Proposed legislation in the European Union would require suppliers to prove their products haven’t contributed to legal or illegal deforestation.
The law would focus on the industries with some of the most egregious environmental track records, including soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa and coffee, as well as leather, chocolate and furniture.
Conservation groups have expressed satisfaction with the first-of-its kind legislation but are concerned about the lack of protections for Indigenous peoples, as well as carbon-rich ecosystems like savannas, wetlands and peatlands.
The European Union is considering an ambitious new proposal that would regulate imports of products linked to global forest loss.
The law would require suppliers to prove their products haven’t contributed to deforestation, whether legal or illegal. If passed, it would force producers to raise their environmental standards or risk losing out on a market of 27 countries and 450 million people.
“Europe is finally taking steps against the deforestation that it drives, and it is doing it not by placing the burden on consumers, but on the big companies that produce these products,” Nico Muzi, Europe director of environmental advocacy group Mighty Earth, told Mongabay. “If we want change, we need to regulate the industries that cause deforestation.”
The proposal, introduced by the European Commission earlier this week, gives special focus to products with some of the most egregious environmental track records, including soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa and coffee, as well as leather, chocolate and furniture. Should the proposal pass, importers will have to meet stricter traceability measures, such as sharing geographic coordinates of where their products originated.
It also establishes a benchmarking system to determine which countries are the most at risk of deforestation, and pledges 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to help them develop more sustainable forest management programs.
The EU predicts the proposal will cut at least 31.9 million metric tons of annual carbon emissions and save around 3.2 billion euros ($3.6 billion).
“We must protect biodiversity and fight climate change not only in the EU, but globally, and our consumption should not contribute to global deforestation, which is a major cause of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Virginijus Sinkevičius, the European commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries.
Between 1990 and 2020, an estimated 420 million trees were lost to deforestation worldwide, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Agriculture is responsible for nearly 90% of that, with cattle ranching being the biggest contributor.
Globally, Europe is the second-largest importer of products associated with deforestation, according to a 2021 WWF report. In recent years, trade to the region has led to around 16% of global forest loss.
A herd of cattle on a ranch in Colombia. Image by Rhett Butler, Mongabay.com
The deforestation proposal is part of a package of recently announced environmental initiatives that include more rigorous regulations for waste and waste trafficking, as well as improved soil protections to increase carbon storage in agricultural areas, fight desertification and restore degraded land, the European Commission said in a statement.
“If we expect more ambitious climate and environmental policies from partners, we should stop exporting pollution and supporting deforestation ourselves,” Sinkevičius said, adding, “With these proposals, we are taking our responsibility and walking the talk by lowering our global impact on pollution and biodiversity loss.”
Other countries, coming out of the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, have announced similar plans to clean up supply chains. Last week, the U.K. passed a law banning products linked to illegal deforestation. In October, U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill that holds importers accountable for forest loss.
However, unlike the European proposal, neither of those measures targets legal drivers of deforestation.
Loopholes and missed opportunities
While the EU’s proposal takes ambitious steps to protect forests, it falls short when it comes to other types of carbon-rich ecosystems, some environmental groups pointed out. For example, the proposal’s current language would exclude protection of many savannas, wetlands and peatlands.
In addition to storing massive amounts of carbon, these ecosystems prevent soil erosion and flooding, and help provide clean drinking water.
“There’s simply no need to destroy native ecosystems to make room for commercial crops,” Mighty Earth’s Muzi said. “There are more than 1 billion acres [400 million hectares] of previously degraded land where all future agricultural needs can easily be met without threatening the world’s last ecosystems.”
Mongabay has reported extensively on the rapid disappearance of wetlands and peatlands due to palm oil, timber and other agricultural commodities, as well as governments’ continued omission of these landscapes from legislation.
The EU’s proposal also fails to include special protections for Indigenous communities, which often serve as stewards of the environment. Instead, it relies on the local laws of the exporting countries despite the fact they’re often weak or ignored.
Muzi said he expects officials to close this loophole by including international human rights standards in the proposal’s language. And because proposals by the European Commission are often heavily revised, he expects many of the other loopholes to be addressed, too.
“Usually, Europe sets the standard for environmental regulations,” he said. “It is often at the forefront. We expect other regions will follow.”
Afi River Forest Reserve (ARFR), in eastern Nigeria’s Cross River state, is an important habitat corridor that connects imperiled populations of critically endangered Cross River gorillas.
But deforestation has been rising both in ARFR and elsewhere in Cross River; satellite data show 2020 was the biggest year for forest loss both in the state and in the reserve since around the turn of the century – and preliminary data for 2021 suggest this year is on track to exceed even 2020.
Poverty-fueled illegal logging and farming is behind much of the deforestation in ARFR. Resource wars have broken out between communities that have claimed the lives of more than 100, local sources say.
Authorities say a lack of financial support and threats of violence are limiting their ability to adequately protect what forest remains.
IKOM, Nigeria — When 57-year-old Linus Otu was a child, each dawn arrived with the chatter of monkeys and occasional belches of gorillas from the mountain that overlooks his small bungalow home in the village of Kanyang II in southeastern Nigeria’s Cross River state. He recalled peering up at the foggy, forested mountains, uncertain what to make of his noisy animal neighbors.
One morning, while exploring the banks of the Afi River, Otu came upon a mother chimpanzee bathing its infant. “It acted like a human, like a mother will care for her baby,” Otu told Mongabay.
But when Otu walks beside the river today, once a watering hole for diverse wildlife, the cacophony of the forest is different, quieter. Decades of habitat loss have taken their toll on Cross River’s rainforest, and even the state’s protected areas haven’t been able to escape the intertwined forces of agriculture, poverty and war.
A village near Afi River Forest Reserve. Image for Mongabay by Orji Sunday.
Afi River Forest Reserve (ARFR), named after the river that bisects it into two unequal halves, was established in the 1930 to protect more than 300 square kilometers (about 116 square miles) of rainforest near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon. The reserve, now managed by the government’s Cross River State Forestry Commission harbors many species, including blue duikers (Philantomba monticola), bay duikers (Cephalophus dorsalis), red river hogs (Potamochoerus porcus), yellow-backed duikers (C. silvicultor), mona monkeys (Cercopithecus mona) and African brush-tailed porcupines (Atherurus africanus).
The region is also home to critically endangered Cross River gorillas (Gorilla gorilla diehli) that occasionally inhabit ARFR but prefer to live more permanently in nearby Cross River National Park and adjacent Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary (AMWS). However, despite becoming an official protected area in 2000, poaching has persisted in AMWS; according to Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), an infant gorilla was killed by a snare trap in 2010; in 2012, two gorilla carcasses were found at a hunter’s camp.
The Cross River gorilla remains Africa’s most endangered ape, with fewer than 300 individuals believed to remain in the wild, all of which are relegated to a small, mountainous portion along the Nigeria-Cameroon border. Around 100 – a third of the entire subspecies – are found in a patchwork of three adjoining protected areas in Nigeria: AMWS, the Mbe Mountains Community Sanctuary and the contiguous Okwangwo division of Cross River National Park.
The cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) is considered one of the most endangered primate subspecies on the planet. Image by user Julielangford via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Poaching isn’t the only threat that the gorillas face. Habitat loss is on the rise in Cross River, with satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) showing that more primary forest was cleared in 2020 than in any year prior since measurement began in 2002. Overall, Cross River state lost nearly 5% of its primary forest cover between 2002 and 2020.
As with many of Nigeria’s forest reserves, ARFR has been beset by increasing deforestation. The reserve has had the highest rate of forest loss in the region, according to a 2018 study published in the Open Journal of Forestry, which found that annual deforestation in ARFR increased twelve-fold between 1986 and 2010. UMD satellite data show the reserve lost another 4% of its primary forest cover between 2011 and 2020. Like Cross River state, 2020 saw ARFR’s highest levels of deforestation since the beginning of the century – and preliminary data suggest the reserve is experiencing another year of intense habitat loss.
Habitat in flames
2021 started with a bang in Cross River state as the region saw some of its highest fire activity in years, according to data from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The data show several fires spread and broke out in ARFR.
Satellite data show clearing and associated fire events in Afi River Forest Reserve and other protected areas in Cross River state, Nigeria.
Local sources said the 2021 fire season was one of the worst they’ve ever experienced in the region, dwarfing even the outbreak of 2002. Blazes in ARFR lingered for several weeks, defying firefighting efforts from local communities, said George Mbang, a WCS ranger who works in adjacent Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuar. Mbang said he and his team were eventually able to snuff out the fires, but not before dozens of farms and tracts of forest were lost in and near the two protected areas.
Sources said the origins of the fires remain unclear but suspect that some of them may have been started by farmers clearing land for new fields. Satellite imagery shows many of the fires that invaded ARFR occurred near areas that had been previously cleared.
Fighting forest fires in ARFR is difficult. Rangers are challenged by a lack of resources and varied, inaccessible terrain, with peaks soaring to 1,300 meters above sea level. Mbang said unstable rocky outcrops can become dislodged as fire burns the vegetation holding them together and can crush firefighters and houses as they careen downhill. He said that the only option is to raze the edges of affected areas to restrict further spread.
Some communities around ARFR have proposed new, stiffer penalties for those linked to fire outbreaks, Otu told Mongabay. He said the new clause, when fully enshrined, will require those found responsible to forfeit their own cocoa farms to the victims of fire incidents, in addition to monetary fines.
Cocoa farms are common near Afi River Forest Reserve. Image for Mongabay by Orji Sunday.
Farmers told Mongabay that fires that spread onto land they already used for agriculture deplete nutrients in the soil, forcing them to seek – and clear – replacement farmland in protected areas. Research has shown that fire replenishes some, but not all, nutrients in the soil as it breaks down organic matter. Critically, fire has been found to reduce nitrogen in soil, and farmers told Mongabay that it was easier for them to clear more forest for new farmland than use fertilizer to replace nitrogen and other nutrients.
Poverty and conflict
During a visit to ARFR in Aug. 2021, Mongabay observed several trucks loading logged timber day and night in and near ARFR, destined for urban centers where a growing demand for timber products is increasing the pressure on dwindling habitat in Nigeria’s forest reserves. Many areas of ARFR were pockmarked by deforestation and strewn with logs as distant rattles of chainsaws mingled with the moist forest breeze.
Cocoa trees bearing yellow and green pods spread across the undulating landscape in and around the reserve. It was the peak of farming season, with farmers continuing to clear new farms even as rains fell, burning stumps and applying chemicals to control crop pests and disease. At numerous homesteads, farmers were collecting harvested cocoa pods and bagging dried beans. Bagged cocoa beans were then weighed and loaded onto trucks at depots, where they’ll be transported to nearby cities before being exported abroad.
orkers stack bags of cocoa near Afi River Forest Reserve. Image for Mongabay by Orji Sunday.
The search for new agricultural land to grow cocoa, plantain, banana and cassava is driving forest loss in ARFR, said Otu, who is a former community leader of Kanyang II. “As you enter you start clearing as much as you have the power to clear,” he said. “Almost every portion of the reserve has been claimed.”
Cocoa farming became commercialized fairly recently in surrounding communities, spurring a new wave of demand for larger farming spaces. Farmers, backed by wealthy cocoa merchants from urban centers, competed to dominate the emerging market primarily by farming larger portions each year. The surge of cocoa farms in the likes of ARFR, linked to the growing demand for the product in the international market, has made Nigeria the world’s fourth largest cocoa producer.
With most surrounding communal forests nearly depleted, community residents say customary practice allows them to permanently own any portion of land they can clear and farm in ARFR – despite official laws that prohibit it. Several farmers told Mongabay that they have cleared more land in the reserve than they need in the short term, hoping to either transfer the land to their children, use it for new farms or rent it out to migrant cocoa farmers for a fee. In addition, locals said that by taking possession of large expanses of land, they stand a chance of receiving eviction payouts if the government steps in to reclaim remaining forest in the reserve.
Cocoa pods dry near Afi River Forest Reserve. Image for Mongabay by Orji Sunday.
The underlying factor driving deforestation in ARFR and elsewhere in the country is poverty. Nearly half of Nigeria’s 190 million people live in extreme poverty, and unemployment reached a record 33% in 2020, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. With few legal options to make a living and with the country’s population expected to double by 2050, Nigerians say they are forced to turn to the forests to make a living.
The situation has deteriorated to the point at which resource wars have broken out, local sources told Mongabay. Power conflicts and boundary disputes over access to timber, cropland, bushmeat and other forest products have intensified in recent years as resources diminish in and around ARFR and communities fight to control what remains.
Customary negotiators once relied on traditional boundaries such as trees, rivers and oral practices to delineate borders between local communities and mitigate disputes. But 61-year-old Leonard Akam said this is no longer sufficient to deter bloodshed, and multiple sources said that resource wars between communities have led to the deaths of at least 100 people.
Akam is calm in his demeanor, often witty with words and brutally honest. He was the head of the Boje clan when a dispute over communal boundaries within the reserve with neighboring clan Nsadop led to a brutal communal war in 2010. “So many lives were lost,” Akam told Mongabay. Local authorities temporarily restored peace by deploying the military, complete with a panel of inquiry and an arbitration committee. But Akam said the government’s approach was half-hearted and ineffective.
One such war erupted in 2018 between the Boje and Iso Bendeghe communities. After a year of conflict in which at least two people were reportedly killed, the Nigerian government again deployed the military in an effort to restore peace in the area.
Lumber milled near Afi River Forest Reserve. Timber is one of the vanishing forest resources inciting conflict among Cross River communities, according to local sources. Image for Mongabay by Orji Sunday.
This time intervention was more successful. A fragile truce was struck between Boje, Nsadop and Iso Bendeghe as well as other communities such as Bouanchor and Katabang. Boundary tracing, aided by old documents retrieved from the archive, is in progress. Meanwhile, communities around the reserve are in dialogue to avoid further bloodshed.
Despite this progress, Akam said sustainable peace depends on addressing the root causes of the crisis: unemployment, lack of infrastructure, poor educational systems – and the poverty that underpins them all.
Running out of time
ARFR has long been too degraded to provide permanent habitat for Cross River gorillas but researchers still consider it a lifeline that connects resident populations in AMWS and Cross River National Park. However, ARFR may be losing its capacity as a habitat corridor. A 2007 study published in Molecular Ecology found evidence of “low levels” of gene flow between gorilla populations, suggesting that while individuals were still able to move between populations to breed, it wasn’t happening very often. A related study published in 2008 in the American Journal of Primatology found Cross River gorillas have less genetic diversity than western gorillas (G. gorilla gorilla), putting them at greater risk of extinction.
“These results emphasize the need for maintaining connectivity in fragmented populations and highlight the importance of allowing small populations to expand,” the study states.
A 2008 survey of the southeastern portion of ARFR conducted by WCS in 2008 found that primary forest covered just 24% of the surveyed area.
“Unless the current rate of habitat destruction is reduced, the critical link between the AMWS and the Mbe Mountains that this reserve provides will be lost, with the obvious consequence being further isolation of the Afi gorillas and other wildlife,” WCS Cross River landscape program director Inaoyom Imong and primate researcher Kathy L. Wood wrote in their survey report. “Results of this survey show that farming, uncontrolled logging, and hunting are currently the most important threats to the Afi River Forest Reserve. These threats need to be urgently addressed in order to protect this very important corridor area.”
But in the years since this research was published, deforestation in ARFR has only increased. Satellite data from the University of Maryland show the reserve lost around 4% of its remaining primary forests between 2009 and 2020, with more deforestation detected in 2020 than in any year previous since measurement began in 2002. Preliminary tree cover loss data for 2021 and NASA fire data indicate ARFR is experiencing another year of heavy deforestation.
2020 saw the highest amount of deforestation in Afi River Forest Reserve since the turn of the century, according to data from the University of Maryland. But preliminary data for 2021 suggests the reserve has experienced even more deforestation this year.
Satellite imagery shows a large fire consumed forest in Afi River Forest Reserve following clearing of a smaller area.
While recent conservation efforts led by the government, local communities and NGOs have focused on gorilla strongholds Afi Mountain Wildlife Reserve and Cross River National Park, habitat corridors like ARFR remain porous.
Some blame the government for allowing the destruction of ARFR to continue. A 2017 capacity study of the Cross River State Forestry Commission concluded that the agency is “grossly understaffed and deficient in managing the forest estate,” with only 324 active staff – less than 10% of the 3,458 recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
Paddy Njar, director of wildlife at the Cross River State Forestry Commission said there’s little else they can do without better state support.
“There is no support from the state government,” Njar said. “We are seriously handicapped. No mobility. No funding. No allowances for rangers who ought to be on patrol. I feel bad.”
Njar said this lack of state support has emboldened loggers and communities to exploit protected forest. He told Mongabay the agency doesn’t even have access to permanent vehicles necessary for enforcement. He said he is in the process of requesting support from other institutions within and outside Nigeria to secure vehicles to carry out monitoring of protected sites and other field operations.
“If we have mobility, we can control 80% of the deforestation happening at the moment,” Njar said. “We have the laws but we are not mobile enough to reach the field for enforcement. For now, the commission has no single vehicle. Sometimes rangers have to hire motorcycles before they go to work.”
Milled lumber near Afi River Forest Reserve. Image for Mongabay by Orji Sunday.
But Njar said that even when they’re able to get to the areas they’re supposed to protect, rangers are often still prevented from doing their job. He spoke of a recent operation in which his team arrested loggers and confiscated their chainsaws in one of the state’s protected areas. But he said their enforcement efforts were thwarted when the loggers joined forces with a nearby community to block the exit road and threatened to assault the rangers unless they surrendered the chainsaws.
“I can’t risk my life anymore,” Njar said.
Meanwhile, conservationists say the porosity of ARFR is bleeding threats into other nearby protected areas, including those that shelter critically endangered gorilla populations. For instance, WCS said its staff have documented more than 1,000 farms in adjacent Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, as well as hundreds of snares, gun cartridges and empty shells, and chainsaws recovered from loggers.
“Now that they have almost finished Afi River Forest Reserve, their attention has turned to the sanctuary,” Mbang told Mongabay.
Imong sums up the situation with dire concision: “We are running out of time to save what is left of the forest.”
Editor’s note: This story was powered by Places to Watch, a Global Forest Watch (GFW) initiative designed to quickly identify concerning forest loss around the world and catalyze further investigation of these areas. Places to Watch draws on a combination of near-real-time satellite data, automated algorithms and field intelligence to identify new areas on a monthly basis. In partnership with Mongabay, GFW is supporting data-driven journalism by providing data and maps generated by Places to Watch. Mongabay maintains complete editorial independence over the stories reported using this data.
Recognition of the role that Indigenous land plays in forest protection, biodiversity conservation and environmental health has been growing, but less attention has been paid to the role of women.
An increasing body of research and experts are calling for a greater recognition of the link between gender equality and environmental protection.
Examples like the Guajajara “women warriors” in the Brazilian Amazon show how greater inclusion of women can benefit conservation goals.
NEW YORK — On an early December morning last year in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, half a dozen members of the Indigenous Guajajara people packed their bags with food, maps and drone equipment to get ready for a patrol. They said goodbye to their children, uncertain when, or whether, they would see them again. Then, they hoisted their bags over their shoulders and set out to patrol a section of the 173,000 hectares (428,000 acres) of the primary rainforest they call home.
This is the Caru Indigenous Territory, where the Amazon peters out toward the northeastern coast of Brazil, and it contains some of the last stretches of intact, contiguous forest in Maranhão. It is also under increasing threat: this part of Brazil has been ravaged by some of the country’s highest rates of deforestation and land conflicts over the past decade. Patrols led by Indigenous groups like theirs, known often by the moniker of “Forest Guardians,” have been instrumental in enforcing protections and preventing loggers from entering Indigenous territories. Patrols and their enforcement tactics, which have been ramping up over the past decade, have also resulted in community members being threatened, attacked, and killed — as in the case of Paulo Paulino Guajajara last year, who was murdered in a neighboring Indigenous territory.
But members of the patrol that set out through the forest last December don’t call themselves guardians; they prefer warriors. And they differ in one other notable aspect: they are all women.
“Why did we take the initiative? Because we are mothers. If we don’t act, there would be no forest standing,” said Paula Guajajara, one of the “women warriors of the forest,” in a public event last year.
Called guerreiras da floresta in Portuguese, this is the name these women have given themselves. They are in many ways an embodiment of what policymakers, politicians and scholars around the world say is a necessary shift toward gender equality in environmental movements. And they are contributing not just womanpower to the patrols — they are also helping to diversify the tactics and forge new partnerships.
In Brazil in particular, where protecting intact forests is one of the cheapest, easiest and most effective solutions for combating climate change, the work they are doing is literally saving the world.
Creating a Space and Finding Their Voice
Actively patrolling their land for invaders is nothing new to the Guajajara; Indigenous people have more than 500 years of experience in this. Today, they use satellite technology and coordinate efforts with outside law enforcement to achieve their goals. This approach is relatively new, but its use has been on the rise in recent years.
“Across the country more of these groups are forming because of government inaction — or worse, because the government is actively trying to exploit their lands,” Sarah Shenker, campaign coordinator for Survival International’s Uncontacted Tribes team, said in an interview. These groups are primarily men, although women are sometimes included in the patrols. But according to Shenker, as well as other experts interviewed for this article, to have “forest guardian” groups made up solely of women is unique.
The women warriors were formed six years ago, an offshoot of a program developed by Indigenous organizations and the Brazilian government and implemented by the Ministry of the Environment to enhance the territorial and cultural protection of Indigenous people, called Projeto Demonstrativo de Povos Indígenas (PDPI) in Portuguese. At the time, the predominantly male forest guardians were attempting to end illegal logging and the sale of wood from their territory — a task that was proving extremely difficult. Seeing this, the women stepped in and formed their own group consisting originally of 32 women.
“In order not to let the project end, we, the Guajajara women, entered and took over the project,” Cícera Guajajara da Silva, one of the women warriors, said in an interview.
But the path to being taken seriously and treated as equals has been long.
“To seek partnership, we walked, talked, slept on the floor — all in order to seek improvement for our community,” Paula Guajajara said, recalling the initial difficulty in being heard and taken seriously inside and outside of the communities. Their patience has paid off, and the women are quick to point out the support and close collaboration of the male forest guardians that has allowed them to combat the greater goal of stopping illegal logging. “Today we have the women warriors who work together with the forest guardians,” Paula Guajajara said. “We’ve already evicted a lot of loggers. If we hadn’t acted, there would be no forest standing.”
Many of the married women had already been acting independently, accompanying their husbands in some activities, according to Gilderlan Rodrigues da Silva, the Maranhão coordinator of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a Catholic Church-affiliated organization, who has worked with the women warriors. “But, from the moment they created the women’s group, they gained strength and visibility,” he said in an interview. “Once they were formed, there was this very strong change. Both in the context of decreasing the invasions and waking up to the collective awareness to protect the territory.”
Indigenous women march toward Brazil’s National Congress during the Free Land Encampment in Brasilia on April, 26, 2019. Image by Karla Mendes / Mongabay
The Direct and Indirect Impacts of Greater Inclusion
The results are clearly visible. In 2018, there was only 63 hectares (156 acres) of deforestation in the reserve, compared to 2016, when deforestation reached a high of 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres), according to Global Forest Watch. “The biggest achievement I see today in my village is because of the territorial protection, there are no loggers within our territory, and we managed to combat the sale of wood,” Cícera Guajajara da Silva said.
The women’s association has also been instrumental in connecting with other Indigenous groups similarly seeking to protect their territories, such as the Ka’apor, Awa-Guaja, and other Guajajara communities.
“There are 16 Indigenous territories in Maranhão — we have to seek unity to move forward in our struggle,” said Maísa Guajajara, one of the original women warriors. Through coordination with other women’s groups, like the Articulation of Indigenous Women of Maranhão (AMIMA), they were able to bring 200 Indigenous women from around the state together for the first time in 2017 to talk about various issues, including territorial protection, reforestation, and environmental education.
“This whole movement is extremely important because it shows this strength, and that women have a lot to contribute to the movement because they are part of the territory and are concerned with it, and with future generations,” Rodrigues da Silva told Mongabay.
They don’t just coordinate with other Indigenous groups; they also conduct training with neighboring communities about the importance of environmental conservation. “Not all women do surveillance work because we know it is dangerous work, but there are always some who do,” Maísa Guajajara said. “The warriors generally do more surveillance activities outside the territory, we give lectures around our territory to talk about the invasions within our territory, and we raise awareness in the villages by talking about the importance of keeping nature standing.” For example, the women warriors are partners in the Mãe D’água (Mother of Water) project that, together with the Brazilian NGO Fórum da Amazônia Oriental (FAOR), provides support for Indigenous women to strengthen their collective actions against ongoing deforestation and water pollution. These actions include visits to nearby riverine communities in which the women warriors explain their ways of living, such as hunting and rituals, to their neighbors. For the women warriors, the more that their neighbors know about Guajajara culture, the more they will respect their actions to defend their territory.
Why Women are Key to Forest Conservation
In Brazil, and around the world, Indigenous women are increasingly at the forefront of environmental movements.
“The struggle of Indigenous women happens in different ways, day by day. If I am here today, I am the fruit of the women who came in front of me,” Taynara Caragiu Guajajara, a member of the Indigenous women’s collective AMIMA, said during a live online event in April. “In the context of the world we live in today, we have been conquering space inside and outside the community. We Indigenous women have not always had that voice … but today the struggle is driven by Indigenous women, we are the ones who are in charge of the struggle.”
In 2015, of every four people interviewed, mentioned or seen in the news worldwide, only one was a woman, according to a report by the Global Media Monitoring Project, which releases its findings every five years. A closer look at the data shows that even when women are interviewed, it is for personal quotes, rather than for their expertise. It’s a figure that seems to have barely budged over the past few years, although some newsrooms are starting to actively change that.
Studies show that, in general, women receive greater exposure in newspaper sections led by female editors, as well as in newspapers whose editorial boards have higher female representation. But men are disproportionately represented from editors through to reporters, meaning that critical issues for women often go unreported. One of these areas is precisely the connection between conservation solutions and gender equality.
Women are disproportionately affected by climate change and environmental degradation. Mounting evidence shows that gender gaps and inequalities, such as inequitable land tenure and women’s reduced access to energy, water and sanitation facilities, negatively impact human and environmental well-being. The climate crisis will only make gender disparities worse.
Gender-based violence against women environmental human rights defenders in particular is on the rise, and increasingly normalized in both public and private spheres, making it more difficult for women to get justice. As Indigenous communities are often on the front lines of defending their territories, resources and rights from extractive projects and corporate interests, Indigenous women in particular face a two-headed beast of gender-based violence and racism.
“We fought to defend our territory against invasions and we sought this autonomy to fight for rights,” Taynara Caragiu Guajajara said in an interview. “Being a woman is difficult within the macho society, but being an Indigenous or black woman becomes even more difficult, because the prejudice is so great.”
Having more women involved in everything from environmental decision-making to climate politics benefits society at large. Higher female participation in policymaking increases the equality and effectiveness of climate policy interventions; evidence shows that high gender inequality is correlated with higher rates of deforestation, air pollution and other measures of environmental degradation.
“The global community cannot afford to treat nature conservation and the fight for women’s equality as separate issues — they must be addressed together,” said Grethel Aguilar, the acting director-general of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), on international women’s day this year.
A map of Caru, Brazil via Global Forest Watch. (CC BY-ND 4.0)
Why the Fight for Indigenous Territorial Rights in Brazil Matters to Conservation
Tracking tree cover loss in Maranhão over the past two decades shows the crucial importance of Indigenous territories in protecting intact forest. Viewed from space, as the forest cover rapidly disappears, the outlines of Indigenous territories become more and more distinct.
“These Indigenous territories are islands of green in a sea of deforestation in one of the worst deforested places in Brazil,” Shenker said.
The Caru Indigenous Territory, for example, has seen 4% forest loss in comparison to the state of Maranhão, which has lost almost a quarter of its tree cover since 2000, according to Global Forest Watch data. Alongside the various other benefits that come with forest preservation, the forests in the Caru Indigenous Territory are also home to some of the last uncontacted Awá people; video of of two Awá men taken in the neighboring Araribóia Indigenous Territory made international headlines last year.
These patches of intact, tropical forests are also the crux of “natural climate solutions” protection. These solutions essentially entail stopping deforestation, improving management of forests, and restoring ecosystems, and could provide more than one-third of the cost-effective climate mitigation needed between now and 2030 to stabilize warming to below 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit).
According to one of the seminal papers on natural climate solutions, the single most effective approach in the tropics has proven to be actively protecting intact forests. Protecting intact forests offers twice as much of the cost-effective climate mitigation potential as the second best pathway, reforestation. The Amazon as a whole plays a vital role in mitigating climate change by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide in its forests. When cut down, burned, or degraded through logging, the forest not only ceases to fulfill this function, but can become a source of carbon emissions.
“Protecting and or conserving intact ecosystems is the number-one priority,” said Kate Dooley, a research fellow at the Australian-German Climate & Energy College at the University of Melbourne, who has authored several papers on the potential of forests as a natural climate solution. “Way-way-way down the line is planting trees. And even then, it needs to be the right kind of trees.”
Of all the countries in the world with some kind of tropical rainforest, Brazil holds more mitigation potential than 71 of the 79 countries combined, according to a recent paper on this topic. It isn’t too hyperbolic, then, to say that groups like the women warriors are protecting humanity’s last best hope for a livable future.
“Plenty of research showing that forests are more intact in collectively held lands,” Dooley said. “With or without secure land tenure those lands are more intact and less degraded.” According to a report in 2018 by the Rights and Resources Initiative, almost 300 billion metric tons of carbon are stored in collectively managed lands across all forest biomes, and numerous studies have found that the best way to protect forests is to empower the people who live in them, granting them land rights and legal standing.
This is especially true for Indigenous-held lands in places like Brazil. Between 2000 and 2015, legally designated Indigenous territories in Brazil saw a tenth the amount of forest loss than non-Indigenous territories. Brazil is home to approximately 900,000 Indigenous citizens from 305 peoples, most of who live in Indigenous territories. Even so, more than half of the locations claimed by Indigenous groups have not yet received formal government recognition.
“Surveillance and inspection by Indigenous peoples is extremely important, as they are the ones who know the territory and the region best,” Rodrigues da Silva said. “On the other hand, unfortunately they are left alone, the Indigenous body responsible for inspection ends up not fulfilling the role and leaving only the Indigenous people.”
Indigenous women played a prominent role in the protests at the 2019 Free Land Encampment in Brasilia, and they say they will play an even bigger role in the future. Image by Karla Mendes / Mongabay.
Prevailing Amid Growing Threats
Despite an increasingly hostile government, the women warriors say they are committed to continuing their monitoring, surveillance and educational activities, and are hoping to inspire other groups to do the same.
“Today women act 100% in defense of the territory,” Paula Guajajara said. “Today we are serving as an example.“
But the work is daunting.
Brazil has the rights of Indigenous people written into its constitution of 1988, and is a signatory to the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention. Yet, the current administration of President Jair Bolsonaro has made it clear that Indigenous peoples won’t be allowed to comment on infrastructure projects affecting Indigenous territories in the Amazon. Bolsonaro’s administration has also proposed opening up Indigenous territories to extractive activities — something the constitution specifically prohibits.
Hundreds of people have been killed during the past decade in the context of conflicts over the use of land and resources in the Amazon — many by people involved in illegal logging — according to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), a Catholic Church-affiliated nonprofit that follows land conflicts.
But perpetrators of violence in the Brazilian Amazon are rarely brought to justice.
Of the more than 300 killings that the CPT has registered since 2009, only 14 ultimately went to trial. Maranhão, where the Guajajara live, is among the most dangerous states for Indigenous people in Brazil: more attacks on Indigenous groups were reported here than anywhere else in 2016, according to data from the CPT.
The coronavirus poses an additional threat to Indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon and especially in Brazil, where the death rate from COVID-19 is much higher than the national rate.
“The surveillance expeditions are stopped by the pandemic, we are not doing surveillance, to care for everyone in the village,” Cícera Guajajara da Silva said. “Especially in order to protect our health, because nobody knows who the types of people [invaders] are inside the forest, they may even be infected with the virus, the invader himself can bring the virus to our territory, and that’s why we stopped [the expeditions], we are now only sheltering in the village.”
But despite the mounting difficulties, the women warriors are committed to continuing their work.
“We have the courage to defend our territory,” Maisa Guajajara said. “I am a woman and I will fight against all the threats that are in our territory.”
