As COP26 concludes its first week with many promises and commitments from heads of state and government around the world, the indigenous people of Brazil are crying out for…

The cry of alarm from the Yanomami of Brazil on the degradation of their land

Davi Kopenawa (right) and his son Dário Kopenawa (left) came to France to denounce the invasions of their Yanomami lands by gold diggers.

Text by: Véronique Gaymard Follow

9 mins

As COP26 concludes its first week with many promises and commitments from heads of state and government around the world, the indigenous peoples of Brazil are sounding the alarm over the continuing deteriorating situation in their territories.

The Amerindian chief Yanomami Davi Kopenawa and his son Dário denounce the invasions of theirs by gold diggers.

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Interview with Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami chief and shaman, president of the Hutukara Yanomami association, and with his son Dário Kopenawa, vice-president of the association.

The Yanomami people (about 30,000 people) live in the north of Brazil, in a protected and delimited territory, in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, but they are hit hard by incursions by gold seekers and wood cutters.

They came to Paris, thanks to a visit organized by Survival International, which accelerated after 3 years of government of President Jair Bolsonaro.

RFI: Davi Kopenawa, you are a Yanomami shaman and leader, why are you in France this week?

Davi Kopenawa:

I'm Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami.

I am a son of the Amazon, and I am here in France to talk about the invasions we are experiencing on Yanomami lands.

We have asked

the Brazilian president

to remove the gold diggers from the Yanomami lands, but so far nothing has been done.

Are there more and more gold diggers on your Yanomami lands?

Davi Kopenawa: There

are more than 20,000 gold diggers on our land.

They arrived with small machines and they destroy the banks of our rivers.

They dug huge holes in the forest and under the rivers which are destroyed, polluted, very dirty, there are no more fish.

They contaminate our rivers.

My family and my people live on the banks of these rivers, so it is more and more difficult to have drinking water, to cultivate, to wash, everything is very dirty.

Dário Kopenawa, you are the vice-president of the Hutukara Yanomami association chaired by your father, you denounce to the authorities this situation and the violence you are undergoing but without result?

Dário Kopenawa:

For me, it is justice that should make these miners pay. We demand investigations against these illegal gold diggers, they must go to jail, they must answer to justice. We come here to France to denounce what is happening in Brazil, the violence, the deforestation of the Amazon, the illegal extraction of gold, the illegal export of timber, and all the direct threats to the indigenous peoples of Brazil. .

We have communicated with the press to get the attention of the government, to be more attentive to what is happening, because we also have relatives who live in isolation who were recently murdered with weapons. on fire, by gold diggers.

So we urgently ask that the authorities go there and hunt all the gold diggers.

Our Hutukara association published a note, and we are here to denounce at the international level what is happening in our Yanomami territories.

Since the arrival of Jaïr Bolsonaro 3 years ago as President of Brazil, has the situation deteriorated much on your Yanomami lands?

Dário Kopenawa:

Yanomami land has suffered the destruction of 500 hectares in three years due to illegal gold mining sites. Since 2018, these gold miners have entered our territory with the political support of President Bolsonaro and new laws discussed in Congress supposed to legalize these mining activities. These invasions of our lands have accelerated since his arrival. Now our territory is totally destroyed, the earth is contaminated with mercury, there are death threats, armed militias, genocide is happening.

We also denounce the agreements of the governments of Western countries on the price of gold, minerals, the purchase of gold and wood which injects money into Brazil while our lands are destroyed because of these predations.

This is why we came to France and why we also met French parliamentarians.

At the international level, the COP 26 is currently taking place in Glasgow, what do you think of this global meeting?

Dário Kopenawa:

All these international discussions with these COPs have

been going on for almost 30 years

and I, Dário, have not seen any results, on nothing! These are discussions that go in all directions: there are agreements, lots of documents, etc ... But for me, all these agreements do not resolve anything at all. This week a delegation of nearly 30 people from the Brazilian government came to Europe at the G20, they even announced 40% or 50% reductions in greenhouse gases by 2030, but that's just a lie , it's a piece of paper! According to us, the Yanomami, they will not solve anything, on the contrary: they will cut the forest even more and by 2030, they will have razed the entire Amazon, that's what will happen!

Davi Kopenawa:

We have this global warming, the pollution, because of the forest fires, the destruction of the earth, the destruction because of the gold diggers, who are fighting to find minerals, and it all goes in. factories.

This pollution has increased and it has attacked our Mother Earth.

I can't believe the governments of the world are going to cure climate change.

The pollution has already taken its toll, it is too late.

They can keep having their meetings, and keep polluting more and more, but I can't believe they'll solve anything.

Davi Kopenawa, how is the transmission of knowledge and of the struggle from father to son?

How did you give your son the keys to continue your fight?

Davi Kopenawa:

I started fighting the invaders of Yanomami lands in 1986. I was alone. The only Yanomami. It was very difficult to fight against these invaders. There were many whites, there were 40,000. It was very difficult but I continued to fight for four years. And we managed to drive these illegal gold diggers from our land. They had stolen land from us and they had to give it back to us. We managed to conserve the large lands so that the Yanomami could continue to live. This fight lasted for years.

My oldest son was very small.

He stayed in the Watori community, his mother took care of him.

He grew up and he prepared himself.

He learned to speak Portuguese, he learned mathematics, to use a computer, to write documents… and we were able to create an association called Hutukara Association Yanomami.

My son joined the association, he became stronger because we helped him.

But an association is not part of the Yanomami culture, it is a white thing.

But we used it to fight for our Yanomami people against the harmful policies that are being put in place.

Now my son is with me, his father, he is preparing documents to denounce the invasions of gold diggers, the threats against our people, against the forest, the rivers.

And you Dário Kopenawa, how did you live your childhood, with your father very involved in these fights to preserve your territories?

Dário Kopenawa:

I was born in the midst of an invasion of 40,000 gold diggers in the 1980s. It was above all my mother who guided me and took care of me, because my father was often absent, he moved around a lot. , for the Yanomami land demarcation process. He was also traveling in Europe, so my mother gave me a lot of advice. I learned a lot, then I studied, on my community, the Yanomami language, I also learned the Portuguese language to be able to dialogue with others. But all this was also a teaching of my father. Because I was not born in an environment where everything was beautiful and carefree… I was born in the middle of problems. So I was familiar with these situations of illegal gold digger invasions and later I started traveling to see what "non-indigenous" society was like.

I stayed a long time in Sao Paolo, far from my mother, I studied at the faculty and I learned what my rights were: how the right to defend oneself works in the fight.

I studied Brazilian law, to be able to speak and fight for my people using these legal instruments.

It was very important for me to learn how it works, to be able to use these arguments with the Brazilian authorities so that they understand that I am expressing myself through the fight.

Have you been able to preserve the culture and language that you teach elsewhere in your community?

Dário Kopenawa:

Culture does not die: I speak my Yanomami language, I live in my village, I speak with the chiefs, I hunt there, I live there and in the white world, I work as a director of Hutukara. This is where I develop these legal documents, to denounce situations of violence, we write complaints to forward them to the Brazilian authorities. I use all the elements of the defense of the rights of the Yanomami peoples. Its very important.

It is also important to master new technologies, instruments such as cell phones.

It helps us to show the reality of indigenous peoples, their suffering, the threats weighing on them.

Because the government says nothing.

He said nothing about the huge holes caused by the gold diggers.

But we as indigenous people take pictures, we know the system now and we use it to let the whole world know what's going on.

Davi Kopenawa, you yourselves have been fighting since 1986 against the invasions of gold diggers on your land, is it a fight that never ends?

Davi Kopenawa:

I'm not going to let my people suffer.

I will continue the fight until the end.

It is my mission, for my people, to protect the forest and the rivers that pass through Yanomami land.

The cry of alarm from the Yanomami of Brazil on the degradation of their land

The cry of alarm from the Yanomami of Brazil on the degradation of their land

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