- Escalating violence triggered by land disputes between Indigenous and traditional communities and palm oil companies has intensified in recent months in the Brazilian region that accounts for most of the country’s palm oil production.
- On Sept. 24, community leaders reported the killing of a non-Indigenous person and wounding of two Turiwara Indigenous men and a non-Indigenous by gunfire in the municipality of Acará, in Pará state. The following morning, Sept. 25, the cultural house of an Indigenous village was burned.
- Federal authorities say they’re investigating these and previous instances of violence that have intensified in the region.
- A database compiled by the journalism alliance Tras las huellas de la palma (Following the palm prints) reveals that only 44 fines were imposed against palm oil producers in the country, of which only three were paid. Most of the fines were for deforestation and pollution.
Along a northeastern stretch of the Brazilian Amazon, a palm oil war has broken out. Escalating violence triggered by land disputes between palm oil companies, on one side, and Indigenous and traditional communities on the other has intensified in recent months in this region that accounts for most of the country’s palm oil production — and also most of the fines issued for deforestation, pollution and other environmental crimes by the industry.
On Sept. 24, community leaders reported the killing of a non-Indigenous person and wounding of two Turiwara Indigenous men and a non-Indigenous man by gunfire in the municipality of Acará, in Pará state. Images of the moment of the attack have been circulating on social media; in some videos, it’s possible to hear the gunshots. One of the Indigenous men was reportedly shot in the head and in the right shoulder and is hospitalized in serious condition.
“I was one of those shot, I am in the ambulance right now … we were almost killed, God’s grace indeed,” one of the Indigenous men, whom Mongabay is not identifying for his safety, said in a video just after the attack. “We ask everybody to help us, please.” The wounded are from the Ramal Braço Grande community, located between the municipalities of Tomé-Açu and Acará, an area claimed by the Turiwara and Tembé peoples as their ancestral land.
“Lady, help us. I know that anytime, [at] any moment, the next may be me for fighting for a community, for fighting for [our] people,” an Indigenous leader, whom Mongabay is not identifying for his safety, told this reporter in an audio message on the same day.
On the following morning, Sept. 25, the same Indigenous leader sent a video showing the Braço Grande village’s cultural house razed by fire. “Here is the proof: the cultural house destroyed. We ask for help,” the Indigenous leader said in the video. “This only reflects what the firm is planning to do with the Turiwara people. This means that it’s saying that if the Turiwara people don’t stop fighting for the environment, for the igarapés [streams], for the lands, it will destroy one by one.”
The Indigenous leader told Mongabay the community had been planning to gather at the cultural house to coordinate their actions following the last attack. “We’re being bombed and, to complete it, [they] entered our community now, inside our village, while our people were resting after the scary day we had [yesterday] … We don’t accept this. We want justice.”
It’s not just Indigenous communities pointing to the palm oil companies for the violence. Quilombola communities, home to Afro-Brazilian descendants of runaway slaves, have also attributed the attacks to private security guards hired by Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF), Brazil’s largest palm oil producer. The company denies the accusations.
In an emailed statement to Mongabay, BBF said it “regrets the reported acts of violence and strongly clarifies that it has no connection with what happened.” The company said one of the injured man “is a persistent criminal with several feuds with local gangs and other communities, and was recently arrested with firearm ammunition.” It added it would take legal action against another Indigenous leader “who has been trying to slanderously associate the name of BBF with these tragic events that occurred this morning, aiming at acts of terrorism and vandalism against the company and its employees.”
Beyond the accusations of violence, a database compiled by the journalism alliance Tras las huellas de la palma (Following the palm prints) has also found that BBF is the palm oil company with the largest number of environmental fines in Brazil — and its fines correspond to the highest amount of sanctions imposed by environmental watchdogs in the sector.
Brazil’s most fined palm oil company
The database shows that palm oil producers in Brazil were hit with a total of 44 fines by both federal and state authorities in the past decade. Of total fines registered between May 2011 and November 2021, only 20 disclosed the sanctioned amounts, totaling 1.37 million reais (about $254,000). Only three were recorded as having been paid, and several of the fines don’t carry any information about the environmental crimes.
During this period, most of the recorded fines were imposed for pollution and deforestation, 16 and 11, respectively. Nearly all of the fines, 41 out of 44, were in Pará, where nine deforestation claims were recorded. Roraima state, a new palm oil frontier, accounted for the three other fines.
Biopalma, a company acquired by BBF in 2020, accrued the highest individual fine: 1.09 million reais ($202,000) for destroying 217 hectares (536 acres) of native vegetation in the Pará municipality of Domingos do Capim in May 2014 without a license from environmental authorities. The fine wasn’t paid, according to the database of Brazil’s environmental protection agency, IBAMA.
BBF also racked up the second-highest fine — 25,000 reais ($4,630) for deforestation — imposed by IBAMA in February 2018 after the company cleared 4.1 hectares (10.1 acres) of native forest without authorization in the municipality of São João da Baliza, Roraima.
The company was also hit by another fine on the same date, also for deforestation in the same municipality. The 10,000 reais ($1,850) fine was described as being for “extracting mineral [clay] without the proper authorization from the competent environmental agency.”
In an emailed response, BBF said the sanctioning that led to the 1.09 million reais fine began before it acquired Biopalma in November 2020. “Since then, BBF has constantly acted in the clarification and solution of this process.” The company noted that although the notice was recorded on May 28, 2014, the process only moved forward in Nov. 8, 2018. BBF said that at the time, Biopalma had mounted an administrative defense challenging the fine, which is still pending a decision. The process is ongoing before IBAMA’s Pará office, BBF said.
Regarding the 25,000 reais fine, BBF said it acquired the area in May 29, 2008, and “had bought the land precisely because it already had 50% of its area already deforested and available for palm cultivation,” adding that the planted area covers 3.3 hectares (8.15 acres), not 4.1 hectares. “The company has never altered the native vegetation,” BBF wrote. The company added that it cultivates oil palms only in areas that are already degraded, and that it complies with the zoning rules for oil palm cultivation as established by the federal government in 2010, known as ZAE-Dendê. BBF said that despite all this, it paid the fine on Nov. 22, 2018.
As to the 10,000 reais fine, BBF said it “received this fine for removal of gravel (clay/sand) without the proper environmental license at the time,” but that after an infraction notice, it paid the fine and obtained the relevant environmental license.
IBAMA also fined Palmaplan Agroindustrial Ltda. 20,000 reais ($3,700) — the third-largest fine for deforestation issued by the agency — in May 2014 for clearing 3.05 hectares (7.54 acres) of native vegetation in a protected area in Boa Vista, the Roraima state capital, without the proper license.
The Pará state environment department, SEMAS, also issued fines for violations, the highest being 36,441 reais ($6,731) against Marborges. SEMAS didn’t provide any information about the violation.
Palmaplan and Marborges didn’t reply to Mongabay’s requests for comment.
The journalistic alliance Tras las huellas initially sent 37 requests for information to environmental authorities in five states that produce palm oil. We received responses to 26 of the requests, but they all said they couldn’t find the relevant information or just sent links where the information could be searched. As a result, all the information gathered and published by Mongabay in this story was collected through an online search of the websites of environmental authorities, to which we applied due data treatment to refine the information.
‘Very complex’ conflict
Brazil’s Federal Police and the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) are investigating the crimes from late September in Acará and previous instances of violence that have intensified in the region in recent months, in addition to alleged environmental crimes environmental crimes.
James Miranda, a regional head of the Federal Police’s Institutional Defense Office, which addresses cases of Indigenous conflict, said his office was “closely investigating.” He added that both his office and the Federal Police’s Environmental Crimes Office were carrying out inquiries, as the communities have also filed complaints of environmental crimes. But the details of these inquiries remain confidential. “Everything is being investigated. These are things that we can’t go into detail because the investigation is ongoing,” Miranda said.
He called it a “very complex” conflict. “It’s not a simple Indigenous conflict, [it] involves several factors,” Miranda told Mongabay in a phone interview the day before the Sept. 24 attack. “Sometimes, the types of crimes get mixed up. For example, the environmental crime may interfere in the Indigenous conflict or vice versa.”
The MPF, a prosecutorial service, told Mongabay that it has at least three open inquiries into BBF over alleged environmental crimes, threats, and use of private security guards against the communities.
A report published Sept. 26 by the nonprofit Global Witness also alleged human rights violations, including death threats and torture against Indigenous people in the same region. Gabriella Bianchini, a campaigner at Global Witness, recently visited the area and said the situation there is dire.
“To be very honest, the situation is much worse than anyone can imagine,” she told Mongabay in a video interview on Sept. 21. “Obviously, I don’t speak on behalf of the Indigenous and traditional communities [but what we saw] shocked us a lot. Because we were there and the violations happened daily. We were reached daily by a member of a community, by a leader telling us [of] a way of torture, any way of threat, any way of humiliation … we were very shocked with what we saw.”
In a news release, the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI), a group affiliated with the Catholic Church that advocates for Indigenous rights, said it’s following the case, along with the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the Pará society of human rights, and the Pará association of Quilombo communities, or Malungu.
Worsening situation
The socioenvironmental impacts of oil palm plantations in the Amazon region have been unfolding for a decade now, and have been reported by Indigenous, Quilombola and traditional communities neighboring palm crops in Pará state, which accounts for 90% of Brazil’s production of the commodity.
Last year, Mongabay published an in-depth investigation unveiling the main issues triggered by oil palm crops in the state: deforestation, water and soil pollution, scarcity of fish and game, along with health issues and social and land conflicts.
In 2019, Mongabay went to the Tomé-Açu region, close to where the recent spate of violence occurred. At the time, we heard various complaints against several palm oil companies and witnessed protest actions such as the seizures of tractors as communities strived to be heard and fought for their rights.
However, violence escalated in the region following Biopalma’s sale to BBF, community leaders and authorities say, as previous agreements between Biopalma and the communities have reportedly not been honored under the new ownership. There are also land disputes over areas claimed by both sides, aggravated by the inaction of the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai, to demarcate ancestral lands.
In a statement, the Brazilian Association of Anthropology (ABA) urged an “impartial investigation” of the crimes and safety guarantees for the Braço Grande community. It also urged Funai to take “urgent land regularization measures” for the areas claimed by the Turiwara and Tembé, and the country’s land reform agency (INCRA) to conclude the land regularization process for the Quilombola territories of Alto Acará Amarqualta and Nova Betel.
“Lands occupied by the communities were illegally incorporated by the company [BBF] to its patrimony, ignoring ongoing demarcation processes of territories occupied by Indigenous and Quilombola communities,” the ABA wrote. “A ‘palm oil war’ has been installed, as the communities call the installed situation.”
BBF dismissed the allegations, saying that INCRA, Funai and the Pará state land institute, Iterpa, have already determined that “there aren’t overlaps in the areas involving BBF, Quilombolas and Indigenous lands.” It added that clarifications were sent to the agrarian ombudsman of the Pará state court of justice by INCRA and Funai on May 17 and Aug. 15, respectively.
In an emailed statement, INCRA said it had begun technical reports of identification and delimitation of the Quilombola communities in Alto Acará and Tomé Açu in August and September 2022, respectively, adding that after these are concluded it will be able to provide precise information about the claimed areas. Funai did not reply to requests for comment.
Last year, as reported by Mongabay, Biopalma agreed to pay each community 30,000 reais (about $5,550) quarterly for three years to finance local development projects, according to Indigenous leaders. “It is not enough for us, but it was what they gave us. We fought for more, but we failed,” Urutaw Turiwar Tembé, chief of the Yriwar Indigenous village in the Tomé-Açu area, told Mongabay in 2021.
But none of these projects were completed so far, Urutaw Tembé said at the time, due to higher costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. According to him, instead of paying the quarterly amount, Biopalma was only paying it annually.
But in recent months the company stopped paying it entirely and hasn’t engaged in dialogue with the communities, leaders and authorities say. In response, Indigenous groups have taken possession of parts of the company’s plantations and its machinery, and started to sell oil palm fruit, for which BBF accuses them of theft. A lawsuit is pending in agrarian court, with the judge trying to pursue a conciliation.
In a statement, BBF said its areas “have been taken over by a criminal group that calls themselves indigenous and quilombolas, for more than 9 months.” It said the group “acts with extreme violence against the company’s workers and residents of the communities surrounding the company, as well as vandalizing BBF’s property,” and that “the motivating factor behind” these actions is “the theft of fruit from BBF’s plantation areas and its sale to companies that receive the palm fruit that operate in the regions,” which it has already reported to authorities.
Regarding the payment, BBF said the agreement signed by Biopalma with three associations representing Indigenous communities in Pará “did not involve cash transfers, only structuring projects.” BBF said from the moment it took control of Biopalma, in November 2020, the company continued the agreement and in May 2021 it signed the first addendum, which “contemplated the inclusion of financial contributions, given that the priority of the indigenous people had changed at that time.”
In August 2021, BBF said, another addendum was signed with a monthly increase requested “so that the indigenous would stop obstructing and invading the company’s planting areas, which caused risks to the physical integrity of the rural workers and prevented the harvesting of the fruit.” However, BBF said this cooperation agreement was “unilaterally terminated by the indigenous people in November 2021, in disagreement with the BBF, because the indigenous leaders’ interest was no longer in improvements for their community.” It added that “the illegal sale of fruit has become highly profitable — which seems to be contributing to the disinterest of the mentioned groups in maintaining the agreement.”
BBF said it has already registered more than 650 police reports “with material evidence,” including videos and photos, but hasn’t received any response from the Pará authorities to resolve the case.
Leaders, authorities and advocates told Mongabay they’re concerned about more serious consequences as the ongoing conflicts escalate.
“What we have been told by the communities is that there is a campaign of fear, of threats against the communities, for them to leave [the area] so that BBF can dominate all this territory,” Bianchini from Global Witness told Mongabay.
One of the politicians accused of fueling violence against traditional communities in Pará is Delegado Caveira, (whose name translates into “Police Chief Skull”), a state legislator and supporter of President Jair Bolsonaro who has just won a seat in the national parliament. In three videos sent to Mongabay, Caveira speaks very forcefully: “Where justice does not reach, gunpowder must reach.”
In the videos, he emphasizes Bolsonaro’s goal to have “armed good man” to defend their private property. Referring specifically to the BBF case, he says that those in possession of the land have the right to it, and that “if this farm was mine, I would have solved this a long time ago. [They] would come in and [I] would burn [shot them] with a bullet.”
In the videos, he emphasizes Bolsonaro’s goal to have “armed good man” to defend their private property. Referring specifically to the BBF case, he says that those in possession of the land have the right to it, and that “if this farm was mine, I would have solved this a long time ago. [They] would come in and [I] would burn [shot them] with a bullet.”
Caveira did not reply to Mongabay’s request for comment.
Like in other areas, conflicts are more intense in non-demarcated areas, Bianchini noted, and transition areas. “Almost all the people we talked to said that there is a message being sent: ‘Resolve these issues by the end of 2022, because after that we don’t know who will take over,’” she said, referring to Brazil’s October presidential election and possible defeat of Bolsonaro. The incumbent has long made it clear that he’s against demarcating any new Indigenous territories, which is one of the few campaign promises he’s managed to keep since taking office in 2019.
“This is worrying people a lot, because if Bolsonaro loses the election, there may be a significant increase in violence to try to stifle once and for all what is happening there before the institutions are used again, gain funding again, and return to acting as they should,” Bianchini said. “It’s very scary.”
Editor’s note: The Mongabay investigation used in the court ruling won 2nd prize in the Society of Environmental Journalists Awards for Outstanding Investigating Reporting and 3rd prize in the Fetisov Awards for Excellence in Environmental Reporting.
Data research and analysis: Yuli Santana and Karla Mendes.
Karla Mendes is a staff contributing editor for Mongabay in Brazil. Find her on Twitter: @karlamendes
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