and understanding of the requirements of the Shuar people.
In the name of ‘national interest’ and by describing the situation in Nankints as an isolated case, the Government ignores other rights and issues that are also of national interest and enshrined within the Constitution: multiculturalism and conservation. In Nankints the ‘revolutionary’ Government acts like any colonizing government, forgetting even the international agreements it has signed.
The problem is not the piece of land in Nankints that we share with settlers; people think that this never belonged to the Shuar. We never imagined that a mining company would buy our ancestral heritage land from the State and a few settlers. The Government forgets and, with its many methods of making itself heard, imposes its own truth. Our territory is not only Nankints.
In fact, more than 38 percent of our territory has been concessioned to large-scale mining. All the riverbanks of the Zamora and Santiago basins have been concessioned to small-scale mining. A gigantic hydroelectric dam is about to be built. So our question is:where do they want us to live?
That is why, nine years ago, we told the company to leave and we reclaimed Nankints. Nine years later, someone manipulates the President and convinces him to forcibly evict us before the end of his term. We did not leave, so violence came. We have been blamed for the tragedy of our murdered comrade, the police officer, but we have not given any orders to kill anyone. Instead of dialogue, the Government puts thousands of policemen and soldiers into our homes, on our land, to terrorize and threaten our children. As far as I know, no inhabitant of our land is a sniper, nor does anyone possess weapons that can pierce a police helmet. Why not investigate thoroughly before persecuting us and issuing orders to capture the heads of our families? Instead of talking to us to investigate and prevent violence, why condemn us to live in a State of Exception? It is reminiscent of the terrible dictatorships of Operation Condor which, according to the President, is being planned again.
Why do they enter our homes? Why do they not let us live in peace? And the answer we have is that, in the name of the ‘national interest’, we have become a handful of folkloric Indians and terrorists who do not understand what good living is, neither Sumak Kawsay* or, even worse, the project of the Citizen Revolution.**
I do not want to dwell on the details of the President’s weekly public addresses. Instead, let us try to look at the big picture in which we find ourselves, avoiding provocation and primitive discussions that lead nowhere.
With this first communiqué from the forests of the Cordillera del Cóndor, we say to the thousand families that we will not, under any circumstance, allow the violence and force of the Government to destroy our house, your house, the World’s house.
President Rafael Correa must create a climate of peace, withdraw his troops, suspend the State of Exception in our province and cancel the arrest warrants of our leaders and relatives. The only true way to end this path of destruction – which provokes Shuar inhabitants into acts of individual resistance to reclaim their territory – is through conversation, respect and mutual understanding.
All inhabitants of Ecuador and Morona Santiago must join our demand for peace, the end of violence and a serious dialogue with the Government that respects our life as an original people.
—Governing Council of THE SHUAR ARUTAM PEOPLE
Translated directly byChakana Chroniclesfroman open letterpublished by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) on behalf of the Governing Council of the Shuar Arutam People.
*Translating literally as ‘good living’, the Quechua term ‘Sumak Kawsay’ refers to the indigenous cosmovision of living in harmony with our communities, ourselves, and most importantly, our natural environment.
**The so-called ‘Citizen Revolution’ is the political and socioeconomic project of Alianza Pais, Ecuador’s current ruling party
