We, members of the Manchineri, Apurinã, Katukina Noke Kuí, Jamamadí, Jaminawa, Sharanawa, Huni Kuim, Shanenawa, Ashaninka, Madiha, Kuntanawa, Jaminawa-Arara, Jaminawa do Igarapé Preto, Marubo, Arara, Apolima-Arara, Kanoé Rondonia, Oro Wari Rondonia, Bororo, Nukini and Nawa peoples, farmers, extractive rural workers, and representatives of the organizations Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI), World Rainforest Movement (WRM), Friends of the Earth Brazil, Sempre Viva Feminist Organization (SOF), World March of Women (WMW), Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST-RO) and Small Farmers’ Movement (MPA-RO), gathered on June 11 and 12 at the Diocesan Training Center in the town of Cruzeiro do Sul in Acre state, Brazil, for the event “Green Coup in the Amazon”, identified the various threats that affect our territories and our cultural, social and physical survival:
1. The failure to demarcate many of our territories, including those of Isolated Indigenous Peoples, as well as the threat of the “temporal framework” and other legislative proposals to those already demarcated;
2. Projects for the construction of highways and hydroelectric power plants, oil and gas extraction, mining, logging and agribusiness expansion lacking even processes of Free, Prior, Informed and Good Faith Consultation, as provided for by Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO);
3. The increase in the number of invasions, including armed invasions, of the territories, of persecutions and of murders during the Bolsonaro government by gold miners, illegal fishermen and hunters, loggers and traffickers, as exemplified by the fate of indigenist activist Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips;
4. The social imbalance, the internal violence, the suicides and the rural exodus that these projects and invasions bring about in our communities by, among other things, introducing the use of alcohol, drugs and sexual abuse, including disappearances and violence against children;
5. The accelerated advance of REDD, REDD+ and PES projects or – as they have been termed lately – Nature-based Solutions (NbS), which have been presented as solutions for the ongoing climate and environmental disaster, harassing our leaders and organizations, co-opting some of them and causing serious internal conflicts.
We reached the conclusion that these green economy projects worsen rather than resolve the threats to our territories and the climate and environmental crisis itself. In fact, one is dealing with pay-to-pollute schemes, with the fabrication of pretexts to continue burning fossil fuels and promoting capitalist economic growth. Actually, climate and environmental offset schemes go hand-in-hand with the destruction wrought by mega-projects and direct invasions of our territories. False solutions, as well as carbon markets, prosper as the threats and violence increase.
In the face of these ascertainments, we will carry on denouncing each and every project that poses a risk to the autonomy of the Peoples of the forest, their territories and life itself.
We recognize ourselves as part of the great living organism that is the Earth. The various, fast-paced attacks that capitalism launches against forests and their peoples act like a virus attacking this organism. As this virus spreads, it transforms, takes on new forms and camouflages itself. However, our struggle, our prayers, rituals and healing chants also become stronger and stronger as we unite to combat these projects of death.
As peoples of the forest, we are the voice that heals and rises up to defend Mother Earth.
Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil, June 12, 2022.