With a delay of 1 year and 8 months, President Lula promises to conclude by next week the process of demarcation of all Indigenous Lands listed by the transition team
On Wednesday (04/12), the Lula government announced the approval of three more Indigenous Lands. They are: Potiguara de Monte-Mor, of the people potiguara, in Paraíba; Horse Hill, of the people Guarani Ñandeva e Guarani Mbya; is Imbu Awning, of the people kaingang, both in Santa Catarina. The average time it took for the three TIs to complete their homologation process was 31 years.
The country now has 445 approved traditionally occupied Indigenous Lands covering a territory of 107.449.595 hectares. In addition to this number, there are 15 Indigenous Lands demarcated by the Indian Protection Service (SPI). There are still another 261 traditionally occupied areas that are still awaiting the progress of their demarcation processes: 151 are under study and another six areas with Use Restriction Ordinances for the protection of isolated indigenous peoples, 36 identified by the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI) and 68 lands already declared by the Ministry of Justice awaiting the approval decree. In addition to these numbers, there are also 48 regularized Indigenous Reserves and 10 domain areas and, finally, 20 reserved areas in the process of regularization.
The homologation decree is one of the final stages of the process that guarantees exclusive possession of the land to indigenous people. After that, the TI must be registered at the real estate registry office and at the Secretariat of the Union's Heritage (SPU).
With this decision, the current Lula government has reached the milestone of 13 approvals, a number that represents a little more than half of the number of approval signatures made during his last administration, from 2007 to 2010. Despite this, the announcements that have taken place over the last two years were expected to happen in the first few days of the administration.
During the transition of governments, the Technical Group of Indigenous Peoples forwarded 13 TIs ready to have their processes finalized in the first 100 days of the administration. The first approvals signed by the president took place during the Free Land Camp, in April 2023, and contained only five of the 13 indicated by the GT: kariri-xoko (AL); Tremembé da Barra do Mundaú (CE); River of the Indians (LOL); Uneiux (AM) and Macaw from the Amônia (AC). On that occasion, the IT was also approved Canoeist (GO), which was not on the list of 13 indicated by the GT.
See the location of Indigenous Lands:
ITs Gregory River (AC) and Acapuri from Above (AM), part of the list, were approved at the official Amazon Day ceremony, on September 5, 2023. The TIs Old Village (BA) and Chief Fontoura (MT), in turn, were approved one day before Indigenous Peoples' Day, on April 18, 2024, amidst complaints from leaders of the TIs who were invited to the ceremony and did not see their territories approved by the presidency.
“I want you to know that these lands are ready. What we don’t want is to promise you something today and then read in the newspaper tomorrow that the courts made a contrary decision. The frustration would be even greater,” justified President Lula at the time.
This time, the only land on the list that was left out of the decision was IT Xukuru-Kariri, of the people Xukuru-Kariri, which has been waiting for more than 36 years for the final demarcation of the territory. During the private ceremony at the Planalto Palace, the president promised to make the TI official next week.
“We have two more years of government and we will continue working so that we can legalize and hand over all the lands that are within our reach. If one day someone asks me what my legacy is as president, I will say: the guy who authorized the most indigenous lands in this country. It was during my government,” said the president.
Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples, was also present at the signing and reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to protecting demarcated areas. “We continue to work hard to strengthen indigenous policy through the demarcation of Indigenous Lands, the removal of intruders from Indigenous Lands and the protection of these territories, to ensure security within these already demarcated indigenous territories,” she declared.
Juliana Batista, one of the lawyers representing the Morro dos Cavalos Indigenous Land, celebrated the decision with Minister Sonia Guajajara and representatives of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. “We are very happy, this is a victory for the Ministry, this is a victory for the indigenous community of Morro dos Cavalos and we hope for support from Brazilian society so that more lands can be approved, guaranteeing the preservation of the biomes and also the ways of life of the indigenous peoples,” she said.
Also present at the ceremony were indigenous leaders such as Sandro Potiguara, the chief general of the Potiguara people; chief Babau Tupinambá, Cal Potiguara, a Potiguara leader; and Dinaman Tuxá, coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples. In addition to them, representatives of the federal government such as Joenia Wapichana, president of Funai; Weibe Tapeba, special secretary for Indigenous Health (Sesai); Luiz Eloy Terena, executive secretary of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples; Ricardo Lewandowski, minister of Justice; Sheila de Carvalho, National Secretary for Access to Justice; and Marcos Kaingang, secretary for Indigenous Territorial Rights.
Discover the demarcated Indigenous Lands:
Morro dos Cavalos Indigenous Land, in Palhoça (SC)
Inhabited by Guarani Mbya e Guarani Ñandeva, Morro dos Cavalos Indigenous Land is located in the municipality of Palhoça (SC), with a territorial extension of 1.983 hectares and overlaps the Serra do Tabuleiro State Park (PES). Even with historical records indicating the presence of Guarani communities in the Morro dos Cavalos region since the 1993th century, it was only in XNUMX that the first Technical Group (GT) for the delimitation of the TI was formed.
According to the Detailed Identification and Delimitation Report (RCID) of the Morros dos Cavalos Indigenous Land, the first invasion of the territory began in the 1960s, with the construction of the BR-101 highway. The document highlights that the occupation of the area surrounding the Indigenous Land and the creation of the Serra do Tabuleiro PES in 1975 generated land conflicts that continue to this day, as they caused “the reduction of the spaces occupied by the Guarani, compromising their economic autonomy and the satisfaction of their needs.”
The delimitation of the IT in April 2008 led to legal action brought by the state of Santa Catarina against the Union and Funai, with the aim of declaring the administrative demarcation process null and void.
Regarding this action, ISA lawyers Maurício Guetta and Juliana Batista state that: “the judicialization of the demarcation of the Morro dos Cavalos TI was yet another way found by the state of Santa Catarina to try to delay its land regularization. In addition to the administrative demarcation process having been carried out in absolute legality, in accordance with the applicable standards, the indigenous people never abandoned the Morro dos Cavalos TI.”
Find out more in the article “The judicialization of indigenous land demarcations: the case of Morro dos Cavalos”, in the book Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Dispute, from 2018.
According to the indigenous organization Comissão Guarani Yvyrupa (CGY), the TI Morro dos Cavalos and 13 other Guarani lands would be ready to be approved or declared – and were included in the #DemarcaYvyrupa campaign, relaunched on the eve of this year's municipal elections.
Toldo Imbú Indigenous Land, in Abelardo Luz (SC)
A Toldo Imbu Indigenous Land, of traditional occupation of the people kaingang, is located in the municipality of Abelardo Luz, state of Santa Catarina, with a delimited and declared area of 1.970 hectares and a population of 393 people, according to the 2022 Census. The struggle of the Kaingang of Toldo Imbu for the demarcation of their territory It has been going on since 1949, when they were forcibly removed from their territory to the Xapecó Indigenous Post, an area that had been installed by the state government of Paraná in 1902.
After the communities were expelled from their territory, the indigenous people mobilized to reclaim their traditional lands. The land regularization process, however, suffered a setback due to opposition from rural producers and their political allies, who were interested in logging and the creation of subdivisions. The identification and demarcation processes of the Toldo Imbu Indigenous Land were initiated by Funai in 1986, but legal disputes paralyzed the administrative procedures for a long time.
It was only in 2019 that a decision by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) put an end to the actions that attempted to annul the declaration of the IT, allowing the demarcation process to move forward to its final stages.
Potiguara Indigenous Land of Monte-Mor, in Marcação (PB) and Rio Tinto (PB)
A Potiguara Indigenous Land of Monte-Mor is located in the municipalities of Marcação and Rio Tinto, both in the state of Paraíba, and belongs to the people Potiguara. Approved with 7.530 hectares, the 2022 Census identified 10.966 people living in the territory. The population density of the IT is higher than that of the cities in which the IT is located, in addition, it overlaps two Conservation Units, the Mamanguape River Bar Environmental Protection Area (APA) and Area of Relevant Ecological Interest (ARIE) Mangroves of the Mouth of the Mamanguape River.
In 2007, during a meeting of the National Council for Indigenous Policy (CNPI), the Minister of Justice at the time, Tarso Genro, signed the TI Declaratory Ordinance.
According to RCID, published in 1997, there are records of the Potiguara presence on the coast of Paraíba since the 1860th century. In 2007, the Potiguara occupation of the Mamanguape River region, where the Potiguara de Monte-Mor TI is today, was confirmed in an official letter sent to the General Office of the region. Despite this, they were only recognized at the beginning of the 400st century. In XNUMX, after XNUMX Potiguaras occupied the Funai headquarters in João Pessoa (PB), the Minister of Justice at the time, Tarso Genro, signed the TI Declaratory Ordinance during a CNPI meeting.
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