The peoples of the Xingu say agricultural activity beyond the borders of their territory has impacted fish populations (image: Alamy).

By Flávia Milhorance
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 21 2021 (IPS)

Watatakalu Yawalapiti is 40 years old. She was born in the Amakapuku village, surrounded by a large preserved forest in the heart of Brazil. She spent part of her childhood on the white sands and clear waters of the Tuatuari river. At other times, she would sit in a circle listening to her great-grandfather telling stories, like the one about how the white man would arrive with a huge blade and cut down the trees as one shaves one’s body hair.

“Everyone laughed because no one thought it was true,” she said, then immediately remembers a song in the Yawalapiti language that her great-grandfather used to sing to narrate the legend.

Yawalapiti, today a local indigenous leader, grew up protected by the borders of the Xingu indigenous territory (TIX), between the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. The Xingu was the first indigenous reserve created by Brazil’s government, established 60 years ago to preserve the biodiversity and the 16 ethnic groups living there.

Inside an area larger than Israel, Yawalapiti has experienced the calmness of time marked by the rainy and dry seasons. Outside, however, things were moving fast. Every time she crossed the 290 kilometres from the village to Canarana, the nearest town, the forest had decreased. More fields had replaced it. Her great-grandfather’s fable began to take a more realistic quality.

In the last 20 years, the region around the land of Yawalapiti has been transformed into a production hub for soybeans, corn, cotton and meat, connected by highways and railways. Today, the Xingu area produces 10% of Brazil’s soybean exports.

While the agricultural frontier advances through the Xingu basin, exports continue to break records. At the same time, this is where the largest deforestation in the Amazon is happening.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro supports opening up the forest to mining and agriculture, sparking protests from tribes in the Xingu who feel they are under threat.

Xingu’s indigenous people: “We no longer drink the water”

The 13 municipalities around the Xingu, including Canarana, exported 8.7 million tonnes of soy in 2020, more than half to China, according to foreign trade (Comex) data.

The same municipalities also exported 8.5 million tonnes of corn — which is intercropped with soy —  which represents a quarter of last year’s shipments.

“On the east side, where Querência is, and south, with Canarana, there is an advanced consolidation of agribusiness, with multinational groups and their huge silos investing heavily,” explained Ivã Bocchini, from the Socio-Environmental Institute’s Xingu Programme.

Multinational companies such as Bunge and Cargill from the US, the Chinese Cofco and Brazil’s Amaggi have major operations in the region, according to data from the Trase platform, which tracks deforestation risk in supply chains.

As there are few unoccupied areas left, farms and reserves are now much closer together. They are like the edges of two worlds. But the consequences of deforestation and monoculture go beyond their borders.

In the last 20 years, the region around the land of Yawalapiti has been transformed into a production hub for soybeans, corn, cotton and meat, connected by highways and railways. Today, the Xingu area produces 10% of Brazil's soybean exports

Watatakalu Yawalapiti says that her people, who share the reserve with 15 other ethnic groups, have noticed the climate changing. The sun became hotter, the dry season longer, the river shallower and more turbid. Fish are more scarce. They lived through years of hunger and saw artesian wells appear: “We no longer drink river water, it is no longer clean.”

Other disturbances come from the increase in bush pigs, which feed on corn and soy from the plantations and invade the fields of small farmers and indigenous people.

Studies confirm the Yawalapiti experience. Research shows that the rains are decreasing in the municipalities surrounding the Xingu territory where deforestation is growing. With less rainfall, drought is more intense and bush fires more frequent.

The construction of thousands of dams and reservoirs for livestock, agriculture and electricity generation also alters the flow of the waterways of the Xingu basin. The Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in Altamira threatens the very survival of the Xingu River.

This basin begins in the Cerrado biome, in Mato Grosso state, and runs for 770 thousand kilometres towards the Amazon, in Pará. More than half of it is sheltered by preservation areas, but the river headwaters are impacted by deforestation and pesticides.

“Pesticides are the worst threat, because they are silent, and the TIX is like a drain into which the rivers flow,” said Bocchini, who advises indigenous organisations in the Xingu region.

In a decade, the area planted with grain crops around the Xingu territory grew 135%, and the use of pesticides, 130%. More recently, cotton, a major consumer of pesticides, began to emerge as a crop. Municipalities of the Xingu more than doubled their cotton exports in the last decade. By the end of 2020, 31,000 tonnes were exported, Comex shows. China is the main importer.

Three brothers and their campaign to protect the Xingu

Landscape in the Xingu basin started to change following the exploration of the interior of Brazil, sponsored by the 1937-1945 Getúlio Vargas government. In 1943, the Roncador-Xingu expedition left Leopoldina, in Minas Gerais, and headed northwest, cutting through central Brazil.

The expedition, made up mostly of “lawless” prospectors, opened up 1,500 kilometres of roads and erected airfields and military bases. Towns sprang up along the way.

But the expedition did not only serve to map Brazil. Due to lack of funding, it stalled in the Upper Xingu, in Mato Grosso, where the leaders, the now celebrated Villas Bôas brothers, established contact with indigenous peoples.

“The purpose of our expedition had nothing to do with Indians, this was an accident,” Orlando, the older brother, said in an interview in 2000.

The risk of the agro-industry threatening the indigenous way of life was already becoming clear. The Villas Bôas brothers allied themselves with local leaders, including Paru Yawalapiti, Watatakalu’s grandfather, in a near decade-long campaign to create the reserve.

“My grandfather was part of the expedition together with the Villas Bôas [brothers], my father learned to read with their sister, Maria de Lourdes,” Watatakalu remembered.

Orlando, Cláudio and Leonardo left their “mediocre bureaucratic lives” in search of adventure after the death of their parents, as described in the book The March Westwards.

Their chosen cause, to protect the Xingu, eventually resulted in the establishment of a protected territory in 1961. Two of the brothers earned Nobel peace prize nominations for their efforts. When Orlando died in 2002 he was given a tribal funeral, a mark of respect.

Another bid to colonise the forest

With a new government push by the military dictators to colonise central Brazil in the 1970s, large-scale deforestation began to skirt the Xingu territories. From the 2000s onwards, the international demand for commodities injected further impetus.

Following pressure to conserve the Amazon, measures including fines, the suspension of agricultural credit and pacts with companies operating in the agriculture sector have helped curb deforestation over the last decade. But a recent wave of destruction has awakened long-standing fears.

Logging, ranching and soy cultivation influence the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon. In the Xingu basin, the pattern of each industry’s growth is becoming clear. Soy is already consolidated in the south, while timber and cattle ranching are more commonplace from the middle to the north of the basin.

Data from Comex shows that 18 municipalities in the Xingu region exported 18,300 tonnes of wood in 2020, mainly from Pará. Also, 14,800 thousand tonnes of beef were exported, 40% to China.

Infrastructure works to make mass exporting easier are major incentives for the opening of forest areas.

Edeon Vaz was a soy producer in Mato Grosso. But he decided to develop the sector in a different way. He moved to Brasília with the mission of improving infrastructure to reduce the cost of agricultural production.

“We participate in the creation of regulatory frameworks to negotiate parliamentary amendments, and we charge for the progress of the works, all of which takes a lot of time and we have to stay on top of the government,” said Vaz, who is now executive director of the Mato Grosso Pro-Logistics Movement, a lobby group.

The stretch of national highway BR-163 between Cuiabá and Santarém, is on the list of his accomplishments. The Ferrogrão railway and the dozens of industrial ports on the rivers of the Amazon from part of the same corridor.

But people from the indigenous lands of Baú, Menkragnoti and Panará say that paving the highway has created all sorts of problems, boosting land grabbing, deforestation and forest fires in the northern portion of the Xingu basin.

The highway began to be built by the military government in the 1970s and left its mark on the history of the Panará.

“It was a disaster,” said Paulo Junqueira, who advises the peoples of the region for the Socioambiental Institute. “BR-163 passed over their territory and brought infectious diseases that killed hundreds of people.”

These people were moved to the Xingu and only managed to return to their original territory two decades later, in 1996.

A village on the move

Winti Khĩsêtjê, 47, was born and raised in the indigenous land of Wawi, part of the municipality of Querência, in Mato Grosso. Less than five years ago it saw the arrival of agribusiness.

“Soy is already right at our border,” said the indigenous leader. “And the population has already been suffering the deterioration of the water, which created skin problems and diarrhea.”

Concerned about the organic production of honey and pequi, a native fruit, her community this year moved the village 20 kilometres into the forest. “We were afraid that the agrotoxins, which are sprayed from planes, would hit our production,” he said.

“We dropped everything to make everything again: housing, school, a health centre,” said Khĩsêtjê. “But we are afraid of how it will be in the future, whether the situation will stabilise or get even worse.”

Rising land prices

Farmer Acrísio Luiz dos Reis lives in Canabrava do Norte, a municipality in the south of the Xingu region, which faced a recent wave of deforestation.

“The soy industry is moving very fast, and these people, if they can, won’t even leave a tree standing,” said the farmer. “I think this is too bad, because, with the knowledge that we have, the more we deforest, the worse it gets; less water, more heat.”

He is also concerned about the real estate speculation that usually accompanies the entry of new neighbours. It is already a reality in Canabrava: “Four years ago, there was land for ten thousand reals US$1,770], or even less, per bushel; now it’s 150 thousand reals [$26,560],” he said.

The Minas Gerais native arrived in Canabrava in 1985 and today lives on a 50-hectare plot in the Manah settlement, granted by the agrarian reform programme. “I will only leave here in a wooden box now. I like it here too much, my dream came true,” said the 70-year-old farmer. “I have a small herd, I work with milk, I plant a vegetable garden and some fruit trees.”

Growing the seed network

In areas of the Xingu basin where deforestation is advancing, local indigenous and environmental groups fight to slow it. But where the damage has already been done years ago, land restoration is underway.

Since 2008, Reis has supplemented his income by collecting native seeds, including angico, cajazinha, jatobá and guaritá, found in the transition area between the Cerrado and Amazônia. He is one of the pioneers of the Xingu Seed Network, a project that promotes the planting of seedlings to restore areas degraded by agribusiness.

The initiative, which emerged after local groups noticed deteriorating water quality and scarcity of fish and turtles, ended up promoting an unusual dialogue.

On one side, farmers whose activities incur an impact on the environment promote the network. On the other, small farmers and indigenous people collect seeds. Today, there are 600 collectors from 16 municipalities of the Xingu basin.

“In the planted areas, we notice the fauna returning and the water becoming more abundant,” said Bruna Ferreira, director of the Xingu Seed Network Association.

But the work is tiny in the great scheme of what is happening. In 13 years of the initiative, the network has restored 6,000 of the more than 200,000 hectares degraded in the region. “The obstacle is not financial, because there are several organisations wanting to support restoration initiatives,” said Ferreira.

Today, the biggest problem is the lack of enforcement and the lack of interest by large deforesters in participating. “We are sought out by farmers who need to restore and want to be partners, but it’s far less than the size of the damage,” he said.

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Credit: Alexander Suhorucov from Pexels.

By Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 15 2021 (IPS)

Gender stereotyping in the media has a significant impact on how women and gender minorities are perceived. In turn, it affects their opportunities to fully and effectively participate in public life.

Lack of inclusivity in the media is one reason for widespread gender stereotyping. Recent findings from the 2020 Global Media Monitoring Project show that the news media falls far short of being an inclusive space for women, for example. The study found that women are subjects or sources in the news just 26% of the time, and that only 31% of experts consulted for televised COVID-19 stories were women.

The news media falls far short of being an inclusive space for women - Women are subjects or sources in the news just 26% of the time, and only 31% of experts consulted for televised COVID-19 stories were women, finds study 2020 Global Media Monitoring Project

To discuss what we can do to counter stereotypes about women and gender minorities in news coverage, NGO CSW65 –– the civil society side of the UN Commission on the Status of Women –– convened a panel discussion, moderated by ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan. The panel explored the media’s role in mitigating gender stereotypes, and the potential for regulatory frameworks to counter its prevalence in the media.

Panelists were Chiara Adamo, head of “Gender Equality, Human Rights and Democratic Governance” at the European Commission, Motunrayo Alaka, founder of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism in Nigeria, Taboom Media’s Founding Director Brian Pellot, Colombian senator and former FARC commander Victoria Sandino, and Melanie Tobal, the founder of Publicitarias.org.

The session was co-hosted by CFI, Fondation Hirondelle, Free Press Unlimited, the Global Forum for Media Development, International Media Support and SembraMedia.

Here are some key takeaways.

Education

Education is the most effective approach to fighting gender stereotyping in the media, the panelists said. The goal is to train newsrooms so that reporters can consciously rid themselves of their own biases. “Often, the media pursues stories because it wants to meet a deadline and there is not too much time to learn the nuances of the issue,” said Alaka.

Education initiatives should start with the basics, said Tobal, since many people don’t even understand what gender stereotypes are. Many journalists think that taking gender into consideration when covering a story, and actively trying to fight the stereotypes that come with it is a trend they can quickly master, she added. “They want magic solutions, like a checklist or a quick workshop, or a quick talk and send,” she said. “But the issues are very complex.”

Pellot’s Taboom Media works to improve media coverage of LGBTQI+ rights. Without training, such topics are often misunderstood, and lack of education on LGBTQI+ issues can lead to further gender stereotyping. Pellot and his team train journalists on the concepts of informed consent and anonymity, for example, as they relate to LGBTQI+ individuals.

“Everyone has met a woman in their life, they know women. But the same is not necessarily true for sexual and gender minorities,” said Pellot. As such, educating newsrooms about LGBTQI+ coverage is focused on learning basic terminology and expanding the definition of gender.

Incentives

Newsrooms and journalists often have little incentive to change how they incorporate gender perspectives in their reporting. Panelists agreed that these initiatives need to come from leadership.

If activists and organizations can make it clear that better coverage of women and gender minorities is essential for sustainability, more newsrooms might seek training and create better incentives for their staff. As Barnathan pointed out, if a news outlet excludes 50% of its audience it will have a hard time thriving for much longer.

Adamo urged media funders to leverage their power to require change. For example, the European Commission, of which she is a part, runs the Creative Europe Media Program to support the development, promotion and distribution of European media works. “For the next seven years, we will ensure that those who request Creative Europe funds commit to gender equality in their company strategies,” she said.

Regulations

Regulation is a complex and delicate debate, said Adamo. Regulators need to make sure different human rights at play do not conflict. For instance, regulations should not unduly diminish freedom of expression for the sake of protecting gender equality.

There are ways to go about it that work, she said. In 2018, the European Commission introduced an audiovisual media directive prohibiting broadcast news from containing content that incites hate or violence on the grounds of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, for example.

“Conflict exacerbates stereotypes that lead to violence against women and minorities,” said Sandino. The Colombian senator explained that regulations aren’t meant to hinder the free press, but to set up an inclusive ethical framework. She praised newsroom gender quotas as one option, adding that there should be a minimum percentage of women required for senior positions, as well.

Regulations are necessary, but they are a long route to change, said Alaka. These efforts always need to be supplemented by local, independent and immediate initiatives, such as training.

Tobal, based in Argentina, suggested that the country could bridge regulation and education by extending a current law there that requires training on gender perspective, diversity and violence for state workers to include the media as well.

Leadership

Sandino considers media ownership a key facet of the fight for change. “In Colombia, there is no woman owner of media. All conglomerates are handled by men. We need [women in charge] of information management, language, elimination of stereotypes and creating the space for women,” she said.

The women in charge must also be equipped to affect positive change, too, other panelists noted. “It’s not just that we’re getting more women in the space that’s important, it’s that the women that are getting into the space must have the right understanding of what they are going into the space to do, what power they have, and what they are going to change,” said Alaka. “They are going to program in a different way, they are going to frame in a different way, they are going to staff in a different way. The agenda is just different when they understand.”

Sources

The panelists agreed on the need to diversify sources and cite more women experts on all issues. Oftentimes, journalists go to their same sources repeatedly, out of convenience. The media, however, can help turn women sources who aren’t usually consulted into top experts in their fields, or for specific stories, Alaka noted.

“The media can make newsmakers,” she said. By adding women experts to their source lists, journalists can help change the perception of women in society.

Reducing gender stereotyping in the media won’t just result in better reporting, it will radiate to the rest of society. “The advantage of the media is that it goes beyond just taking care of itself. It can take care of the rest of society, too, and that’s why it’s important to get the media right so that we can help the rest of society,” said Alaka.

Héloïse Hakimi Le Grand is a communications associate at ICFJ.

This story was originally published by IJNET, International Journalists’ Network

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took over as new WTO Director-General, 1 March 2021. Credit: Africa Renewal, United Nations

By Lansana Gberie
GENEVA, Mar 9 2021 (IPS)

When on 15 February the chair of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) General Council, Ambassador David Walker of New Zealand, announced that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would be the new Director-General, the mood among delegates was of relief.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala commanded overwhelming support from the start of the selection process in July 2020, but her historic elevation—as the first African and the first woman to become Director-General of the 26-year-old trade organisation—was by no means certain only a few weeks prior.

“Without the recent swift action by the Biden-Harris administration to join the consensus of the membership on my candidacy,” the new Director-General said in her acceptance statement, delivered via video link, “we would not be here today.”

This plain statement of fact underlines the challenges she will likely face. It is also indicative of the paralyzing difficulties experienced by the world’s main trade arbiter in recent years, where key decisions are made by consensus among over 160 members.

So, what can Africa gain from an African Director-General of the world’s premier trade organization?

This question was never openly asked during the selection process, in part because as well as being an African and a woman, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s qualifications—Harvard-educated economist, top World Bank official, longest-serving Finance Minister of Nigeria (Africa’s largest economy), and Foreign Minister—towered above her rivals.

But the question will likely become a point of conversation during her tenure.

Lansana Gberie

Some will try to use it as a benchmark for evaluating her performance in office. That will make no sense. For the past 20 years, no round of trade negotiations at the WTO has been successful.

The WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism—the Appellate Body—has been stymied, including through the blocking of all its new appointees by the previous US administration, a decision that should be rescinded.

But there are important areas where the Director-General, with her political clout and proven leadership skills as a reformer, can lead “from behind… to achieve results,” as Dr. Okonjo-Iweala herself noted in her acceptance statement.

In that statement, she highlighted as a top priority an inclusive and effective approach to COVID-19 vaccine distribution, which surely must include an agreement to suspend intellectual-property protection for vaccines and other vital drugs to enable their mass production and distribution in poor countries.

This is known as the TRIPS Waiver proposal, an initiative of India and South Africa that now has more than 50 co-sponsors.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, as chair of the vaccine alliance Gavi and one of the African Union special envoys for the continent’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been consistently passionate about this issue and has called for the rejection of “vaccine nationalism and protectionism.”

In post-pandemic recovery, Africa will focus on operationalizing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is expected to connect some 1.2 billion people across 55 countries with a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion.

The trade pact will unify and amplify Africa’s voice in urging the WTO to create a vision that reflects the continent’s economic aspirations.

The AfCFTA itself signals a preference for a rules-based multilateralism, which aligns with the WTO’s ideals. Therefore, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala should actively cheerlead for the AfCFTA and canvass for necessary technical support for its successful implementation.

Perhaps more difficult but vital to African and other developing economies is improving market access for their agricultural products. This access is severely limited in part because of the huge distorting subsidies that wealthy nations provide their farmers.

There have been encouraging overtures from European countries and Australia to African diplomats to help mitigate this problem, but it will need the leadership of the WTO to give the initiative the momentum it needs.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who has stressed that trade must be centred around people and focused on economic development and reducing global inequities, is singularly positioned to lead this effort.

Negotiations around fisheries, which have persisted for years at the WTO, are an equally urgent concern for Africa. To date, some members even refuse to agree on what constitutes ‘fish.’

Wealthier nations lavish subsidies on their fisheries sectors, leading to over-enhanced capacity, which enables their fishing boats to infringe upon the sovereign rights of poorer countries in Africa. African-caught fish, already limited as a result of such encroachment, stand little chance of gaining market access in wealthy countries.

During her rounds of meetings in Geneva before her selection, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala advanced an important concept that was widely praised by African diplomats – trade finance.

As someone who followed her during those weeks of intense consultations, I was struck by the fact that no other candidate spoke about this issue. Providing financial and technical support particularly to least developed economies to export agricultural and fisheries products to richer countries can advance both trade and development.

Negotiations on such support for the cotton sector within WTO have, like those relating to fisheries, generated positive statements of support but no real action yet. African members have recently raised the issue of a WTO Joint Action Plan to provide support for the development of cotton by-products in poor countries.

This should be uncontroversial; it is certainly less contentious than intellectual property rights, for example. It merits urgent support.

Its realization, in addition to actions on agriculture and fisheries, will be the kind of incremental progress that will help reduce poverty and boost global trade.

For many African countries, it will constitute the kind of reform that would make multilateral cooperation – and the great honour to the continent represented by the elevation of a highly distinguished African trailblazer – truly meaningful.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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