Brazil’s Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling this week that could determine the fate of controversial legislation that conservationists fear will undermine efforts to protect the nation’s forests.
Indigenous and environmental groups are urging the court to reject a long-standing legal bid to weaken the ability of Brazil’s roughly 300 Indigenous groups to lay claim to traditional territories. If the justices rule in their favor, the decision—expected Wednesday—would also prevent Brazil’s Senate from finalizing a closely related bill, approved last week by the Chamber of Deputies, that could dramatically reduce the land area governed by Indigenous groups.
At stake in the legal and legislative battle is control of huge swaths of Indigenous land—including roughly one-quarter of the Amazon—that are rich in biodiversity and “essential to [securing] the world’s climate stability” because they store huge amounts of carbon, says environmental scientist Ana Claudia Rorato of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. She and others note that research has shown that, in Brazil, Indigenous groups often do a better job of preventing deforestation than other land management and protection agencies.
Both the lawsuit and the legislation involve Article 231 of Brazil’s Constitution, which gives Indigenous people the right to claim lands they “traditionally occupied.” The provision has enabled the nation’s nearly 1 million Indigenous people to make claims on 761 territories covering about 1.2 million square kilometers—an area twice the size of France—or nearly 14% of Brazil. (The government has so far formally “regularized” 475 of the claims, according to Brazil’s National Indigenous Peoples Foundation.)
For years, however, farmers, loggers, miners, and others have criticized Brazil’s process of recognizing Indigenous territories, challenging it in court and urging lawmakers to shrink the area eligible for claims. In particular, they have promoted a legal argument known as marco temporal (time frame), which asserts that Indigenous groups only have rights to land that they occupied or had filed legal claims to before 5 October 1988—the day Brazil’s postdictatorship constitution was enacted.
In recent weeks, the push to make marco temporal official policy has reached a pivotal stage. On 30 May, in a surprise vote that drew nationwide protests, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies—currently dominated by conservative lawmakers—voted 283 to 155 to approve a bill (PL 490/07) that embraces marco temporal. The legislation, first introduced in 2007, would transfer the authority to create Indigenous territories from the executive branch to Congress. Analysts say that would not only make it more difficult to create new Indigenous territories, but also open the door to changing existing territorial boundaries. The bill also weakens the ability of Indigenous groups to regulate logging, mining, and other activities on their territorial lands.
The vote came as Brazil’s Supreme Court was preparing to issue a 7 June ruling on a land rights case that has been making its way through the court system for years. That ruling will essentially decide whether the legislation is constitutional. If so, the bill will move to the Senate for a final vote. If the bill passes, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to prevent deforestation and recognized six new Indigenous territories on his first day in office, could veto it. But opposition lawmakers might have enough votes to override a veto.
The adoption of marco temporal would have potentially disastrous results for efforts to preserve Brazil’s forests, researchers say. It could leave 87,000 to 1 million square kilometers unprotected, estimate Rorato and conservation biologist Celso Silva-Junior of the Federal University of Maranhão. Under a worst-case scenario, 95% of Indigenous territories could be affected as Indigenous groups would have to prove they lived in the areas before 1988, according to Brazil’s Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples. That could be difficult, as some were forced off their lands before the adoption of the Constitution.
If forests on these lands are cleared, the nation’s carbon emissions would skyrocket, making it “virtually impossible for Brazil to fulfill its climate pledges” or meet its sustainable development goals, Silva-Junior says. Rorato says protecting forests on Indigenous territories is also key to preventing the Amazon forest from reaching a tipping point, where the loss of trees and changes to the hydrologic cycle convert wetter forests to dryer savanna.
Rorato and others note that research published earlier this year in Nature Sustainability found that Brazil’s Indigenous territories have helped protect Amazon forests. From 2000 to 2021, Indigenous territories and other protected areas expanded to cover 52% of the Brazilian Amazon, the researchers found. The Indigenous territories were almost as effective at preserving forests as highly protected preserves created by the federal government, they reported, and Indigenous lands had less forest loss than areas under state protection. Overall, the study found that 39.8% of the federal preserves experienced significant losses in vegetation, compared with 40.4% of Indigenous lands. About 44% of state-protected areas lost green cover.
The battle over marco temporal has put Brazil in “a tight spot,” says Silva-Junior, who worries the outcome will deliver “a blow to Indigenous rights and endanger Brazil’s role in staving off climate change.”
“It is also a human rights issue,” Rorato says. The legislation, she asserts, “violates our Constitution, goes against [Brazil’s] Indigenous peoples statute, and against the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention Brazil signed at the International Labor Organization.”
Brazil’s Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling this week that could determine the fate of controversial legislation that conservationists fear will undermine efforts to protect the nation’s forests.
Indigenous and environmental groups are urging the court to reject a long-standing legal bid to weaken the ability of Brazil’s roughly 300 Indigenous groups to lay claim to traditional territories. If the justices rule in their favor, the decision—expected Wednesday—would also prevent Brazil’s Senate from finalizing a closely related bill, approved last week by the Chamber of Deputies, that could dramatically reduce the land area governed by Indigenous groups.
At stake in the legal and legislative battle is control of huge swaths of Indigenous land—including roughly one-quarter of the Amazon—that are rich in biodiversity and “essential to [securing] the world’s climate stability” because they store huge amounts of carbon, says environmental scientist Ana Claudia Rorato of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. She and others note that research has shown that, in Brazil, Indigenous groups often do a better job of preventing deforestation than other land management and protection agencies.
Both the lawsuit and the legislation involve Article 231 of Brazil’s Constitution, which gives Indigenous people the right to claim lands they “traditionally occupied.” The provision has enabled the nation’s nearly 1 million Indigenous people to make claims on 761 territories covering about 1.2 million square kilometers—an area twice the size of France—or nearly 14% of Brazil. (The government has so far formally “regularized” 475 of the claims, according to Brazil’s National Indigenous Peoples Foundation.)
For years, however, farmers, loggers, miners, and others have criticized Brazil’s process of recognizing Indigenous territories, challenging it in court and urging lawmakers to shrink the area eligible for claims. In particular, they have promoted a legal argument known as marco temporal (time frame), which asserts that Indigenous groups only have rights to land that they occupied or had filed legal claims to before 5 October 1988—the day Brazil’s postdictatorship constitution was enacted.
In recent weeks, the push to make marco temporal official policy has reached a pivotal stage. On 30 May, in a surprise vote that drew nationwide protests, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies—currently dominated by conservative lawmakers—voted 283 to 155 to approve a bill (PL 490/07) that embraces marco temporal. The legislation, first introduced in 2007, would transfer the authority to create Indigenous territories from the executive branch to Congress. Analysts say that would not only make it more difficult to create new Indigenous territories, but also open the door to changing existing territorial boundaries. The bill also weakens the ability of Indigenous groups to regulate logging, mining, and other activities on their territorial lands.
The vote came as Brazil’s Supreme Court was preparing to issue a 7 June ruling on a land rights case that has been making its way through the court system for years. That ruling will essentially decide whether the legislation is constitutional. If so, the bill will move to the Senate for a final vote. If the bill passes, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to prevent deforestation and recognized six new Indigenous territories on his first day in office, could veto it. But opposition lawmakers might have enough votes to override a veto.
The adoption of marco temporal would have potentially disastrous results for efforts to preserve Brazil’s forests, researchers say. It could leave 87,000 to 1 million square kilometers unprotected, estimate Rorato and conservation biologist Celso Silva-Junior of the Federal University of Maranhão. Under a worst-case scenario, 95% of Indigenous territories could be affected as Indigenous groups would have to prove they lived in the areas before 1988, according to Brazil’s Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples. That could be difficult, as some were forced off their lands before the adoption of the Constitution.
If forests on these lands are cleared, the nation’s carbon emissions would skyrocket, making it “virtually impossible for Brazil to fulfill its climate pledges” or meet its sustainable development goals, Silva-Junior says. Rorato says protecting forests on Indigenous territories is also key to preventing the Amazon forest from reaching a tipping point, where the loss of trees and changes to the hydrologic cycle convert wetter forests to dryer savanna.
Rorato and others note that research published earlier this year in Nature Sustainability found that Brazil’s Indigenous territories have helped protect Amazon forests. From 2000 to 2021, Indigenous territories and other protected areas expanded to cover 52% of the Brazilian Amazon, the researchers found. The Indigenous territories were almost as effective at preserving forests as highly protected preserves created by the federal government, they reported, and Indigenous lands had less forest loss than areas under state protection. Overall, the study found that 39.8% of the federal preserves experienced significant losses in vegetation, compared with 40.4% of Indigenous lands. About 44% of state-protected areas lost green cover.
The battle over marco temporal has put Brazil in “a tight spot,” says Silva-Junior, who worries the outcome will deliver “a blow to Indigenous rights and endanger Brazil’s role in staving off climate change.”
“It is also a human rights issue,” Rorato says. The legislation, she asserts, “violates our Constitution, goes against [Brazil’s] Indigenous peoples statute, and against the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention Brazil signed at the International Labor Organization.”