By: Eduarda Nunes/Favela em Pauta – Lupa do Bem
The sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in early August, reveals that human actions have already caused irreversible climate change in the world.
Alarming data is already being felt in several parts of the world. Recently, we have been faced with events in nature that are out of the ordinary: heat waves in Canada, historic floods in Europe, and the desertification of part of the Brazilian semi-arid region are some examples.
Before and after this scenario, traditional peoples have acted as important influencers to remedy the negative impacts of these actions.
For almost half a century, between the north of Minas Gerais and the west of Bahia, the geraizeiros have resisted – a traditional community that lives in the transition between the cerrado and the caatinga, in a space popularly known as Campos Gerais.
To this day, they create strategies to maintain their origins. Recognized as a traditional community by the Federal Government in 2007, through Decree No. 6,040, it was only in 2018 that they received the self-definition certificate from the State Commission for the Sustainable Development of Traditional Peoples and Communities of Minas Gerais (CEPCT-MG).
The fight to guarantee their spaces and their traditions is a constant, and the demarcation of lands is still an ongoing process.
A people who have a unique intimacy with the cerrado, known as guardians of an area known as free lands, due to the collective way of life of the community.
No fences, animals being raised free, cultivation of diversified crops and appreciation of the native plants of the biome are the trademark of the geraizeiros.
Over time, the community, as well as the biome, had to adapt and try to stop the circumstances that monoculture and mining ventures caused in the area.
Maria Lúcia, 57 years old, is currently experiencing the impacts of the arrival of eucalyptus monoculture in the region in the 1970s. According to her, the proposal initially presented was one of development and growth for all. “And many people got carried away, considering that the system of working the land, nature, respecting cycles, was a backward way of living. But the consequences were catastrophic for us”, she says.
“Some people made money from this development, built a house, bought a car, evolved, but the water ran out in almost the entire region. What’s up? Who is going to build a spring, build a river?”, he asks.
A term created in the 20th century, agroecology is deeply based on the way of living and producing native and traditional communities, such as the geraizeiros.
In the current scenario, Maria Lúcia understands that this is a time to resume practices of respect for ecosystems, in an attempt to reverse some damage, from the perspective that agroecology represents the main path to the sustainability of human life.
“Ignoring the agroecological system, I think it is ignorance against oneself because human beings do not have that power over natural resources”, she says.
Firmness in the territory
In addition to eucalyptus, iron mining and the dam at the Irapé Plant also interfere with the way of life of the geraizeiros.
At the first signs of scarcity of rivers and springs, more intense droughts and rains not so balanced for crop production, they set out to fight physically and legally.
Maria says that the monoculture came to corner the houses because they were so close to the community and that it was even necessary to stop machines to ensure that the remaining native vegetation was not touched.
Since then, the legal-institutional struggle, organized in the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), continues while the geraizeiros continue their traditions of care for the remaining biodiversity of the cerrado.
Some springs have managed to be preserved and guarantee the cultivation of agricultural products throughout the year, although some families are affected by the drought.
It is not always possible to trade, but the subsistence of the community is guaranteed.
“We live in very populous communities. People live in pieces of 1.2 hectares. Whoever has more reaches 10 or 20 at most. So, they are small pieces of land. We have to know how to work with diversity within these areas and face long periods of drought”, explains Maria Lúcia, who is also part of the Professional Master’s program in Sustainability with Traditional Peoples and Territories at the University of Brasília (UNB).
In addition, in the possibilities and limitations of space, the geraizeiros test ways to guarantee food biodiversity through the cultivation of millenary seeds, such as creole seeds.
In this way, they guarantee the longevity of their ancestry and make it possible for various foodstuffs not to go into shortage.
