In Brazil, the supreme court is about to deliver a ruling that could change for ever the lives of thousands of indigenous people living in the Amazon rainforest.
In Brazil, the fate of indigenous peoples is being decided. The "trial of the century" is currently under way — as thousands of people who have set up camp in protest outside the seat of the national congress in Praça da Cidadania, Brasília, have called it.
The Supremo tribunal federal (Stf) is soon to rule on the question of the so-called marco temporal, namely the proposal promoted by the agribusiness sector according to which indigenous peoples who cannot prove that on 5 October 1988 — the day the Brazilian constitution was promulgated — they were physically living on their lands, no longer have any right to them.
It all began with the "Xokleng case": the federal government of Santa Catarina (one of Brazil's 27 states) brought a lawsuit against the indigenous Xokleng people, concerning the Ibirama-Laklãnõ indigenous territory, where the Guaraní and Kaingang peoples also live.
The court must decide whether the Xokleng reacquired part of the territory "abusively", as the authorities contend, since they were not in possession of it on 5 October 1988. This is the long-standing "temporal threshold" thesis (marco temporal, as it is known) supported by the agrarian lobby.
The ruling will serve as a benchmark for the demarcation of all indigenous lands in Brazil. Should the court rule in favour of the Santa Catarina government, thereby upholding the "temporal threshold" thesis, the presence of all indigenous peoples living on Amazonian lands would be under threat.
The stakes are therefore extremely high. Thirty-three years have passed since the new constitution was enacted, and this period has allowed indigenous peoples to reclaim at least a portion of the territories previously expropriated during colonisation and subsequently under the military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985.
Fewer than half of the approximately 1,300 plots claimed have been placed under permanent usufruct for indigenous communities, totalling 117 million hectares of forest, or 14 per cent of the national territory. Indigenous peoples are not owners but manage the land they inhabit as a common good. According to the report "Forest governance by indigenous and tribal peoples" published by the Fao, areas under the control of native peoples are almost three times less deforested than others.
And it is precisely this that President Jair Bolsonaro objects to: since taking office in 2019, the South American leader has implemented specific policies against indigenous peoples, stripping them of ever more land. So much so that on the occasion of the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, celebrated on 9 August, the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib), a network of organisations for the protection of indigenous peoples, turned to the international court in The Hague, accusing the president of crimes against humanity, genocide and ecocide.
It is Apib that has organised the ongoing week of mobilisation outside the institutional buildings in Brasília. The demonstration, named "Luta pela vida", drew thousands of indigenous people and supporters who flocked to the Brazilian capital and camped there for seven days. The event runs from 22 to 28 August and features a packed calendar of plenary sessions, marches and public demonstrations.
"This problem does not concern Brazil alone, but the entire future of human and animal life on Earth," Apib's spokespersons declared. "Indigenous peoples are crucial to the preservation of the environment, and this is demonstrated by the fact that more than 80 per cent of their land is covered by forests. It is time to listen to their cries and protect their rights, because scientifically speaking, if they die, so do we."
The case, whose final ruling was initially scheduled for 26 August, has been suspended and will resume in the coming days. A new era is therefore about to begin for the indigenous peoples who inhabit the Amazon rainforest: it could be a future in which the importance of indigenous communities is recognised, or it could be a period of struggle. What is certain is that this ruling will be of crucial importance for the entire world.
