While the city of Belém steps up to host the COP30 global climate summit in November, in another corner of Pará state, a federal government agency is planning to hand over a large area of the Amazon rainforest to illegal cattle ranches.
The area in question, known as the Terra Nossa settlement, was created in 2006 by the federal land reform agency (INCRA). The aim was to provide sustainable livelihoods that lifted families out of poverty while preserving the Amazon rainforest. The majority of the settlement’s 150,000 hectares was to remain standing forest, a source of valuable natural products, while the rest would be available for residents to build houses or use for farming.
However, since the settlement was established, it has been targeted by landgrabbers who established illegal cattle ranches by setting fires and clearing large swathes of forest, including residents’ crops. Those residents who have confronted the ranchers have suffered violent retaliation.
According to INCRA, half of the settlement is now controlled by 37 unlawful ranches who have consolidated multiple parcels into large properties.
As a result, INCRA is now planning to divide Terra Nossa into three parts: one part would remain the Terra Nossa settlement; a second part would be downgraded to an ordinary settlement (with no provision for environmental conservation); and the third part would not have any protection at all.
If approved, this proposal could pave the way to the normalization and regularization of illegal land occupations, as Human Rights Watch warned INCRA’s president in a recent letter.
In response to the letter, INCRA acknowledged the importance of fighting the organized crime that is driving environmental destruction and violence in Terra Nossa, but, contradictorily, confirmed its plans to reduce the settlement would go ahead.
There is still time to save Terra Nossa and failure to do so will only benefit and embolden the criminals who are devastating Brazil’s rainforests and terrorizing its residents.
The president of INCRA should reject a plan that would give immunity for illegal land occupation and violence. If he chooses not to, federal prosecutors should take legal action to protect Terra Nossa’s residents and their land rights. That’s one critical way Brazil can align its actions and rhetoric ahead of COP30.
