The bustle of Rio de Janeiro is just two hours away by car, but in the village of Ka’Aguy Hovy Porã (Mata Verde Bonita) the most common noise is that of the ducks that its inhabitants raise to eat. Some 180 indigenous people of the Guarani-Mbyá ethnic group live in this small village, who for a few years have been facing a mega-tourist complex promoted by a company with Spanish capital, IDB Brasil. It is on the outskirts of the city of Maricá, on the outskirts of Rio, and here there is no deep jungle, but scrub on the dunes, a river, a huge lagoon and a virgin beach of more than eight kilometers. In the midst of a long legal dispute, the works of the resort (which will be built entirely on a nature reserve) started a few days ago with a couple of excavators. The indigenous people, who no longer trust that they can stop them, ask that at least their demands be heard to improve their living conditions.
The main leader of the village is the cacique Darcy Tupã, who says he feels cheated and warns that the spirits are exalted. “If they don’t respect us there will be war. We will burn all the machines and cars that are in the construction zone. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but we will burn the machinery (…) This is a bomb, at some point it will explode”, he threatened in perfect Portuguese last Tuesday.
The tension over the construction of this tourist complex illustrates the situation of many indigenous Brazilians who live on valuable land in the area of influence of large cities. If in the Amazon the main problem is deforestation and illegal mining, here the main front of the battle is fought against real estate pressure and the construction of infrastructure. In São Paulo, for example, the struggle of the Mbyá indigenous people to resist in a tiny territory of less than two hectares to the north of the city is historic. The sacred mount Jaraguá is surrounded by the concrete of the largest metropolis in South America. A few years ago, indigenous protests managed to stop the construction of 11 residential towers.
In the now-threatened village of Mata Verde Bonita, its inhabitants proudly display a milestone of cultural preservation: everyone speaks Guarani among themselves, despite the proximity of the city and all that that entails. Children only learn Portuguese from the age of five or six, mainly through contact with visitors. This tiny community has already organized some protests against the hotel complex and, although there have been no incidents, the police appeared on several occasions to prevent the tension from escalating.
The bulldozers display the Maraey logo, a Guarani term meaning ‘land without evil’. On their website, the developers justify the name of the real estate project by citing a local indigenous story: “Our mission is to turn the legend into reality and for Maraey to be a world reference development for its environmental awareness, innovation and economic, cultural and social sustainability.” . Paradise on Earth”, they say. The indigenous could not feel worse. They demand that that name be withdrawn or that they be compensated: “In addition to killing our history, they steal it from us. We will not accept that our sacred name is stamped on the machines to destroy our nature”, the cacique said indignantly.
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The complex includes four luxury hotels (also baptized with indigenous names), another theme dedicated to the Rock in Rio festival, an 18-hole golf course that they describe as “sustainable”, a luxury condominium, a conference center, a equestrian, a shopping center, a haute cuisine school, an aquarium and an “environmental reference center” designed by Oscar Niemeyer’s studio. The idea is to receive more than 300,000 tourists a year.
All this will be built within a natural reserve created in 1984, which due to its milder level of protection allows certain activities. The environmentalists opposed to the urbanization of the area assure that this margin is being abused and that the regulation of uses required by law has been tailored to the needs of the construction company.
The company, basically controlled by the Spanish companies Abacus Property Development and Grupo Cetya, has been trying to carry out the plan for more than a decade, when it bought the land. The city council, in the hands of President Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT), has always been in favor of the resort, but even so it hasn’t been easy. The entire process is in the midst of a judicial mess that gives rise to all kinds of interpretations. For environmentalists, the works started without sufficient guarantees, despite the fact that the local environmental authority gave the green light. The company alleges that roads and other infrastructures are currently being built, and when asked about the matter, in a note it stated that they have “all the environmental licenses and authorizations from the competent state and municipal bodies.”
The buildings of the hotel and residential complex itself do not yet have an environmental license. IDB affirms that it is a project of several phases and although it recognizes that it might not obtain that decisive permit, it trusts the numerous private environmental awards that already guarantee them. This is what he usually argues to defend himself against criticism from environmentalists, in addition to stressing that the resort will only occupy 6.6% of the more than 800 hectares of land.
The village of discord itself is a handful of mud- and bamboo-walled houses with thatched roofs, and has a small school and a leaky, precarious health center that the chieftain considers “indecent.” Tupã demands that the real estate company give guarantees that they will provide sewerage, drinking water and decent housing. They don’t want to move. According to them, first the project planned to move them to another area, to later turn the village into a tourist attraction integrated into the resort.
The cacique’s dream is to obtain a document proving that they are the legitimate owners of the land, and that is not easy. The truth is that they came here on loan in 2013, after the city council ceded this wild corner to them, which was already in the hands of its current owners. But the journey to achieve that conquest here was somewhat tortuous: they left the Angra dos Reis and Paraty coastal region, where most of the Guarani indigenous people live in the state of Rio, and settled on a beach in an upper-class neighborhood from the neighboring city of Niterói. The authorities claimed that the village was encroaching on a protected area. After multiple neighborhood protests and threats, the village was completely burned down. According to the city council, the agreement was to settle in Maricá “temporarily”, but now they want to stay.
The chief’s daughter, Susana Takuã, has the feeling that they are bothering us everywhere: “All the time they are separating us, it is as if the village were a problem everywhere and they just pass the problem from hand to hand. They don’t want to find a solution, ”she laments. She explains it herself after receiving a group of school students by the river and leaving them speechless with stories about how a capybara (a giant rodent) is roasted or how a ‘pau de chuva’, a musical instrument, is built. Her two-story cabin is also home to the humble Nhanderek Institute, where visitors are welcomed. It is basically a small craft stall where the intrepid curious who come here can buy colorful baskets or necklaces. Spokespersons for the Maricá city council assure that the dialogue with the indigenous community continues and that “no one will be forcibly removed from there.” Another indigenous village in the region, a little further from the perimeter of the resort, reached an agreement with the city council to leave the area and move to the interior of the municipal area, away from the coveted coastal strip.
In the state of Rio de Janeiro, the third most populous in Brazil (almost 18 million inhabitants), there are almost 15,000 indigenous people. Rio only has three indigenous lands recognized by law, where the villages that have resisted for more than 500 years are located. The indigenous people who do not live in these approved regions either live in the cities or claim land on which to settle.
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