The final hearing will be held in Goiânia (GO) between July 8 and 10, and is expected to have the participation of 150 people.
After almost a year since its launch in Brazil, on September 10, 2021, the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (TPP) in Defense of the Cerrado Territories It is about to hold its third and final thematic hearing and the final hearing, during which the jury's verdict will be presented.
Between July 8th and 10th, in the city of Goiânia (GO), the thematic hearing on Land and Territory and the final hearing will be held in a hybrid format, both in person and virtually, with transmission via the networks of National Campaign in Defense of the Cerrado.
On Monday the 11th, jury members and representatives of the cases judged by the TPP will participate in a press conference to publicly announce the verdict.
The in-person event will have an audience of 150 people, including representatives of traditional peoples and communities, jury members, entities that are members of the Campaign, as well as community communicators who have been following and disseminating content from the Cerrado Court since its launch.
Hearing on Land and Territory: four emblematic cases
The third and final hearing of the TPP will present allegations focused on the deforestation and land grabbing of immense portions of public lands and the imposition of large "development" projects, while processes for the titling of indigenous lands and quilombola and traditional territories in the region are stalled, as these processes provoke land and environmental racism against these peoples.
For this hearing, the following will be presented: 15 cases Analyzed by the Court. Four of them were not discussed in the two previous hearings. Learn more about them:
The first case is that of the Traditional Geraizeiras Communities in the municipality of Formosa do Rio Preto, Bahia, who have been fighting for decades for the recognition of their traditional territories. These communities face a historical conflict with the Cachoeira Estrondo Condominium, led by the family of businessman Ronald Levinsohn (deceased in 2020) and large soybean farmers (the Horita family and others), who, using the strategy of land grabbing of public lands, have been promoting, in conjunction with public and private security forces, for at least 45 years, expulsions, illegal appropriation of land, deforestation, water contamination, restriction of the right to come and go, territorial control, theft and killing of animals, physical and psychological violence, threats, and attempted assassinations of leaders.
The second case is that of the peasant communities of the Traditional Territory of Serra do Centro, in the municipality of Campos Lindos, in Tocantins, who are fighting for the titling of their traditional territory while facing land grabbing, contamination by pesticides, attacks and threats from monoculture soybean ventures by agribusiness producers and real estate speculators, beneficiaries of the Campos Lindos Agricultural Project, which has the support of the state of Tocantins, and the purchase of soybeans by the company Cargill.
The third case is that of the Araguaia Riverside community in the Mato Verdinho territory, in the municipality of Luciara, Mato Grosso. The community is fighting for the recognition and titling of its Traditional Riverside Territory, while facing increasing enclosure of its communal and collective use areas in the Araguaia floodplains by real estate speculators, land grabbers, and water appropriators for livestock and soybean monoculture ventures and, more recently, the threat of the Luciara Project, proposed within the framework of the Economic-Ecological Zoning (ZEE) of Mato Grosso, a rice monoculture project inspired by the Rio Formoso Project in the Araguaia region of Tocantins.
The fourth and final case, yet to be presented in detail at the thematic hearing on Land and Territory between July 8th and 10th, concerns the Traditional Fishing and Agro-extractive Communities of the Cajueiro Traditional Territory, in the rural area of São Luís, the capital of Maranhão. The 11 communities that make up the territory are fighting for the official recognition of the Tauá-Mirim Extractive Reserve, self-declared in May 2015, while suffering expropriations, demolitions of houses, destruction of their fishing-extractive territory, and threats caused by the conflict with the port logistics project of the TUP Porto São Luís company and the Chinese company China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), which have the support of the state of Maranhão and the municipality for the outflow of agricultural commodities from Matopiba.
Thematic hearings and testimonies
So far, two online thematic hearings have been held, in which leaders from the impacted territories spoke about each of the violations suffered in their bodies and territories. The first thematic hearing was about... WatersHeld on November 30th and December 1st, 2021, the hearing included testimonies from representatives of six of the 15 cases denounced by the TPP. They highlighted the water injustice and environmental racism caused by intensive private appropriation and contamination of water by agribusiness and mining. The Campaign prepared a document with the full report The event is available for download.
The second thematic hearing was about Food Sovereignty and Sociobiodiversity, held between March 15 and 16 of this year. Representatives from six other cases out of the 15 analyzed by the TPP denounced the violations committed by agribusiness and mining, and their impacts on land demarcation processes, land grabbing, fires, deforestation and, especially, contamination by pesticides, used as a chemical weapon by agribusiness entrepreneurs as a way to exterminate or make life impossible for the peoples of the land.
Agenda
08/07 – Opening and presentation, jury selection, context of the accusation, case presentations;
09/07 – Case presentations and panel discussions;
10/07 – Final plenary session and jury statement;
11/07 – Press conference for public presentation of the jury's verdict.
(Photo: Thomas Bauer/CPT/H3000)