Another Independence Day is Needed: July 6, 2010 ECD, for people resisting colonisation and genocide in South America by Homo Paliens

The Adolph Award for July goes to the Brazilian firm Yaguarete Pora S.A. Read on for details. (This isn't the only award they've gotten.)

To be seen or not to be seen. That is the question. If you are seen, you are exploited and probably killed. If you are not seen, vicious companies will deny your existence and try and commit genocide without anyone else knowing. And, to be clear, removing a people's homeland is an unambiguously genocidal practice.

Some of the context for what follows:

DEFORESTATION IN BRAZIL: 60-70 percent of deforestation in the Amazon results from cattle ranches while the rest mostly results from small-scale subsistence agriculture. Despite the widespread press attention, large-scale farming (i.e. soybeans) currently contributes relatively little to total deforestation in the Amazon. Most soybean cultivation takes place outside the rainforest in the neighboring cerrado grassland ecosystem and in areas that have already been cleared. Logging results in forest degradation but rarely direct deforestation. However, studies have showed a close correlation between logging and future clearing for settlement and farming. [Português | Español | Français]

Why is the Brazilian Amazon being Destroyed?

In many tropical countries, the majority of deforestation results from the actions of poor subsistence cultivators. However, in Brazil only about one-third of recent deforestation can be linked to "shifted" cultivators. Historically a large portion of deforestation in Brazil can be attributed to land clearing for pastureland by commercial and speculative interests, misguided government policies, inappropriate World Bank projects, and commercial exploitation of forest resources. For effective action it is imperative that these issues be addressed. Focusing solely on the promotion of sustainable use by local people would neglect the most important forces behind deforestation in Brazil. 

Some of what follows is from *here* @ survivalinternational.org. I offer some critique and analysis, and protest, in bold and in brackets interspersed in the report.

Spotted: the tribe that hides from man 6 July

[No. They weren't "spotted". The White Man was. Anyone who knows better would destroy him at once, if possible. And, no, he isn't hiding. He's avoiding genocide. BIG difference. Anne Frank, her family, and some neighbors, weren't just "hiding" from anyone they didn't know in an attic, were they? They weren't, as it were, shy people. They were trying to keep out of view of their people's sadistic murderers. Yes, they were. And the member of Ayoreo-Totobiegosobe society was doing that too.]

A man belonging to the only uncontacted tribe in South America [and how would The White Het Man know if there are other societies that have eluded confrontation with The White Het Man, if he hasn't "spotted" them?] outside the Amazon basin has been sighted near a region targeted for deforestation by Brazilian cattle-ranchers. ["Sighted": again like a rarely photographed bird. Nothing against rare birds, of course. The issue is who possesses a kind of subjectivity, a humanity, that is understood as "universal" or just like anyone ol' white man's, and who is identified as "other" and "marginal"? The White Het Man only identify as "marginal" when being racist and antifeminist, believing themselves to be "an endangered species" [while he is also perpetually normalised, centralised, dignified, undegraded, unraped; while he is not exploited by another group of people; while he is not enslaved or destroyed by another group of people; while he is statused in every conceivable way, not stigmatised socially in any way, relatively wealthy in ways defined as such by The White Man. As if. And: If only.]

When spotted, the man hid behind a tree [as opposed to what? An SUV? A Starbucks?], and later fled. [Given what The White Het Man wants to do, "fled' is the politically appropriate term to use. He was saving his people from genocidal murder.] The next day an abandoned camp, a clay dish, and game ready for cooking were found nearby. [And who says that white het men are the smartest men on Earth"? Not me.]

The man is one of an unknown number of uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Indians living in the dry forests of northern Paraguay. [Not unknown. They know each other. They know how many people they are. They aren't uncontacted. They resist contact with The White Het Man. Big difference.] The Totobiegosode have lost huge swathes of their land in recent years to cattle-ranchers, such as the Brazilian firm Yaguarete Pora S.A.

The man was seen just to the south of the area [ILLEGALLY, CRIMINALLY] owned by Yaguarete. In a letter to the Paraguayan government about the sighting, already-contacted Totobiegosode leaders said, ‘We are very concerned about [our relatives still in the forest]. They’re threatened by the deforestation in that region.’

Yaguarete was recently fined $16,000/£10,500 by the Paraguayan authorities for concealing the existence of the Totobiegosode in the area where it was given a licence to work. [BULLSHIT. THEY WERE CONCEALING THEIR GENOCIDE OF THE TOTOBIEGOSODE PEOPLE; if they had enough time, they'd have succeeded and no one from the dominant culture would have found out, if that savage company had its way.] Earlier this year, the company won Survival’s ‘Greenwashing Award’ 2010 for ‘dressing up the wholesale destruction of a huge area of the Indians’ forest as a noble gesture for conservation.’ [Just to be clear, it's not "a good thing" to get an award like that. One ought not give an acceptance speech thanking all the little people who helped make it happen.]

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘This is further proof the Indians exist. It’s going to make things even more difficult for cattle-ranchers like Yaguarete in the future.’ [Let's hope that any Indigenous peoples' existence makes it IMPOSSIBLE for The White Het Man to commit more genocidal mass murder, and ecocidal destruction of the Earth's otherwise sustainable ecosystems.]