Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Mato Grosso do Sul
INDIGENIST MISSIONARY COUNCIL - CIMI
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production. The ambivalence of the state is better understood
when the production chain is broken down: Shell and Cosan signed
a joint-venture called Raizen with the tactical purpose of improving
North American market share in ethanol sales7.
The refinery located in Caarapó has as sourcing supplier
NovAmérica Agrícola which, in turn, purchases the raw material
produced on two properties inserted on the already identified lands
of Guyraroka, as declared and ready to be physically demarcated.
Financing for the planting of cane sugar as well as the implements
necessary for cultivation come from the Federal Government,
through financial resources of BNDES - National Bank of Social
and Economic Development, passed on to private banks, which in
turn transfer money to the rural producer. All of this occurs, it must
be emphasized, despite the legal environmental and human rights
standards. Under this logic of transfers, in relation to the area
Guyraroka boundaries, 9,637 hectares were financed, of which
only two properties are effectively contained in the Indigenous
Land as identified, delimited and Declared - namely, the Fazenda
Santa Claudine with 4,408 hectares and the Fazenda São Sebastião
do Ipacaraí (in the region of Cabo de Aço) with 356 hectares.
The impacts on the community were to have been evaluated
well before construction of the refinery, taking into account the
direct and indirect, environmental and social, temporary and
permanent effects. Instead, the plant was constructed as if there
were no indigenous peoples in the region or as if, historically, there
were no records of indigenous presence. More than the problem
of invisibility of this people being a constant, it is not possible to
plead ignorance of the Kaiowá presence at that site where the
building was erected, since it is only a few kilometers (a distance
that could be covered on foot in a matter of minutes) from two
indigenous lands - Guyraroka and Takuara. It must be emphasized
that because of the various conflicts that have erupted in these
two areas, as a result of land disputes over the past 10 years, it
is impossible for either the State, or for private interests to claim
ignorance of indigenous demands. Such practice constitutes what
is called environmental racismo.
Part of the schizophrenia of the state is the result of ambivalence
in application of the regulatory instruments, the scope of which
would be socioeconomic and environmental impact assessments
for the environmental licensing procedure of these enterprises.
It so happens that in the environmental impact studies of these
potentially degrading activities, the indigenous component does
not appear or is not properly presented, with the result being,
in a near totality of the cases, the approval of the environmental
licensing. Indeed, both locally and regionally, there is an invisibility
of indigenous populations; the instruments of consultation and
public hearings, provided for in Convention 169/89 of the ILO
and in Resolution 009/87 of CONAMA, are not put into effect
or not made to occur in a prior, informed and assisted manner,
to the detriment of the communities. It should be noted that the
undertaking of an enterprise of this magnitude never occurs as
a stand-alone enterprise, in that an infrastructure network also
needs to be deployed. Thus, the roads built or widened, running
through the indigenous lands, already regularized or those to be
regularized, in effect, end up reproducing the schizophrenia being
discussed here. The widening of MS 156 is a known case of road
construction, the execution of which was made a marginal item
in the study and report on the environmental impact assessment
(EIA/RIMA), as related to the "indigenous component." In this case,
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