STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014
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territories. But the chickens depended on food not available locally,
and most of them died.
`The Acre government lacks the knowledge necessary to understand
the special features of the territories´, explains Marcos Catelli Rocha
from CPI-Acre. For Josias Pereira these shortcomings underline the
importance of involving the villagers and the indigenous forestry agents.
`The Acre state must value the training, knowledge and experience of
the indigenous forestry agents, recognize them as professionals, and
allocate public resources to employ them´, he says.
Need for coherent, locally adjusted policy
Lack of coordination between different government policies is a major
problem. `Each ministry works within its little box. Even the promising
National Policy for Territorial and Environmental Management of
Indigenous Lands (PNGATI) may become a useless paper unless better
coordination is achieved´, says Vera Olinda from CPI-Acre, referring to
a decree passed by the federal government in 2012.
She continues: `Also national policies, such as the social welfare
program Bolsa Familia, maternity benefits and retirement pensions,
can have unintended consequences for the villagers and the
sustainability of the territories. Whole families have to make long and
expensive trips to the cities in order to collect their social benefits.
Since the payments often do not even cover the costs of the journey,
people usually stay for three months, in order to receive the next
payment before going back home. Their fields and plant nurseries
are left unattended, and children are taken out of school. These new
social benefits are undoubtedly important, and they bring much-
needed income redistribution in Brazil. However, they are not well
adapted to local indigenous realities, and they generate new social
inequalities and dependencies´, she concludes.
In Acre, the demands voiced by social movements’ for coherent
policies and better coordination are slowly influencing public
policies. One example is the regional school meals. National policies
specify that at least 30% of the meals provided at schools should be
supplied by small farmers. In Acre this is happening, with benefits
for the indigenous peoples. The cooperative Ayôpare, representing
Ashaninka families of the Indigenous Territory Kampa of the Amônia
River, has an agreement with the municipality, which buys what the
families produce and uses it in school meals. All the families benefit,
and the agreement with the municipality supports a whole value
chain - fromproduction, and commercialization to consumption - and
ensures fair redistribution of benefits. The policy also contributes to
reducing rubbish and waste from industrial food production, which
is a growing problem in the indigenous territories.
For the indigenous peoples of Acre, having secure territories is the
basis for establishing sustainable development strategies. They are
now struggling to promote coherent policies that reinforce what has
already been achieved, and as OPIAC president Francisca de Oliveira
de Lima Costa puts it, it simply does not make sense to separate
economic, environmental and education politics from each other.
They are all intertwined.
We have been able to bring the turtles
back to the river, tells Benki Piyanko
from the Ashaninka Association of the
Amônia River in Acre
