11/27/2009

Indian delegation from Brazil stops over in Berlin

On the way to the Climate Summit in Copenhagen

On the way to the Climate Summit in Copenhagen an Indian delegation from Brazil will be stopping over in Berlin at the invitation of the Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV). The three representatives of the native communities from the Amazon region, Pantanal and southern Brazil want to draw attention to the association between indigenous land rights and climate protection in talks with German parliamentarians and ask for support. The programme put forward by the Lula da Silva government for speeding up development (PAC - Programa do Aceleração do Crescimento) is putting their survival in danger.

The Indians have already made the bitter experience that the programme, which is cloaked as "development” of regions which have hitherto been little used, has increased the plundering of the rain-forest and thus accelerated the climate change.

 

So the cultivation of soya or sugar-beet for the production of bio-fuel in huge plantations is under way just like the planned or already begun construction of the hydro-electric plant of Belo Monte in Pará, Estreito in Tocantins or on the Madeira River in Rondônia. The diversion of the São Francisco River in Pernambuco and the construction of the Porto Brasil harbour in São Paulo will also have devastating consequences, warn the native people. Most of the land needed for these projects was originally Indian land.

Many indigenous communities have been fighting for decades for the legal validation of their territory by the issue of official titles of possession.

 

The three delegated from Brazil are at your disposal at a press conference to be held on Friday and Saturday afternoons, 4th and 5th December 2009.

We have set aside for this purpose a room at our office in the capital at the Palais am Festungsgraben, Am Festungsgraben 1, Büro 213, 10117 Berlin .

 

The umbrella organisation of the Indian organisations of Brazil APIB has outlined its position in a 3-page Memorandum against the Consequences of the Development Projects on Indigenous Territory , which you can obtain from us.

 

You are cordially invited to join us in meeting the Indians. To make an appointment please contact our Consultant for Indigenous Peoples, Yvonne Bangert at indigene@gfbv.de