“Hope is the last to die. We are apprehensive about what happened, but we will fight.” These are the words of Indigenous leader Jose Antônio Parava Ramos, a member of the Chiquitano people whose territory sits on the border of Bolivia and Brazil. He was sharing his perspective on a revived proposal to restrict the legal recognition of Indigenous territories in Brazil. Parava, 37, from Mata Virgem village (in the Chiquitano language, Nochopro Matupama) on the Indigenous land of Portal do Encantado, spoke to Mongabay in late 2023 via video call. In a significant setback for Indigenous land rights, his country’s original peoples witnessed what they consider the most extensive attack since the promulgation of the Brazilian Constitution more than 35 years ago: On Dec. 14, the National Congress overturned President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s previous veto, which had struck down the core of a bill that stated Indigenous peoples could claim rights to lands only if they had occupied them on the Constitution’s promulgation date: Oct. 5, 1988. This move by lawmakers in Brazil’s National Congress challenges the Supreme Court’s prior decision declaring unconstitutional the controversial “time frame” proposition, known as marco temporal in Portuguese. Numerous Indigenous organizations denounce the thesis, asserting it overlooks centuries of forced displacement experienced by many Indigenous peoples in the country. Backed by Brazil’s ruralist caucus, representing the interests of agribusiness and mining, marco temporal can “obstruct the demarcation process,” U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples José Francisco Calí Tzay…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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