Resist

The Enawene-Nawe are an indigenous group that lives in the Juína River
basin. The group is related to the Aruaque, and have a population of 520
people and they occupy a territory of 742,000 hectres. The Enawene-Nawe had
their lands demarcated in 1996, more than 20 years after their first contact
with the modern world. The demarcation, however, neglected to include areas
crucial to the Enawene-wene´s culture. They wish to expand their territory,
having seen the area they have indicated that they have a historic and
sacred relationship with the land that is important for their survivial
culturally, and physically. The Enaweane’s request to expand their
territories has enraged local farmers. In the disputed Black River region,
agricultural development and occupation is accelerating.
On August 2007, Greenpeace, with OPAN and two French Journalists where
interested in documenting the Enawane-Nawe´s story, and were invited by the
indigenous group to visit their village. However as the team soon discover,
the right to move about freely in a democratic nation is not necessarily
guaranteed.
The day after the group’s arrival in the small town of Juina, in the North
of Mato Grosso, the hotel where the team stayed was surrounded by farmers
demanding to know what they were doing in the area. OPAN, Greenpeace and the
two International journalists were then pressured to appear at the local
municipal building where a special session of council was quickly called to
order.
To avoid the conflict from further escalating, the trip to the Enawane-Wane
village was cancelled. However, the threats continued and the group of
environmentalists and media were expelled from the municipality.
Please, see a video that we produced to tell this story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHw1W18C0z4

Three weeks ago, another incident troubled the Enawene.
Since 2002, “maggi energia”, the energy supplier company ran by mato grosso
state governor blairo maggi, is planning to install a project of 9 small
hydrodams and 2 hydropower plants alongside rio juruena, which are vital to
the Enawene traditional lifestyle. five indigenous people will be impacted
by the project (paresis, nambikwara, menku, rikbaktsa and enawene), which
has been granted a previous license. As for that, the Enawene had occupied
the construction location, demanding independent environmental impact
assessment. The federal prosecutor has demanded the company to carry the
assessment, but it never did.
In the meantime, the entrepreneurs managed to license another 3 of 11
similar projects. A legal battle started and the entrepreneurs quickly
started to negotiate a financial compensation of 4,2 million reais (more or
less 2,1 million USD) with the indigenous people to avoid more problems.
Since then, there were no questions about the impacts of the project… even
the governmental agency responsible for indigenous issues FUNAI has issued an
evaluation exposing some illegalities on the process.
The Indians have presented a counter-proposal of 6 million reais (3 million
USD) for financial compensation. Everything was almost set when the Enawene
decided that they didn’t want to discuss the compensation anymore. They were
extremely worried after learnt that, in reality, close to 77 similar
projects are being planning only at the juruena river basin.
The Enawene diet is almost exclusive dependent on fish. Also, all ritual life is dependent on ritual fisheries that take
place throughout the year, according to the ecological and rain cycles.
In early October, the other indigenous groups close the deal of 6 million
reais with the project entrepreneurs, but the Enawene didn’t accept the
agreement. Politically isolated, they went to one of the construction sites
(almost concluded already), took all the employees and set fire to the
equipment, on a clear example of the contrast between respect to cultural
diversity and the implementation of the current economic development model.
The Enawene have decided to fight for the right to decide their own
future and not granting this right to others.