Find your way: Indigenous peoples in Brazil> Who, where, how many> Encyclopedia> Suruí Paiter >
LOCATION   

 
Print

LOCATION

::01

 

The Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land, where the Paiter live, consists of an area of 247,870 hectares located in a frontier region, to the north of the municipality of Cacoal (state of Rondônia) up to the municipality of Aripuanã (state of Mato Grosso). One gets to the area from Cacoal, following access lines 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14, due to the fact that the villages are distributed along the area’s borders, both for reasons of security and to take advantage of the old ranches left by invaders who set up their establishments inside the area in the decades of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

The term "lines" which is used in the region, and derives from the demarcation of plots from the colonization projects and frontier expansion, refers basically to roads that provide access to otherwise inaccessible places, at the same time they geographically mark the area.

The Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land is located in the Branco River basin, tributary of the Roosevelt River and which is formed by the junction of the Sete de Setembro and Fortuninha rivers. The main tributaries of the Branco River that drain the area are the Ribeirão Grande, Fortuninha River and the Fortuna, on the right bank. On the left bank there are the Igapó (named by the Paiter), the São Gabriel and other rivers with no name on the topographic maps of the IBGE.

According to descriptions made by the RADAMBRASIL Project- a 1978 project of the Ministry of Mines and Energy/National Department of Minaeral Production, the objective of which was to map the Amazon region in order to do a natural resources survey-, in the area where the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land is located there are three types of forest covering: open tropical forest, which is the largest area, dense tropical forest, and the area of ecological tension, which the smallest of the areas.

The predominant climate is hot and humid tropical. The average annual temperatures fluctuate around 24º C with two well-defined seasons, with a sharp decrease in precipitation in the winter, and three months of drought(june - july – august).

01:: Scene of a Paiter village. Photo: Possidônio Bastos, 1970.

Betty Mindlin
anthropologist
arampia@nvcnet.com.br

Kanindé Association for ethno-environmental defense
kaninde@kaninde.org.br

Metareilá Organization of the Paiter Indigenous People
surui@nettravel.com.br

 

August, 2003

 
Untitled Document
Who, where, how many| How they live| Languages | Indigenous organizations| The Indians and us | Rights | Sources| e-mail
© Instituto Socioambiental.
Express written permission from the Instituto Socioambiental is required for the reproduction of any part of this site.
Reproduction of photos and illustrations is prohibited.