Indigenous Lands (TIs)
In Brazil, when talking about Indigenous Lands ("Terras Indígenas"
or TIs), one has to bear in mind, in the first place, the definition
of it and a few juridical concepts established by the 1988 Federal Constitution,
and also in specific legislation, especially in the Estatuto do Índio
- Statute of the Indian - (Law 6,001/73), which is currently under revision
by the National Congress.
The 1988 Constitution consecrated the principle that the Indians are
the first and natural owners of Brazilian lands. That is the primary
source of their right, and one that precedes any other right. In consequence,
constitutionally the right of the Indians over a given land does not
depend of formal recognition.
The definition of lands traditionally occupied by the Indians is found
on the first paragraph of Article 231 of the Federal Constitution: they
are those lands "inhabited by them permanently, those used for
their productive activities, those indispensable to the preservation
of the environmental resources necessary for their well-being and those
necessary for their physical and cultural reproduction, in accordance
to their habits, customs and traditions".
Article 20 establishes that these lands are the Unions property,
and that it is recognized to the Indians the permanent possession and
the exclusive usufruct of the riches of the soil, the rivers and the
lakes existing in them.
However, the Constitution also requires the Public Power to promote
such recognition. When an Indian community occupies a given area as
described on Article 231, the State has to delimit it and promote the
physical demarcation of its limits. The Constitution itself established
a deadline for the demarcation of all Indigenous Lands (TIs) in Brazil:
October 5, 1993. The deadline, however, was not met, and today TIs can
still be found in various juridical statuses (demarcation).
A good many Indigenous Lands in Brazil are subjected to invasions by
mining enterprises, fishermen, hunters, timber companies and posseiros
(illegal homesteaders). Other are crossed by highways, railroads and
transmission lines, or have been partially flooded by lakes formed by
hydroelectric plants. Frequently the Indians end up paying the perverse
consequences of things that happen outside their lands, in neighboring
areas: pollution of rivers by pesticides, deforestation and so on.