WEBVTT - In Brazil, A Tale as Old as Colonization: Why Indigenous Land Defenders Are Particularly Targeted by Extractive Industries 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:05.640 A theme that comes up over and over again if 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:09.399 you look at environmental protest throughout history is the way 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:14.240 it often intersects with the fight for indigenous sovereignty and 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.240 the way that makes the backlash to protest more severe. 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.120 From Ochetti Chakwan people in the US to the Wetsuweten 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.920 in Canada, the link of people in Honduras the Tuhoi 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.760 in New Zealand. Indigenous led efforts to stop environmentally harmful 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:36.720 projects often help drive wider movements for Native people's rights, 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.720 and when the backlash comes, efforts to repress environmental activism 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.000 end up targeting indigenous rights movements too. 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:51.040 This is Nick ASTs I am an assistant professor American 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.880 Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, co founder of 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.240 That Nation. I'm also an Enrold member of the Lower 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:58.400 Brules Siu tribe. 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.840 Nick Astes was deeply involved in protests at the Standing 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:08.680 Rocksioux Indian Reservation against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which a 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.000 lot of people pinpoint as a key starting point of 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:16.039 the modern climate movement in the US, and it was 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.440 a really big deal. Thousands of people from all over 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.400 the world showed up in North Dakota to protest the 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.839 pipeline and stand up for Indigenous land and water rights. 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:31.520 There were celebrities there too, politicians. Alexandria Okazio Cortes has 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.600 cited it as the moment that sort of radicalized her 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:38.039 in the climate fight. People camped out for months, They 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:43.759 participated in multiple direct actions, and the police response was intense. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:50.160 There was militarized gear and helicopters, attack dogs, private security 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.960 forces from the pipeline company, and even counter insurgency tactics 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.640 that were being used to try to deter and suppress protest. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:05.040 Standing Rock protests were also explicitly cited when politicians started 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:09.920 to pass laws criminalizing protests in the years following it. 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.040 It became a verb people said they didn't want to 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:18.360 get Standing rocked. Despite its significance, Es does sees Standing 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.679 Rock as more of a continuation of a century's long 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.000 battle for indigenous sovereignty. 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.160 This country not only exported war, but had been sort 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.680 of founded on a longer war called the US Indian 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.320 Wars the nineteenth century. I would argue that it continued 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.560 very much into the twentieth century, and the manifestations of 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.200 which are also very prevalent. In the way that police 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:51.240 agencies throughout the country track, surveil and police Indigenous led movements. 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.880 He also sees it as the culmination of a more 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.480 recent fight to protect Native land and water rights that 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.480 have been going on for several years. Before the Standing 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:03.840 Rock protest began in twenty sixteen. 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:11.519 Back in the early twenty tens, I had been getting 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.120 involved in local tribal politics and things that were happening 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.200 on the reservations. There were other protests that were going on. 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:23.800 The IRS threatened to seize land from the Crow Creek 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.520 Sioux Tribe, and it was in the middle of winter. 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.600 I remember Brandon Sazu, who was a tribal chairman at 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:32.720 the time. He later went to Standing Rock. You know, 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.680 he was in a trailer by himself in the middle 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:38.280 of a snowstorm, and we used to go and bring 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.240 him coffee, and he was on a trailer on that 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:42.040 land that they were supposed to seize. 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.800 Sazu camped out in that trailer to block the IRS 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.720 from seizing the land it was on. And during those 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.960 same years there were various fights over tribal water rights too. 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.600 There was always a question around the jurisdiction over the 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.200 River control of the river and water rights, especially for 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.840 the Lakota To and Dell Khota reservations on Mini Shoche 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:07.160 the Missouri River, and there was a consciousness around it 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:11.280 because the Army corp of Engineers kind of abolished our 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.520 jurisdiction and then asserted its own and then sort of 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.719 has say over flowage and what kind of erosion prevention 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:20.680 are put on the river. And it may seem like 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.520 sort of a mundane kind of thing, but back in 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.360 twenty eleven there was massive flooding in the Missouri River 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.200 basin and the Army Coorp of Engineers sort of patted 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.440 itself on the back and said, hey, we did a 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.640 really good job managing the floods and had it not 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.880 been for these dams, we would have lost lives. And 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.480 there were no lives lost. But that's actually not true. 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.840 There were at least half a dozen lives lost in 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.240 my reservation because of infrastructure being damaged because of floods. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.440 So there were these long standing issues between the tribes 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.760 and the US government over water rights. And then in 0:04:54.800 --> 0:05:00.200 twenty eleven, the Keystone Excel pipeline united indigenous opponents in 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.320 the US and Canada. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.920 You had tribes coming from our first nations, coming from 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:14.560 Canada and talking about the destruction of their homelands from 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.320 Tarzan's extraction that was happening in Alberta, and they signed 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.240 a treaty to protect the sacred down in the Hunkdawah 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:28.160 country on the Inkton Reservation, where they all committed, including 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.839 the Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association which our tribe is 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:37.840 Party two, as well to prevent Tarzan's transportation cross a 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.440 treaty territories. But that's a pretty bold move. I mean, 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:44.520 there's like very few things in Indian country that unite 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.440 grassroots people and tribal chairmans like that we can all 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:49.240 kind of agree on. 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.680 That fight was ultimately successful, but it went back and 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.240 forth for a decade. I and just finally canceled the 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.520 permit for the Keystone Excel pipeline in twenty one, and 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.520 of course five years before that, Standing Rock began. 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.240 Standing Rock is an interesting case because Standing Rock, you know, 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.239 historically has been united in the sense that it allies itself, 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.039 The council allies itself with the grassroots people, and so 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.840 they were you know, inviting people in. We didn't just 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:24.680 show up uninvited. There was a public invitation and there's 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.440 a public sort of hosting of people in this particular space, 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.400 and they found land that was belonging to the Core 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.520 of Engineers that you know, we we had never formally 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.839 ceded to the Core of Engineers. So when we look 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.920 at Standing Rock in that in that context, just by 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.960 asserting treaty authority, just by asserting our right to exist 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.240 and to you know, live by the laws that we 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:55.320 determined for ourselves, not somebody from the outside, that becomes 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.680 a criminal act. It's actually just like criminalizing Deocheti Shakoye 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.359 train to make being a water protector in an illegal act. 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.080 The intense push by the fossil fuel industry to criminalize 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.440 protest in the wake of Standing Rock was very much 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.880 in line with how the industry has dealt with indigenous 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.400 protests in other countries, so much so that it was 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.440 a topic of conversation around the fire at one of 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.600 the Standing Rock protest camps. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:31.480 So in twenty sixteen, I visited Standing Rock during the 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.640 height of the protests against the Code Access pipeline. 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:40.000 This is Lindsay Ophrius, an anthropologist and documentary filmmaker who's 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.960 making a film about how laws are used to suppress protests. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.320 She traveled to Standing Rock with two land defenders and 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.680 leaders of the Sequoia people in Ecuador who had been 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.720 fighting first Texaco and then Chevron over oil spilled and 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.560 dumped throughout the Amazon there for decades. 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.040 So two of those people, Umberto Piaguaffe and Hornman zan Brano. 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.400 I went with them to Standing Up in twenty sixteen. 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.280 Part of the idea was for coalition building. 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.560 And also trying to think about what is possible outside 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.600 or beyond the whole wartex of the law that kind 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.240 of sucks everything into it. And so something that I 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.360 will always remember is that around the fire went evening 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.160 where you know, everybody would come and sider around the 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.920 fire and share stories, and Bertha and Carmon gave kind 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.640 of like a warning about what they had gone through, 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.880 and you know that it's likely to come to pass 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:42.160 once again now that this RICO precedent has been set. 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:49.199 RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, was created 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.040 to prosecute the mafia in the US. It's been used 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.240 in civil cases too, to go after white collar crime 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:02.199 and prosecute corporate corruption. It had some surprising usage in 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:06.719 legal battles around climate change and protest as well. It 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.280 was used against Umberto and Carmen and their co plaintiffs 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.400 in Ecuador to block them from collecting a settlement after 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:19.040 they defeated Chevron in court. That case stemmed from a 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:23.839 decades long fight with first Texaco and then Chevron. It 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.760 began all the way back in the nineteen sixties when 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.560 the American oil company Texico brought the oil business deep 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:35.640 into the Ecuadorian Amazon, disrupting centuries of indigenous culture and tradition. 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.720 The indigenous peoples in the Amazon, the Warani, the Kofar, 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.240 and other indigenous peoples. They lived in a pristine rainforest 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:51.319 environment prior to the arrival of Texaco and the oil 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:56.120 boomen in Ecuador in the nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies. 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.920 This is Marcos Oriana, an international law expert, professor at 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.599 American University and the UN Special Rapperture on Toxics and 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:06.439 Human Rights. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:12.079 The extraction of oil by tex and Petro Ecuador was 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.160 without regard to the protection of the environment. It was 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:20.280 without regard to the rights of affected indigenous peoples. First 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.079 operated by Texaco as I mentioned, and then taken over 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:29.200 by Petro Ecuador. Oil operations severely impacted indigenous people's traditional lands. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:35.920 The oil boom in Ecuador has imposed loss of life, health, territory, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:41.120 and culture. Indigenous peoples have not received reparation for the 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:42.840 violation of their rights. 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.160 When the Sequoia and Kofan tribes banded together with local 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.599 farmers to sue Texaco, which later became Chevron, for the 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.760 damage that had been caused in the Amazon, they won, 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.600 and then the oil company immediately accused them of corruption 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.760 and collusion and held up the settlement. In a decades 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.640 long RICO case back in the United States, they have 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:12.160 still not collected that settlement. It turns out Umberto and 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:18.040 Carmen's warning was prescient. Some twenty years after their ordeal began, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:23.760 a similar thing happened to Standing Rock protesters. Energy Transfer Partners, 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:28.320 the pipeline company, tried to use RICO against individual water 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.480 protectors and nonprofits like Greenpeace. 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:36.280 In August of twenty seventeen, of student was filed by 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.800 Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, and 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.760 this was for three hundred million dollars for allegedly orchestrating 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:46.280 their resistance at Standing Rock. 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:51.600 DEEPA. Padmanaba is Deputy General Counsel for Greenpeace USA. 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:56.719 Energy Transfer brought claims under the Federal Racketeer, Influenced and 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:01.080 Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO, and as many no. RICO 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:02.760 was a law that was created to go after the 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.160 mafia for organized crime. And what made RICO even more 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.319 dangerous was that it allowed for the recovery of treble damages. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.600 So we were suddenly looking at an almost one billion 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.760 dollar lawsuit. An energy Transfer was alleging that our advocacy 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:21.800 worked to uplift Indigenous voices at Standing Rock constituted organized crime. 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.840 But all the court cases and laws that were passed 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.760 in the week of Standing Rock could not stop the 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.520 one thing that oil company executives and right wing politicians 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:40.199 seemed absolutely terrified of Indigenous people and allies of all 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.120 kinds rising up against them. 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.080 The subversive nature being a water protector isn't just because 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:55.160 you know, the Ocheti Shakoi was leading this resistance again 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.760 against a pipeline, but they were also creating a sort 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.679 of universal identity that was grounded in Indigenous values but 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:07.120 didn't necessarily mean it was just for Indigenous people, because 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.480 anybody who walked through the gates of you know, o 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.800 chet Tischau Coin Camp or Secret Stone Camp, became a 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:15.240 water protector by default. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.640 Esta says this sort of resistance was prophecied a long 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:20.360 time ago. 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:26.000 The black snake prophecy comes from several sources, but one 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.120 of them it has to do with the mini shoche 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.679 the Missouri River, and there were ideas that what they 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.520 call it inchegular uti, which are like essentially water monsters, 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.800 snakes were kind of banished to the river and then 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.319 also sort of promised their return and they would come 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.439 back as a black snake. And you know, I don't 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.040 think a lot of people really fully understood it. And 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.640 but LaDonna brab bol Aller told me is that at 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.680 one point people thought it was the Interstates because they 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.839 were using a lot of asphalt. But then when the 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:02.160 oil pipelines are being built, it was like, oh, yeah, 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.920 this is like in some ways like dinosaur blood. 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:05.280 You know. 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.400 So the prophecy, as it was told during these times, 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.199 would actually unite people in a kind of historic resistance, 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:17.240 and it would unite all people, not just the Ochetti Shakoi. 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:22.960 So as Phyllis Jung said, the Hung Papa oyaate was, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.160 you know, the horn of the buffalo or the horn 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:29.720 of the camp circled the Ochetti shaky, and they would 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.600 be sort of the vanguard of the nation. But also 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.520 this movement, I think there's you know, some truth to that. 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.840 The connection of the pipeline fights to the fight for 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:46.840 indigenous sovereignty really seemed to supercharge the industry's response, which 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.800 makes sense if you look at how entwined the industry's 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.840 history has been with colonialism. In his book Anointed by Oil, 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.400 historian Darren Dochuk at Notre Dame University chronicled how US 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.880 oil mean dealt with indigenous nations both in the US 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.600 and when they first started to look beyond the country's 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.840 borders for oil. One key tactic was to connect fossil 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:11.680 fuel extraction with religion. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:16.000 These missionaries are pushing into the jungles of the Amazon. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:21.080 They are coming in direct contact with petroleum geologists, for instance, 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.280 the Standard Oil Company, and they are going to collaborate. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.560 They are going to partner in terms of the flow 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.920 of information, and the information is going to be about 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.600 the environment. It's going to be about the ecology that 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:37.880 they're encountering. It's also going to be anthropological. Both classes 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.960 of explorers are going to be deeply invested in trying 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.640 to understand the people that they are encountering in these 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.960 regions and all with hopes of trying to get information 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.680 from them to be able to kind of plumb the 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.200 earth in a profitable way. So it really accelerates in 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.040 the nineteen twenties and moving into the nineteen fifties in 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.040 the Cold War period, this pursuit of gold is going 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.720 to be all the more intensified against the backdrop of 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.120 the Cold War and the fight with communism, in the 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:12.840 fear that Latin America might lose itself to the great 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:17.400 secular communist threat of the Soviet Union. So oil and 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.320 pursuit of souls is going to become all the more important. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:28.400 Author lawyer and law professor Judith Kimberling documented similar behavior 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.479 in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the nineteen seventies. 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.640 One of the groups the by WAYETI. They had no 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:41.240 contact with the outside world until nineteen seventy, and they 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:45.880 were subjected to a program a forced contact because after 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:50.360 Textco discovered commercial quantities of oil and Lago Lagrio, the 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:51.480 company knew that it. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.600 Would want to expand its operations into War II territory, 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.880 and the war Any who lived in those areas had 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:02.200 no contact with the outside world. The company collaborated with 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:07.080 US missionaries and Nequwar's government to subject the Warani to 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:13.960 a forced contact. The missionaries would get into planes Texico's plans, 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:15.639 they would fly over the forest, they would look for 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.200 Warani houses. I've actually heard reports too that they threw 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.600 dynamite out of the planes to try to scare the 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:27.720 Warani away. And of course the missionaries wanted the Waronis 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.440 to come live with them in settlements because the Warani 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:36.000 were nomadic semi nomadic people, so the missionaries wanted them 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.000 to live in permanent settlements with the missionaries and the 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.800 cam Christian Texico just wanted them out of the areas 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.320 where they wanted to operate, and you know, the government 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:49.440 of wanted Texico to be able to find more oil 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:50.680 and extract more oil. 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.600 What we've seen from Ecuador to Standing Rock, India, to 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:02.800 Saudi Arabia, Nigeria to British Columbia is that when indigenous 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.600 peoples fight back against the plundering of their land, the 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:11.280 backlash is swift, often violent, and comes with a huge 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.600 side of colonialist entitlement. Today, we're going to travel to 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.639 the Brazilian Amazon, where the uru Wahwau people are trying 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:24.640 to defend the last of their territory from agribusiness and logging. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.320 The excellent team behind the national geographic documentary The Territory 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.240 have shared footage with us to help tell that story 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.760 that's coming up after this quick break. This has drilled 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.680 the real free speech threat. I'm Amy Westervelt. Stay with us. 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.240 In the heart of the Amazon, the urdu Wahwau people 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:59.399 have seen their community decline from thousands to just around 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.880 two hundred people. Those remaining descendants are trying to hold 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.840 onto and protect the tribe's ancestral lands in the Amazon, 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:13.120 which faces increasing threats from the country's large agricultural industry. 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.480 The big agricultural companies know better than to go after 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:23.200 indigenous rights directly. Instead, they pay small farmers to sneak 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:27.280 into protected territory, slash and burn, and set up homesteads. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.960 Once they've made inroads, the big companies come in and 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.160 take over, clearing large segments of the forest to either 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:39.600 grow soybeans or graze cattle. The documentary The Territory documents 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.280 the fight between farmers and the tribe, particularly under former 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:47.560 Brazilian president JayR. Bosonato, who made undermining the rights of 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.280 indigenous people part of his platform. 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:57.159 Implifies open gen thank to hedge you mis can, It's okay, 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.160 thank you, pog see, thank God, thank you the hubaba 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:10.600 from ahad A Florida, Esta Pushiu and Osarkaso de Hichi Simonte. 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.520 This is bita Te, a young Udawawaw leader. He says 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.400 non indigenous people always say the same thing, that Indigenous 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.000 people have too much land and that we should clear 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.399 the trees and raise cattle. But I don't agree. He says, 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.280 the forest and the rivers are our home. They support us. 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.680 Alternating between footage of the Urduwahwau and some of the 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.200 settlers and farmers trying to invade their land, the film 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.720 highlights themes we see turning up in every environmental fight. 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.040 After we hear from Bitaate, we meet Serhio, a farmer 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.240 who talks about the forest as prime farmland that shouldn't 0:20:50.400 --> 0:21:04.200 just go to waste, and the indigenous people aren't doing 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.720 anything with the land. Sergio says they're not planting, they're 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.879 not producing. All they do is live there. Robert Miller, 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.240 a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and a professor 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.440 of Indian law at Arizonia State University, says the tension 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.680 between settlers and indigenous people over living in relationship with 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.119 the land versus extracting from it has been going on 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:28.920 since colonization began. 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.360 The doctrine of discovery is one of the original international 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.879 law doctrines that was developed in the fourteen hundreds to 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:42.680 control the actions of European Christian nations. As Europeans began 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:46.119 to sail outside the site of land, they began to 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:50.240 be interested in acquiring empires in Africa and then into 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:55.000 the Americas and into Asia. They very rarely found lands 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.200 that were truly vacant. They were claiming the lands of 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.800 indigenous peoples Africa, in the Americas, and in Asia. So 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.040 it wasn't finders keepers, losers weeper. Here's a lost piece 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.240 of property, I pick it up, I look around, there's 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:11.880 nobody to claim it, so it's mine. No, they were 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:17.120 mostly claiming settled lands where cultures and nations had lived 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:21.000 for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The justification was 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:26.280 Christianity and civilization, and it's hard to even understand what 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:31.760 that means. But the civilization of Europe was somehow superior 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:35.000 to that of every other indigenous peoples around the world. 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.720 I mean, today it's ludicrous to even say that, but 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:43.399 those were the justifications. That God wanted European Christians to 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.760 own these lands, and that the Christian God intended that, 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:51.240 and somehow Christian Europeans were superior to everyone around the world. 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:57.000 As Europeans began colonizing various places, philosophers like John Locke 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:01.440 also justified the taking of indigenous lands by describing it 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:06.040 as empty land. According to Locke, if land was not 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.760 being farmed or used in some other way, it was empty. 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:16.240 Terranellius is a Latin phrase meaning empty land. That's exactly 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.760 what John Locke was writing about. That's exactly what most 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:25.000 Europeans assumed. They assumed the lands around the world was vacant. 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:27.440 They could come here and make it their own by 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:28.800 applying their labor to it. 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:35.119 In the territory, we watch as the udu Wawaw make 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.840 use of the land too. They fish, they bathe in 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:42.000 the river, they drink the water. They weave roofs and 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:46.360 baskets out of palm fronds, but the forest remains intact. 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:50.320 When settlers and farmers come in, they use chainsaws to 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.119 chop down trees and light fire to large areas of 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:57.320 land to clear it. It's really striking to see the 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:01.760 visual contrast between these two opposing views of humanity's relationship 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:07.480 with nature. When farmers illegally farm in protected indigenous regions, 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:10.440 they claim it's because they are poor and need the land. 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:15.600 But Nadinya, a local environmentalist who fights alongside the Uduwawau 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:19.480 and has for decades, says the farmer stories are not 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:21.119 entirely truthful. 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:26.000 That's well so kid Bragla. 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:31.680 The CPILO cisspsource in the boys. 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:35.119 As a good, but they are often financed by Brazil's 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:40.000 major agribusiness landowners, so once the small farmers complete the 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:44.000 first invasion into the forest, these large landowners will take 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:48.399 over and clear the rest. As invasions increase and the 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:53.560 Indigenous Affairs Agency starts telling the news that nothing is happening, 0:24:53.720 --> 0:24:56.840 that the invasions are being made up by the indigenous people, 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:00.879 the tribe's new young leader beat the they comes up 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:06.280 with a novel idea, perhaps cameras are more powerful than 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:11.480 arrows or machetes. Pulling together a tribal patrol, he sets 0:25:11.520 --> 0:25:14.920 out into the forest, using drones to track invasions, and 0:25:15.040 --> 0:25:19.159 then documents all the evidence. The patrol finds and arrests 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:26.400 some thirty people that they call invaders that they tells them, 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:28.840 we don't want to hurt you, but you can't be here. 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:33.840 Everyone knows this is indigenous territory. The media picks up 0:25:33.880 --> 0:25:48.959 the story and the local group of farmers that had 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:52.520 been trying to take over part of the territory loses 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:57.840 its political support. They disband. Don't worry. I've left plenty 0:25:57.840 --> 0:25:59.800 of twists and turns out here because I think everyone 0:26:00.200 --> 0:26:05.440 see this film. This part of the documentary chronicles a 0:26:05.600 --> 0:26:08.560 huge win, which you don't always get in these sorts 0:26:08.560 --> 0:26:12.800 of stories. Despite that, the udu Wawa's future still feels 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:17.920 pretty precarious. Bolsonaro is out of office now, but Bolsonarismo 0:26:18.119 --> 0:26:20.639 is going strong. At one point in the film, a 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:24.960 settler references the Bible and his faith that this land 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:28.960 is his. When his homestead is found and burned down 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:34.040 by Betat's patrol, he vows to keep rebuilding it. Still, 0:26:34.080 --> 0:26:37.760 the country's new president does seem committed to supporting indigenous 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:43.080 rights and stopping deforestation, and so far the numbers are promising. 0:26:43.760 --> 0:26:46.480 In President Lula de Silva's first six months in office, 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:51.040 deforestation dropped by more than a third. Will it be enough, 0:26:52.119 --> 0:27:00.480 We'll have to watch and see. Drilled is an original 0:27:00.600 --> 0:27:04.720 Critical Frequency production. Our senior editor for this series is 0:27:04.840 --> 0:27:09.680 Allen Brown. Senior producer and sound designer is Martin Saltz Ostwick, 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:13.000 who also composed much of the music in this episode. 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:17.560 Additional music composed by Peter Duff, who mixed and mastered 0:27:17.600 --> 0:27:18.240 the episode. 0:27:18.840 --> 0:27:23.400