Over 500 invade Indigenous territory in Brazil — Mongabay
In Brazil’s Pará state, more than 500 people have invaded the Ituna/Itatá territory, which has Indigenous land status, in recent weeks. They built illegal roads, set deliberate fires and threatened federal agents, Mongabay reports. The Igarapé-Ipiaçava people, who have no contact with the outside world, live in voluntary isolation in this territory.
Court ruling and prosecutors’ demand
On August 26, a federal court ordered the Brazilian government to deploy the National Public Security Force within 48 hours to contain the invasion. As of September 11, the force had not yet arrived.
Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office asked the court to fine the government 50,000 Brazilian reais, or about $9,000, per day due to the insufficient deployment of security forces. The Ituna/Itatá territory is covered by a temporary land-use restriction order introduced to protect the isolated population.
The Brazilian government said it needed authorization from Pará state authorities to deploy the force, which it said had not cooperated. Federal prosecutors, however, stress that federal forces can operate on federal land without state permission. The governments of Brazil and Pará did not respond to Mongabay’s requests.
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Forest clearing and fires
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, flyovers by the Indigenous affairs agency Funai and the Federal Police found heavy machinery and chainsaws. According to its information, they were used to clear more than 30 kilometers of forest trails and hidden roads to mark illegal plots on Indigenous land.
The Prosecutor’s Office said the fires began shortly after the inspections, calling this an apparent act of retaliation and an attempt to intimidate inspectors. Case materials also contain audio recordings circulated among the participants in the invasion: in them, a man calls on 100 to 200 people to surround a Funai team, burn its vehicles and force the employees to leave on foot. Officials also found a state government truck that, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, was used to provide infrastructure for the illegal settlement.
Status of the territory
The invasion took place after a new state law created the Bacajá conservation area. It allows private landowners to build homes and raise cattle, but it completely overlaps with the federally protected Ituna/Itatá territory. According to Mongabay, authorities believe land grabbers are using this legal conflict to justify occupying plots for cattle ranching and other agricultural activities.
Helena Palmqvist, deputy coordinator of the Observatory of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples, who monitors the situation through satellite imagery and field reports, called the fires the greatest current threat. According to her, after inspections by the Brazilian Institute of Environment, IBAMA, in late August, during which some machinery and trucks were destroyed, the participants in the invasion set fire to the forest.
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