ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Amazon Fires Threaten Indian Territory

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 18 2003 (IPS) - Forest fires raging out of control in Brazil have extended in an alarming manner, threatening the forests of the Yanomami Indian reservation in the northwestern Amazon state of Roraima.

The fires are looking like a repeat of the catastrophe of 1998, when thousands of hectares of Amazon jungle were destroyed. The forests of the Yanomami reserve are especially vulnerable, as they were already weakened by fire five years ago.

The El Niño weather phenomenon, which involves the warming of the waters of the Pacific ocean and causes climatic upsets like drought, heavy rain or flooding in different regions around the world, has brought severe drought to the extreme north of Brazil, and forest fires have been spreading steadily for 40 days, covering a large part of the state of Roraima in smoke.

The Environment Ministry stepped up its efforts to get the situation under control, mobilising 500 fire fighters and army troops, and sending in five helicopters, 22 land vehicles and four watercraft to fight the fires.

Environment Minister Marina Silva visited the state Monday to discuss new measures with local authorities and community leaders.

Jacir José de Souza, coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), an organisation that defends the interests of the state’s indigenous groups, remarked to IPS that ”This is the first time that a cabinet minister has visited CIR headquarters.”

Reinaldo Imbrozio Barbosa, an expert in tropical ecology at the National Institute of Amazon Research (INPA), told IPS that such disasters will continue to happen unless there is a shift in the model of agricultural development applied in the area, because farming practices used in other parts of Brazil were simply brought in ”with no adaptation whatsoever.”

One unique characteristic of Roraima, on the border with Venezuela and Guyana, is that nearly one-third of its territory of 225,000 square kms is covered with savannah, consisting of grassland containing scattered medium-sized trees and low brush.

The savannah has drawn landless farmers from other parts of the country who use the slash and burn technique to clear out farms or pastureland.

The use of intentionally set fires is tolerated by environment authorities as indispensable for the clearing of land by poor farmers.

More than 2,000 permits to carry out controlled burns have been granted so far this year. But they were later cancelled by the Brazilian Environment Institute, the government agency that extends such permits.

Minister Silva announced that the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office on Jan. 1, would not limit its strategy to ”putting out fires”, but would promote rural development alternatives to the slash and burn method.

The goal is ”a specific development model for the Amazon, based on perennial crops,” she underlined.

The current catastrophe is the result of ”a misguided model of agrarian reform and human settlements,” said Silva.

More than 20,000 peasant families have been settled in Roraima over the past 25 years as part of Brazil’s land reform programme, extending the slash and burn method – and occasional fires raging out of control, which destroy parts of the Amazon jungle every year – to that state.

Roraima has also drawn landless farmers who occupy public land and clear it of forest and brush, thus gaining the right to eventual legal ownership of the property, said Barbosa.

He added that it was a pity that the lessons of 1998, when 3,000 sq kms of forests burnt down, did not lead to a search for solutions, and that landless farmers have continued to invade forestland and use the slash and burn technique to carve agricultural or pastureland out of the jungle.

Although the El Niño phenomenon and the resulting drought have been less intense this year than in 1998, the fires are spreading fast, due to the greater volume of dry, combustible material.

The forests in the Yanomami reserve are more vulnerable because they were already ”weakened” by the 1998 fires, Barbosa explained.

However, fire-fighting techniques have improved through a monitoring system that enables efforts to be concentrated on key points, thus ”containing the fires, although without putting them out completely.

”I think that only the arrival of the rains,” expected between Mar. 20-25, will put out the fires, as occurred in 1998, added Barbosa, who has lived in Roraima and studied the situation for 19 years.

He also said that thanks to a more complete land register of rural properties in the area and the use of satellite imagery, it will be possible, within the next two years, to identify and penalise those responsible for starting the major forest fires.

But it will take time to move towards the definitive solution mentioned by the environment minister, involving perennial crops.

The geography and population of Roraima are varied, and small and large farmers, indigenous communities, and riverbank settlements require different alternatives, such as fruit farms, pasture land, or fish-farming, said Barbosa.

Changing the current way of doing agriculture ”will be difficult, since people need manioc flour, rice, beans and bananas to eat,” CIR coordinator Souza, a leader of the Macuxi people, who engage in agriculture and use controlled burns to clear land, commented to IPS.

What most worries Souza today is the fire’s steady advance into the territory of the Yanomami, people who have little contact with the world beyond the borders of their isolated jungles. One Yanomami community already had to move because of the heavy smoke, he said.