Survivals Director, Stephen Corry, said today, Its a sad irony that people buy Shells ethanol as an ethical alternative to fossil fuels: theres certainly nothing ethical about its horrendous treatment of the Guarani.
Guarani man. Shell is using sugarcane planted on Guarani land. © F. Watson/Survival
Indians of the Guarani tribe in Brazil have demanded that energy giant Shell stop using their ancestral land for ethanol production.
Ambrosio Vilhalva, a Guarani man from one of the communities affected, told Survival, Shell must leave our land the companies must stop using indigenous land. We want justice, we want our land to be mapped out and protected for us.
Shell is united with Brazilian ethanol company Cosan, in a joint venture company called Raizen. Some of Raizens ethanol, sold as a biofuel, is produced from sugarcane grown on the Guaranis ancestral land.
In a letter to the companies, the Indians warn that, Since the factory began to operate, all our health has deteriorated children, adults and animals.
The chemicals used on the sugarcane plantations are thought to be causing acute diarrhoea amongst Guarani children, and killing fish and plants.
The Guarani state, We can no longer find many of the medicines which used to grow in the forest the plants have died because of the poison.
They continue, The growers never asked our permission or consulted us before planting on our land.
Download the Guaranis letter (pdf, 266 kb).
The Brazilian governments failure to uphold its own laws and map out and protect the Guaranis land for their exclusive use has left it vulnerable to exploitation by sugarcane plantations.
Meanwhile, many Guarani live in appalling conditions, in overcrowded reserves or camped on roadsides.
Dozens of Guarani have been assassinated after trying to reoccupy their ancestral land, and many more subjected to violence. The Guarani of Pueblito Kuê are the latest to suffer attacks, since they reoccupied their land last month.
Survivals Director, Stephen Corry, said today, Its a sad irony that people buy Shells ethanol as an ethical alternative to fossil fuels: theres certainly nothing ethical about its horrendous treatment of the Guarani. The Brazilian government needs to enforce its laws, and stop the wholesale destruction of the Indians land.
Download Survivals report to the UN, about the Guaranis desperate situation (pdf, 2.4 MB)
The current boom in sugarcane production is taking over the Guarani’s ancestral land.
© S. Shenker/Survival
Act now to help the Guarani
Your support is vital for the Guaranis survival. There are lots of ways you can help.
- Donate to Survivals campaign for the Guarani
- Write to the Brazilian government using Survivals online letter-writing tool
- Write to your MP or MEP (UK) or Senators and members of Congress (US).
- Write to your local Brazilian embassy
- If you want to get more involved, contact Survival
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