Avoided Deforestation (REDD) and Indigenous ... - Amazon Fund

the co-existence of diverse cultures and ethnic groups within one national territory, not in any
order of preference or importance. However, as the author highlights:
“The influence of multiculturalism is not only present in the protection of the cultural
manifestations and creations of the diverse social and ethnic groups that make up
Brazilian society, but also permeates the constituent legislator’s attempts to secure
special territorial and cultural rights to indigenous peoples and quilombolas (...) it
is useless to protect quilombola and indigenous cultural manifestations without
securing the conditions for their physical and cultural survival.” 19
According to the Brazilian Federal Constitution, indigenous lands are recognized as lands
that “are inhabited by indigenous peoples on a permanent basis, are utilized for their productive
activities, are indispensable for preserving the environmental resources necessary to their wellbeing
and to their physical and cultural reproduction, according to their uses, customs, and
traditions” (Art. 231, §1). The Brazilian Constitution recognizes a direct relationship between the
security of territorial rights and the physical and cultural survival of indigenous peoples, with the
right to land being a necessary condition for maintaining their uses, customs and traditions, or
in other words, their existence as ethnic groups that are culturally differentiated from the rest of
the population. In this case, the Supreme Court (STF) Justice Celso de Mello highlights the legal
relevance of recognizing indigenous lands in Brazil:
“The legal importance of this official recognition (of indigenous lands) – which is
rendered in the presidential decree of administrative ratification of the demarcated
area in question – lies in the fact that lands traditionally occupied by indians,
although they are part of the Union’s patrimony (FC, Art. 20, XI), are found to be
affected, as a result of constitutional application, for specific ends uniquely aimed
at the legal, social, anthropological, economic and cultural protection of indians,
to protect them (which foresees the removal and indemnization of non-indigenous occupants, the fiscalization
of frontiers and the administrative registration of invaders). These activities are regulated by the Indian Statute
(Federal Law 6001/73). Article 26(1) of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes that
“Indigenous Peoples have the right to lands, territories and resources they traditionally possess and occupy or
have by other means utilized or acquired.”
19 SANTILLI, Juliana. Socioambientalismo e novos direitos (Socio-environmentalism and new rights). São Paulo,
Peirópolis, 2005, pp.79/80.
82 Av o i d e d d e f o re s t A t i o n (redd) A n d i n d i g e n o u s p e o p l e s: experiences, chAllenges A n d o p p o r t u n i t i e s in t h e A m A zo n c o n t e x t