Sign the Indigenous peoples "Manifesto Against the Massacre Promoted by the Mining Company Norsk Hydro, with the Support of Governor Helder Barbalho, in the Acará Valley, Pará Amazon"

This manifesto is written with blood, tears, and sap! Whenever so-called "progress" approaches, our bodies turn into waterfalls of pain flooding scenes of destruction. And we are still forced to watch our future and humanity's future collapse under the crash of our sacred Brazil nut trees—so vital for our survival as extractive peoples. What you call vegetation suppression we call murder! What you classify as servitude area we call mutilation, hunger, and death.

So far, over our mourning and to favor Hydro mining company, hundreds of trees have already been uprooted and at least 20 streams have simply been filled in by Hydro's gigantic excavators. These machines enjoy daily protection from all military police forces in the region. They enter in convoy escorted like authorities while we wonder whom we should call for help.

On August 12th, Judge Emília Parente de Medeiros from Acará granted an injunction allowing Hydro to violate our territories and destroy them while threatening human and non-human lives within our ecosystems. The decision also imposes an astronomical daily fine of R$ 500.000—clearly aimed at destroying us as a civil society entity—and additionally mandates imprisonment for anyone obstructing passage for the company's machinery. Last November, Hydro had already attempted to criminalize Indigenous and Quilombola leaders through justice to secure its operations in our territories.

In sight of the judge's decision—which did not remotely consider the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples but focused solely on Norsk Hydro's capitalist interests—both the Federal Public Ministry and the Public Defender’s Office of Pará State have already argued against her competence to judge this case due to it involving Indigenous and Quilombola interests occurring on Union lands.

Furthermore, we wish to make it public that Norwegian mining company Norsk Hydro operates its destruction in Acará Valley illegally through fraudulent environmental licenses issued by Pará State's Environmental Secretary (SEMAS). The operating license held by the company—which it uses against us whenever questioned—set a deadline for compliance with prior free informed consultation as required by Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

They also failed to conduct studies on Indigenous and Quilombola components or basic environmental plans for Indigenous peoples that foresee damage mitigation measures. The deadline has long expired over a year ago—a fact that Quilombola and Indigenous communities are challenging in court through a Collective Civil Action filed last Friday, September 13th in Belém’s 9th Federal Court.

As with all invasions, we do not know exactly what they came to do or what damages they will leave behind. No one even informed us how many trees would be uprooted to allow pipes to violate our ancestral ground. We know there is nothing that can repair or restore in the short term what these works have destroyed; therefore we demand explanations and justice! Environmental justice, climate justice, social justice for traditional and Indigenous peoples—the true guardians of biodiversity.