Rallies across Brazil denounce bills threatening environment
An enormous inflatable globe appeared in São Paulo this Sunday (Jun. 18) to raise people’s awareness about a number of bills approved and under consideration in Congress that can threaten indigenous people as well as the environment. Among them is an initiative that establishes that only territories occupied by traditional peoples up to October 5, 1988 (when Brazil’s current Constitution was promulgated) should be officially considered indigenous lands.
The rallies were organized by environmental institutions and organizations and drove hundreds of people to Paulista avenue, in São Paulo’s business center downtown. With posters alluding to the deaths of UK journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, as well as banners and animal masks, the demonstrators marched in protest against the 1988 time limit and called for urgent solutions to the climate crisis.
Demonstrations were also reported in the state capitals of Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, and Rio de Janeiro, in addition to federal capital Brasília. “We must give an answer both to the low house and the Senate regarding what we want for the environment. This new government has its work based on a number of proposals regarding environmental and climate protection, but these things will not go ahead if we don’t support these decisions and show that this is also a demand from society,” Aldrey Riechel, from Friends of the Earth and the Forestry Code Observatory, told Agência Brasil.
People across the world have been noticing the risks of not thinking about a green and sustainable economy, she said. “We already see extreme situations in big cities, and we need to start mitigating them and stop impacting [the environment]. This transition from a devastating to a green economy will only happen if everyone works together and thinks collectively,” she argued.
Yakuy Tupinambá, from the Tupinambá people of Olivença, in southern Bahia state, agrees that collective action by society is necessary. In her view, the rallies on Sunday play an important role as they draw attention to the problems affecting everyone in Brazil, not just the original peoples.
“The [1988] time limit wasn’t even supposed to exist. When you think of Brazil’s legal system, the limit is unconstitutional. This is yet another narrative that has been put forward by the colonialist mindset to usurp what remains of this territory,” she declared. “We’re still resisting. This time limit should be rejected. We’re the ones should be saying that you arrived later,” she added.
