Brazil makes space for indigenous people with new reserve in São Paulo

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil makes space for indigenous people with new reserve in São Paulo

Three Guarani families from cramped, impoverished settlements at the foot of Jaraguá peak have already taken up residence in the new village

Claire Rigby in Jaragúa
Wednesday 3 June 2015 14.32 EDT

Indigenous activists in Brazil are celebrating a ruling by the country’s government to declare a new indigenous reserve on the fringes of Latin America’s largest city.

For the past 10 years, members of a Guarani community just inside São Paulo’s northern city limits have been attempting to get their village and 72-hectare [178-acre] swath of forest recognised as traditional tribal lands.

In an announcement published on Monday in the Diário Oficial da União, Brazil’s journal of record, the justice Minister José Cardozo declared the settlement traditional Guarani territory, as part of a wider 532-hectare area around the Pico de Jaraguá mountaintop.

The announcement marks the second stage in a three-step process, following the recognition of the land as Guarani in 2013 by Funai, Brazil’s federal agency for Indian affairs. The third step is the signing of a presidential decree declaring the land demarcated Indian territory.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/brazil-indgenous-reserve-sao-paulo-guarani

[mwrguy]

1. Basically a reservation

[Judi Lynn]

2. At least they are supposed to be protected there, safe, unlike the history of their treatment

from the arrival of the first settlers up to the very present, when they are still being murdered because corporations or individual ranchers or other businesses want to take their land.