Argentina:
Wichi and Guarani women raise their voices against deforestation
linked to soybean expansion
According
to a research paper produced by Daniel Slutzky from the Conicet
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies quoted by journalist Claudio
Scaletta (1), in the Province of Salta “until the mid nineties
sugar cane, tobacco and citrus, together with kidney beans were
the traditional crops.” Later the kidney bean cycle shrunk
because of the rise of the soybean. Today this crop occupies over
fifty percent of the cultivated land in the Province and continues
to expand.”
Along
with the soybean came deforestation. It has been estimated that
between 1988 and the present, 2.3 million hectares were deforested.
According to the article, “although indiscriminate felling
started with kidney bean crops, it is now part of the soybean problem.”
In
addition to deforestation, soybean also brought land concentration,
unemployment and eviction. “The increasing prices of oilseeds
and new technologies have made many marginal areas more profitable.
The price of land and land renting was low in relation to potential
profitability, sufficiently low to absorb the extra cost of logging
and freight to ports. Due to soybean requirements regarding scale
and facilities, these new opportunities were only accessible to
medium and large-scale farmers. In the year 2000, 95 thousand hectares
were in the hands of 19 farm operators and one of these alone possessed
25,000 hectares. Concentration of land coexisted with the eviction
of workers. Technological modernization led to a drastic cut
in labour requirements, dropping from 2.5 working days per hectare
to 0.5, an unprecedented increase in work productivity. The
counterpart was a significant migration of the rural population
and the virtual disappearance of small villages. The traditional
linking between large farm operators and small farmers, many of
them indigenous farmers, was broken. Small peasant subsistence
farmers started finding serious difficulties in complementing their
income with salaries from the seasonal demand for cane and bean
harvesting, activities that lost relative importance. To the situation
of small farmers evicted from their lands is added that of the indigenous
peoples, such as the Wichi. Some emigrated to the suburbs of Tartagal
and Embarcación and the City of Salta. Others found themselves
cornered in shrinking forests.”
In
this context, on 17 December 2008, 18 indigenous Wichi and Guarani
communities from Salta filed a precautionary measure before the
Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation demanding the suspension
of the numerous logging authorizations issued by the provincial
Government. Through the Environmental Secretariat, the Government
had endorsed requests for clear felling and logging on a total of
807,509 hectares of forest. In spite of complaints about pollution,
diseases and natural disasters caused by the depredation of native
forests and the indigenous communities’ demand to have their
ancestral lands restored, the Court did not issue any definitive
verdict. At the end of December 2008, it ordered the temporary suspension
of clear felling and logging of native forests, authorized during
the last quarter of 2007, until an environmental impact assessment
was made, which should be ready within 90 days.
On
26 March 2009 the Court extended the suspension, while awaiting
the provincial report. In spite of this verdict, deforestation continued,
the companies continued to advance on the territories claimed by
the communities and on the native forest.
Faced
by the imminent final verdict of the Court, 20 Wichi and Guarani
women took the decision to make themselves heard. Thus, at the end
of July they travelled from Salta to the capital city, as they explained
“for US, WITHOUT INTERMEDIARIES, to take the claims to the
places where the decisions on our lives are taken, that is why we
are going to Buenos Aires.” So far, the response to their
claims, presented before the provincial municipalities, has only
been more repression, exclusion and discrimination.
These
women, who are determined to “take up the arms of awareness,”
have announced that they do not want to be represented by intermediary
organizations “be they NGOs or others.” “We want
to shout our claims clearly: for our lands and our territories that
are being devastated by clear felling, because the ban on felling
the native forest is not being complied with.” “We are
in a state of poverty which we did not seek, but that is the consequence
of the dehumanized way people on the other side behave who, thought
their money and power, have overwhelmed us and made other poor brothers
and sisters confront us by invading our lands and depriving us of
our territory.”
They
speak about the diseases that come with clear felling, of leishmaniasis
which they are unable to defend themselves against because they
do not know about it. “Nobody comes here to teach us, nobody
comes to train us and we know that no indigenous people are involved
in preparing health projects and programmes.” (2)
In
Buenos Aires, the group of women presented a petition to a number
of institutions and organizations, among which the Supreme Court,
the Presidency of the Nation, the Nation’s Peoples Defence
Office, the Chamber of Deputies, Amnesty International, the American
Association of Jurists and the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights.
However,
there is no truce: on 14 August the Supreme Court of Justice of
the Nation decided euphemistically to “allow the execution
of tasks for forest management in the Departments of San Martin,
Oran and Santa Victoria." This implies that deforestation will
be allowed to continue in the north of Salta, rejecting the demands
of the indigenous communities.
The
women stated that the response they were given was that “perhaps
what we are denouncing is “Selective Felling” or “Reforestation”.
After looking at the photos and the proof of all we had submitted,
they told us that we could follow the example of our brothers and
sisters from the South who are the protectors of national parks!!!!!
But of course, provided we have the ownership deeds!!! OUTRAGEOUS!!!!
They neither gave us a reply nor an alternative.” (3)
As
they stated “we are suffering at this time from what we have
suffered all our lives: dispossession. If before they used to fight
us with Winchesters, Remingtons and Mausers, now it is with this
soybean model.”
(1)
“Soja y bosques nativos”, Claudio Scaletta, page 12,
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/cash/17-3842-2009-03-29.html
(2) “Para ser vistas y escuchadas. Mujeres de la comunidad
wichí "Honat Le' Les", en lucha”, Raquel
Schrott and Ezequiel Miodownik for the News Agency Biodiversidadla,
http://www.biodiversidadla.org/content/view/full/50831
(3) “Argentina_MUJERES WICHI Y GUARANI: La lucha continúa”,
Red Latina Sin Fronteras, http://red-latina-sin-fronteras.lacoctelera.net/post/2009/08/20/argentina_mujeres-wichi-y-guarani-lucha-continua
