The Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajaraja, said today (28th) that the federal recognition of the right of indigenous communities to six more reserves marks the resumption of the process of homologation for these lands, which had been stalled since the last government. “We are resuming the demarcation of indigenous lands in Brazil”, said the minister, while participating in the closing of the 19th edition of the Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL), an assembly that the indigenous movement holds annually, since 2004, in Brasília, and which, this year , according to the organizers, attracted around 5 thousand participants from all over the country. During the event, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed the homologation decrees for six more indigenous lands. Distributed across six states (Acre, Alagoas, Amazonas, Ceará, Goiás and Rio Grande do Sul), the areas were recognized as territories of traditional indigenous occupation through the publication of so-called declaratory ordinances, between 1996 and 2015. The conclusion the demarcation process, however, depended on presidential approval. The initial expectation was that the federal government would announce, on the 19th of this month, when the Day of the Indigenous Peoples is celebrated, the recognition of the right of these peoples to the exclusive use of the lands that belonged to their ancestors. In January, the minister Sonia Guajajara informed the vehicles of the Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC), including the Agência Brasil, that 14 demarcation processes were ready to be homologated. Today, the minister cited one of the reasons why the announcement was delayed. “We are still in the completion phase of these processes. When updating them, we saw that documentary evidence is still missing. We presented these processes to the Civil House, which was unable to complete them [a tempo de serem homologados hoje]”, said the minister, assuring that, as soon as they meet again, the members of the National Council for Indigenous Policy (CNPI) will establish a work agenda to analyze both the eight processes about to be concluded and others. The recreation of the CNPI was another of the measures that the federal Executive Branch announced this Friday. Responsible for the political guidelines of government actions aimed at indigenous peoples, the CNPI will be composed of representatives of the Public Power and indigenous organizations. “We are going to install the council, which will define a timetable for updating both the eight processes that were not signed today and for Funai to [Fundação Nacional dos Povos Indígenas] keep working to finish [outros] reports and to set up new working groups. I still cannot speak of dates, but we are going to work believing that we will have more areas approved by the end of this year”, added Sonia Guajajara. The minister guaranteed that the federal government is working to recognize the right of all indigenous communities to their traditional territories. “I want to reassume and reaffirm the commitment that, together, we will advance in the demarcation and protection of indigenous lands for [assim] change the reality of the destruction of our biomes, our natural resources, in defense of our sociocultural diversity and our indigenous lives”, added the minister, before recalling that the demarcation of lands faces resistance, even in Parliament. “There is, in the National Congress, a strong group that is against [as reivindicações indígenas]. The ruralist and mining groups are organizing themselves, making various movements against the demarcation of indigenous lands, but we are not going to stop moving forward with what is our constitutional right. It is the Union’s duty to demarcate indigenous territories. Did you hear President Lula’s speech [no encerramento do ATL2023]. He spoke of this commitment to move forward with the demarcation processes. And I, as a minister, will work so that these processes follow the normal course over the four years of this government.” Kickoff Executive coordinator of the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib), Kleber Karipuna stated that the approval of six new indigenous lands and the release of R$ 12.3 million for Funai to invest in recovering the productive capacity of the Yanomami indigenous communities, in Roraima; as well as the recreation of the CNPI and the creation of the Management Committee of the National Policy for Territorial and Environmental Management of Indigenous Lands are “positive”. Even so, the indigenous movement will continue to demand the effective implementation of the policy for the demarcation of indigenous lands, said Karipuna. “Our assessment is that the result of the articulation we have made together with our instances of representation in the government is initially positive, but it is clear that the indigenous movement understands that this is a kick-off in the process of resuming the demarcation of indigenous lands that we have been demanding for years. that they are made. The homologation of six lands is already very significant, but we will continue demanding, claiming, to move forward in relation to several other areas that are still under analysis”, he added.
Agência Brasil
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