Extended Fight on the Xeruã River

Carauari (AM) – Attentive to the dismantling of politics and the impacts on indigenous rights, in the Assembly of the Association of the Deni People of the Xeruã River (Aspodex)* this year, the Deni and the Kanamari made important decisions, united and without hesitation. From the three-and-a-half-day meeting, held at the end of September, the authorities inform that they do not want mining affecting the indigenous lands, propose territorial protection strategies in the Xeruã River region and demand transparency from the Itamarati City Hall.

The discussion about mining took place due to two prospecting projects around indigenous lands. one from the Amazon Mineral Extractivism Cooperative; another from the Madeira River Garimpeiros Cooperative (Coogarima). The Deni and Kanamari ask the Municipality of Itamarati, where the villages of the Xeruã River are located, clarifications about the progress of the projects and ask that mining is not allowed. They also show the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) that they are against the activity. “We do not agree with mining close to our land. We were not consulted about these projects. We hope that they will not happen, otherwise they will impact our land, rivers, lakes, streams, terrestrial biodiversity, amphibians, mammals and humans”, they wrote to the MPF.

As in previous years, the Deni spoke in an assembly about the conquest of the land and all the advances, concerned this time with the threats that intensified against the indigenous peoples. They said that with the demarcation, completed in 2004, they had abundance again, built territorial surveillance, management plan and, more recently, pirarucu management, which had its first fishery for sale.

From the managed arapaima fishing they defined at the beginning of the year that they would use the resources to invest in the next fishing and to its own projects aimed at improving of quality of life in Ti Deni, but only from an amount that allows for significant improvements. “We are going to put more money in the association for the resource to increase,” explained Pha’avi Hava Deni, from the village of Boiador. He was the vice president of Aspodex until the Assembly, when they decided that he should take over the head of the association for having the conditions and resourcefulness for it.

Unlike them and the Kanamari, a riverside community close to the mouth of the Xeruã River, the Chical, which shares the use of a lake with the Deni, does not have the support of a protected land, which makes it impossible to monitor the maintenance of its fish stocks, of hoof and nature animals. “Mr. Chical does not have any documents to help him preserve these places”, say the Deni in a request to support the Municipality of Itamarati: “The Secretary of the Environment can create a document or ask the city hall for a municipal decree that transforms this lake and this beach into reserves so that in the future the new generation can enjoy this natural wealth.”

This year the Denis again wrote to the National Indian Foundation (Funai) asking for material and technical support to monitor and protect their territory, to open stings, which agreed to start in June next year. The Deni demand from Funai a local technical coordination (CTL) in Itamarati because the CTL de Lábrea is very distant.

In the assembly they talked about the role of the city hall because several promises are not being fulfilled. Discussing their schools pointed out that school lunch only came once this year, in September. In view of the irregularity, they ask for clarification from the Municipal Department of Education (Semed) regarding the value of the financial transfer that is made available for the lunch of the 707 students enrolled in the villages Deni and Kanamari of the Xeruã River.

Observing the items that went to their schools – sausage, sardines and feijoada canned and other preserves – the Deni also questioned why the project mahaniru which aims to take healthy food from the fields to the lunch, did not have the attention of the Municipality of Itamarati.

Deni’s health also had aggravating problems this year with the increase in malaria, as has been happening throughout the Amazon. they said that missing medicine To control this and other diseases and asked for microscope acquisition or rapid malaria test. Today it is only possible to take the exam at the Base de Saúde, in the Morada Nova village, very far from the other villages and especially from the Kanamari land, served at the same pole.

* Activities aimed at the territorial management of the Deni people receive support from OPAN through the project Arapaima: Productive Networks, executed with the Amazon Fund.

contacts with the press

Daphne Spolti
daphne@amazonianativa.org.br
(65) 3322-2980 / 9 9223-2494