The Right to Say No: Extractivisms and Territorial Struggles

Abstract

This article brings the transcription and revision of the roundtable discussion held at the III Latin American Congress of Political Ecology, which aimed to debate different experiences of collective struggles against projects of extraction of natural resource, with the participation of indigenous leaders, traditional communities and activist intellectuals. The narratives shares experiences in processes in which there was collective resistance to extractive-colonial projects and the right to say “no” was put into practice. In general, the presentations discussed the right to say no that emerges beyond the right to consultation, and that has as its assumption the guarantee of collective autonomy over life territories.

Participation, representation, and representativeness of traditional peoples and communities in Eastern Amazon State Water Resources Councils

“…Despite the national and international legal devices, countries like Brazil do not seem to have a substantial impact on recognizing the importance and rights of PCTs (Navarro et al, 2022), especially in the conservation of biodiversity, because these populations suffer constant threats from large developmental projects, particularly those that impact water resources. Therefore, the PCTs must be present in the CERHs of the Eastern Amazon, otherwise, as Milanez et al (2021) state, these spaces will serve to soften the rampant expansion of capital, creating the illusion of a consented expansion.…”

“…This concept is defended by ruralists in an attempt to extinguish people's participation mechanisms by eliminating 2,500 councils in Brazil and transferring the authority to demarcate indigenous (FUNAI) and quilombola (INCRA) lands to the Ministry of Agriculture, among others. Milanez et al (2021) ratify the right, established by Convention no. 169, that the PCTs have to be consulted about the projects that heavily affect them.…”

“…The Government legitimizes the expansion of the mineral-agro-export economic model, disregarding the people who inhabit the territories and privileging the hegemonic groups and their market strategies, which include activities in the agricultural, mining, and hydroelectric sectors, as well as the construction of roads, dams, etc. (Costa Filho, 2020;Milanez et al, 2021;Peixoto et al, 2022).…”

“…In the context of water resources, there have been significant impacts on the PCTs, their territories, and ways of life, such as the contamination of river and lake waters by heavy metals from mining activities, intense irrigation caused by the expansion of the agricultural frontier, especially concerning soybean production, which has impacted the availability of groundwater, as well as the construction of dams that alter the natural course of rivers, affect the ecosystem, cause the eviction of people from their territories, among other violations (Anaya and Espírito-Santo, 2018;Sauer, 2018;Milanez et al, 2021).…”