- Indigenous women from Krahô communities in Brazil’s Tocantins state have formed a surveillance group to protect their ancestral territory from invaders.
- The thirteen Krahô Warriors received training in surveillance and carry out operations for 15 days each month.
- They plan and implement territorial protection actions based on Krahô traditions and ways of life.
- The Kraolândia Indigenous Land (TI) is under pressure from loggers, hunters, charcoal factories, and agribusinesses that surround the territory.
Across South America, Indigenous communities have often considered territorial protection to be the main responsibility of men, while women typically assume roles as caretakers of the household, family, and community. However, in the Brazilian state of Tocantins, Indigenous women from Krahô communities have formed a female-only surveillance group to protect their territory from invaders — a rarity in the region.
Since operations began, the guard, called Mē Hoprê Catêjê, has been able to identify and report one threat to Brazil’s Indigenous protection agency, Funai, which was related to an invasion of their territory.
The 303,000-hectare (748,729-acre) Kraolândia Indigenous Land (TI) is located in the Brazilian Cerrado, in the municipalities of Goiatins and Itacajá. It is under immense pressure from loggers, hunters, agribusiness, and charcoal factories. Krahô peoples’ waters have become contaminated by pesticides applied to soybean and cotton plantations nearby.
The group, which is supported by Funai, the Indigenous Work Center (CTI), and tech company Awana Digital, was established in September during a women’s territorial defense meeting last September. Over eight days, the Krahô women gathered with other Indigenous women guards, including from the Guajajara of Arariboia and Guajajara of Carú, to share ideas and experiences.
“In the past, women could not be part of any leadership,” Luzia Krahô, or Kruw, one of 13 members of the newly formed group, told Mongabay over WhatsApp voice messages. “Women always stayed at home to take care of families and children. But nowadays I see changes. We have the courage to face dangers to protect our territory.”
Their territorial management plans and protocols are based on Krahô traditions and ways of life. Surveillance actions involve walking around the territory to look for signs of invasion or other threats. The women are not armed. If they come across a threat, they have to contact Funai.
However, the response is slow. The agency often takes two to three months to respond, Kruw said.
A study carried out by IUCN under its partnership with the United States Agency on International Development (USAID) found that Indigenous women defending the environment can also face gender-related threats, such as intimidation, rape, torture, or imprisonment, to silence their work.
Women who are mothers face a “double burden” as they are stigmatized, ostracized from their communities, and labeled as “bad mothers” for leaving their children at home when they leave to carry out actions, the report said.
Kruw and her colleagues are familiar with this. “We receive a lot of criticism, complaints, and disrespect,” she said, which are attempts to weaken and discourage the group. “But we stand firm and strong. Every day, we go to sleep and wake up with positive thoughts to face all the bad things. The life of a warrior is not easy.”
Multiple threats
Around 3,000 Krahô residents live in 16 villages inside Kraolândia. Over 25 of their ancestors were massacred by ranchers in the early 1940s. Despite the recognition of their territory in 1990, the Krahô continued to face threats from large producers of soybean and cotton, ranchers, and other invaders, which continue to this day.
According to a 2020 report by the Indigenist Missionary Council, the expansion of agribusiness in the region has caused environmental damage, such as land degradation and biodiversity loss, as well as increased land conflicts and violence towards Krahô peoples.
Kruw told Mongabay that the Krahô women’s guard has already received several threats and criticisms from farmers and other people operating on their territory’s boundaries. “There is a lot of risk in this work,” she said. “But we must not give up out of fear of these things. They have been going on for a long time, and they are destroying us.”
According to Global Forest Watch, the region has lost 1.26 million hectares (3.1 million acres) of tree cover in the last decade. Kraolândia is also one of the Indigenous lands most affected by fires. As such, members of the community have formed Indigenous brigades to defend the territory.
Women as territorial protectors and caretakers
In Kraolândia, there are other territorial surveillance groups led by men. However, sources said, the idea to form a women-only group was motivated by the recognition that women’s gender roles have their own unique strengths and dynamics that can complement men’s surveillance work.
According to Kruw, territory is more than geographical space. It is a living being that sustains and reflects their cultural, spiritual, and physical well-being. As women are raised to become caretakers for the living, she believes they are well placed to carry out territorial protection work, too.
Clarisse Raposo, the head of the Environmental and Territorial Management Service, the Araguaia-Tocantins Regional Coordination (CR-ATO), said in a Funai press release that “the relationships of mutual support established in everyday life and the protection of the territory are plans that are intrinsically linked.”
“The involvement of Mehî [Krahô] women in surveillance actions will certainly contribute to this integrated understanding,” Raposo said.
The women carry out surveillance actions for 15 days each month. They are motivated by an obligation to take care of the forests, rivers, birds, and other animals who are friends and live with them, as they did with their ancestors in the past. “Without land, we cannot live, and without water, we cannot survive,” Kruw said.
Kruw said an additional 20 women will be trained to join surveillance actions next year.
“Every day, more and more [invaders] are taking over our land,” she said. “We won’t let them.”
Banner image: Mē Hoprê Catêjê, the Krahô Warriors group, have received several threats and criticisms from farmers and other outsiders operating on the boundaries of their territory. Image by Luzia Krahô (Kruw).
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Citations:
Castañeda Carney, I., Sabater, L., Owren, C. & Boyer, A. E. (2021). Gender-based violence and environment linkages: summary for policy makers. Wen, J. (ed.). Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. 25pp. doi:10.2305/IUCN.CH.2021.20.en
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