RIO DE JANEIRO, (AP) — Francisco Kuruaya was at his village in Brazil’s Amazon forest when he heard a boat passing by. It was a regular delivery boat that brought gasoline to generators and outboard engines to remote villages like his. Kuruaya discovered that it was actually a barge digging his river to find gold.
Kuruaya hadn’t seen a dredge in the Xipaia territory before. It was so large that it looked like a floating factory.
Kuruaya (47), motored to the barge and boarded it. He confronted the miners. He retreated in fear of being armed and they responded with harsh words. He was there, with his first phone. His son ThaylewaXipaia from Karimaa sent the photos of his mining boat to the tribe’s WhatsApp group.
In an audio message The Associated Press reviewed, he stated to his tribe members “Guys! This is urgent!” “There is a barge at Pigeons Island. It is huge and is destroying the entire island. My dad went there just now and they nearly took his phone.”
Several days later, Kuruaya’s daugher Juma Xipaia was located in Altamira. With a choking voice and watery eyes she recorded her own video warning of imminent armed conflict. She then uploaded it on social media.
Within hours word spread quickly throughout the globe.
This episode shows how the internet has expanded into remote rainforest areas where there was no way to quickly share visual evidence of environmental crimes. An expanding network of antennae empowers Indigenous groups to use smartphones, video cameras, and social media to mobilize the public and press authorities to quickly respond to threats from landgrabbers, loggers, and gold miners.
Radio has been used by Indigenous communities to communicate their distress calls until now. These distress calls were then relayed to the media and public by Indigenous and environmental rights groups. Brazil’s extreme-right President Jairbolsonaro has criticized the non-profits. He advocates legalizing land leasing and mining in Indigenous territory. Bolsonaro has criticized the non-profits as unreliable, out of touch and not in tune with Indigenous people’s real desires, and on the payroll global environmental do-gooders.
It is harder to ignore video and photos from Indigenous people, and authorities are being forced to face the realities on the ground.
Nara Bare (head of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon) said in a telephone interview that technology can be a great tool for monitoring and denouncing. “External pressure was crucial to get the federal government to act on the Xipaia territory. Technology was the key tool in this.”
Connectivity does not just enable whistleblowing via social media. Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office created a website that allows users to report crimes and upload visual material. People living in remote areas used to have to travel long distances to reach a federal prosecutor’s offices.
Terra do Meio (Middle Earth), which is home to the Xipaia territory, is a pristine rainforest region that includes dozens of traditional and Indigenous river communities. Internet access was very rare in the region until the mid-2020s when 17 antennae were installed by a group including Health in Harmony, the Socio-Environmental Institute and Health in Harmony.
Priority was given communities that have either health centers or market hubs to produce and sell forest products such as Brazil nuts. Although signal can be slow on rainy days and frustrating for some, it is sufficient to allow photos and videos from the forest to flow out.
Marcelo Salazar (Health in Harmony’s Brazil program coordinator) stated that the strategy was to improve communication and prevent unnecessary trips to the capital. He said that the internet made it easier to access information about health, education and forest economy. Fighting environmental crime was also a benefit.
Four of the five Xipaia villages are now connected. Karimaa is the village that first saw the barge. It has been connected to the internet since July 2020. Three days after the installation, a teenage boy injured his head and a city doctor was able, using photos from WhatsApp, to evaluate his condition. This avoided a complicated, expensive medevac during COVID-19.
The case of the miner dredge was the first instance when the Xipaia used internet to defend their territory. Four villages also used WhatsApp to quickly form a group of warriors to face the miners. JumaXipaia reports that they were painted with urucum (a local fruit that makes a red dye) and equipped with hunting rifles, bows, and arrows. They reached the spot where the barge was, but it was gone.
The Uru-Euwau-Wau people were located 800 miles (1.3km) west in Rondonia, an Amazonian state. They had internet access and could take online classes in video and photography to document deforestation by landgrabbers. The three-day training was conducted via Zoom in 2020.
The documentary “The Territory” was produced as a result. It won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, and other festivals. Alex Pritz, an American filmmaker, relied on WhatsApp for communication with his camera operators.
Tangaai Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau is a teacher-turned-cameraman who traveled to the Danish festival and later spoke with the AP via WhatsApp from his remote village. He stated that the film has changed people’s perceptions of Brazil’s indigenous population. “In Copenhagen… Many questions were asked of me. They were aware of Brazil’s natural wonders but did not know anything about Indigenous peoples fighting for their territory.
The internet is still not available in other parts of the Amazon. Because the area is remote, it took news about the murder of two Yanomami tribe members by illegal gold miners in June 2020 two weeks for to reach. Yanomami groups have sought better connectivity to avoid another similar incident. The Yanomami installed an antenna in Palimiu, a village located along the Uraricoera River. This was after a series attacks by miners occurred in May 2021. The violence has slowed down since then.
Bolsonaro’s repeated promises of legalizing mining and other activities on Indigenous lands has fueled invading of territories. These territories are often islands of forest among sprawling ranches. According to indigenous and environmental groups, there are approximately 20,000 illegal miners on Yanomami territory. This is about the same size as Portugal. Bolsonaro claims there are 3,500.
According to data from Brazil’s space agency that uses satellites to monitor forest destruction, deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon jumped 76% between 2018 and 2021.
Even in large cities, the Amazon’s internet connection is slow. This may change soon. Brazil’s communications minister Fabio Faria met with Elon Musk, a billionaire, to discuss a partnership for better connectivity in rural areas of the largest tropical rainforest in the world.
However, the communications ministry claims that talks have not progressed and that no progress has been made. Musk’s SpaceX company did not respond to email requests for comment.
There are concerns that the Amazon region’s internet penetration will not benefit only Indigenous groups such as the Xipaia. Illegal miners sometimes co-opt local Indigenous leaders and communicate secretly via messaging apps. Sometimes, clandestine networks can help miners hide heavy machinery or alert them to imminent raids by authorities. This allows them to flee.
Roraima, the state where the Yanomami territory is located, was the location of one internet provider. They offer wifi to illegal gold mines for $2,600 plus $690 per monthly. The equipment is installed by clandestine small craft.
Salazar of Health in Harmony said that increased connectivity is a double-edged sword.
JumaXipaia believes that the new connection will provide her with more protection and visibility. Her tearful video was shared over the internet and picked up by international and local media. Two days later, an airborne operation that involved the Federal Police, national guard, and environmental agencies was launched. The seven miners and the seven police officers who were with them found the dredge, hidden by vegetation, on the banks the Iriri River.
The rapid, effective response demonstrates the power of Indigenous networks in a country like Brazil, where environmental crime is often unchecked.
“After many calls asking for help, I finally decided to make the video. It worked. Juma Xipaia called to report that the telephone didn’t stop ringing. It was extremely fast after the video.
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