Mining threat to communities

Davi Kopenawa, president of CAFOD partner, Hutukara [Joelle Hernandez/CAFOD]

CAFOD's Lorna Fielding talks to partners who are concerned about the environmental impact of proposed legislation to allow more mining of indigenous lands in Brazil

As the effects of climate change become more apparent, the need to preserve the biodiversity of such eco-systems as the Amazon rainforest is clear for all to see.

In Brazil, in territory where indigenous people have secured the right to their traditional lands, such biodiversity is protected and preserved - indigenous communities protect the rivers and forests where they live.

Survival threatened

But the revival of proposed legislation sitting on the shelf for more than ten years threatens to jeopardise initiatives to tackle climate change and, for some indigenous populations, their right to land and a sustainable livelihood.

For some, it could even threaten their very survival.

In the Brazilian Constitution, indigenous populations have the right to the land, rivers and lakes in their territory (i.e all resources above ground). The resources below the land remain the "property" of the federal state.

A special Commission within the Brazilian congress has been set up to discuss legislation to allow for mining concessions in demarcated indigenous territory, and this commission is trying to speed up the approval process.

While some indigenous communities see mining as a means to economic development, recognised indigenous leaders and CAFOD partners have expressed extreme concern over the effect of mining on their land and people.

Part of the approval process is to visit indigenous territories and discuss mining with the communities, and one such visit will most likely be to the Yanomami territories.

Mining brings destruction

Davi Yanomami, president of CAFOD partner Hutukara Associacao Yanomami, says: “How can my people engage in this serious matter when they don’t know how to speak Portuguese and the politicians can’t speak Yanomami?

“Mining already killed my people once - if this bill is passed, it will kill my people again. What has mining brought to indigenous populations to date? Only destruction.

"The preservation of the forest is more valuable then money or gold. Mining will kill the forest, it will destroy the rivers, my people and eventually, it will kill the world.”

Jecinaldo Barbosa Cabral of COIAB agrees: “We don’t want mining, we don’t want a kind of development that just takes more and more and doesn’t help our people.

"We don’t want to discuss mining; we have more important matters that need to be addressed, the health of our people, education, and sustainable development.

"We are horrified by the way this bill has been re-introduced on to the agenda.”

There are many testimonies such as these that talk of the destruction that mining will bring, not just to indigenous people but to the planet as a whole.

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