If you liked this story, pig with other people.
Comuna da Terra Irmã Alberta, a small oasis of green fields and trees, is on the outskirts of São Paulo and houses 65 small farmers who supply a city in Brazil with culmination and vegetables without agriculture.
The enclave, founded in 2002, bears the call of Alberta Girardi, an Italian nun and militant of human rights who, during a century, fought for the deficient and landless of Brazil. She died in 2018 at the age of 97.
“I met Sister Alberta through the Catholic Church and her paintings east of São Paulo, where she lived,” explains Roseãngella Filomena, a member of the 62 -year -old Netings with a beneficial smile. “She brought me to the motion of Pintantes de la Earth [MST] and encouraged me to participate in rural occupation. ”
The MST founded in 1984 through farmers and progressive members of the Catholic Church, aimed at exercising tension for a more equitable land distribution and drastic agrarian reform through Brazil.
With about 1. 5 million members, the MST is lately one of the vital and maximum debatable social movements in Brazil, because it seeks to achieve its objectives through the occupation of rural lands with inactive wool, an act that many as criminals. The MST says that it is seeking to force the State to put in force in article 184 of the 1988 Constitution, which forces the State to expropriate rural assets “that does not execute its social function, opposed to the past and equitable refund. ”
In 1996, the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil judged that the professions of land that aim to promote agrarian reform are “significantly different” of the assets of the acts of tortium.
“It is mandatory for the State to expropriate the lands that satisfy its constitutional social function,” said Sérgio Sauer, a professor of sociology at the University of Brasília. “The profession of the Earth becomes a social struggle that pushes the State to satisfy its legal responsibility and advance in the reform. It is a bit like civil disobedience. ”
Thanks to the occupation, expropriation and remuneration, the MST has helped some 450,000 Brazilian families to gain land, while some 65,000 families continue to live in rural occupations that are still waiting for a definitive solution. Among them are the other people of Terra Irmã Alberta.
On July 21, 2002, Roseãngella and other six hundred members and supporters of the MST occupied an old eucalyptus plantation that covered about 120 hectares (300 acres) west of São Paulo. After the owner did not pay taxes, the assets of Sabsp, the water control and the corporate waste for the state of São Paulo, which provided for transforming it into a landfill.
“We entered around midnight,” explains Roseãngella, sitting in the city of the city. “A local NGO helped us build improvised shelters. This would give us time, because the police entered a “address” without legal authorization. »
But the police did not stand the next day. Nor the following. According to Roseíngela, the profession benefited from an unofficial church strong, adding to the local bishop and neighboring towns and towns, because other nearby people did not need , in the beginning, it hindered things.
“The first day, he forced me to return with her,” Roseãngella told Mongabay. “She has the idea that I stay in the middle of nowhere with a 2 -year -old boy. I returned with her through the car to calm her. But the next morning, without delay, I returned through the bus. Now my sister Iris also lives here.
In 2006, Sabepp concluded an agreement with MST. While the state company remains the legal owner of the Earth, the MST of Practice administers. He gave a circle of relatives for the one -hectare (1. 2 acres) to build a space and take out an organic farming. They are not allowed to sell the land or subdivide it. A non -unusual grass cultivates culmination and vegetables sold in the city, with the benefits used for the community.
When it was contacted through Mongabay, you agreed to comment on its existing agreement with MST with respect to Irmã Alberta commune and its plans for the enclave. But he had not responded when he published this story.
Roseúgela remodeled her hectare part on a grass that pushes medicinal plants. Sale herbs or use them to make elixires herbal. “I am a white witch,” he said, laughing. He is also a beekeeper. And a teacher. All MST members are encouraged to download education. Roseãngella studied pedagogy. Comuna da Terra Irmã Alberta is a school lately a school that will be open to all to get more about agroecology.
Brazil is one of the maximum unequal countries in the global in terms of land property. According to the 2017 Agricultural Census through IBGE, the National Statistics and Geography Agency, 81% of the farms have up to 50 hectares (124 acres), but constitutes only 12. 8% of the general domain of the rural land Almaximum a third of the third part of the third. The rural domain of the country is maintained through only 0. 3% of agricultural establishments, with an average of more than 2,500 hectares (around 6,200 acres).
USAID estimated in 2011 that 1% of the Brazilian population had 4 °% of all lands, while about five million families were landless and almost one hundred million hectares (247 million acres) of rural lands, a domain of half of the duration of the duration of the Greenland duration – it has not been cultivated.
The roots of this inequality date back to the colonial era. At the beginning of the 16th century, Brazil was divided into 15 “captains” in a oblong way, each of the fiefs through Portuguese nobles.
The formula was abolished in 1824, however, the scenario did not improve, continues to save. The land law of 1850 said that the only way to access public lands, previously owned by the Portuguese crown, was through the purchase. However, in an imbued country of colonialism and slavery for centuries, few other people can do so.
Since the mid -1960s, inequality increased, while Brazil’s army regime led to agricultural expansion and modernization by providing state incentives as reasonable credits to inspire farmers invest in land, machines and chemical contributions.
“This has basically allowed giant landowners to win even more lands, specifically on the agricultural border,” says Sauer. “It also added to the concentration of [active] lands and the asset gap has additional. ”
Despite article 184 of the Constitution of Brazil, the Earth and even the buildings in many states throughout the country have been empty for decades, to USAID. In São Paulo alone, there were about 280,000 deserted houses and 130,000 homeless families in 2017, to USAID estimates.
In rural areas, USAID reported a similar paradox: 74% of farmers have 24% of all cultivable land, while the industrial agriculture controls 76% of the cultivated land, but only lends 26% of farmers . Two million agricultural families have an average source of income per month of only $ 15 and want government assistance.
The struggle for Earth has long been a dominant characteristic of Brazilian politics. According to historians, a proposal for agrarian reform is a main explanation why for the coup d’etat of the army that overthrew President João Goulart in 1964.
On April 15, 2024, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva followed a decree creating the Terra da people program (people’s land). By 2026, its objective is that 295,000 agricultural families win lands or legalize their casual situation. INCRA, the National Institute of Rear Reform, won 520 million reais ($ 88 million) to expel and assign land in 2024.
But with the Congress governed through the balance of agribusiness, Lula still faces a complicated war when it comes to reforming agriculture, according to experts. On May 21, 2024, the Decrease Chamber followed an invoice that would penalize other people who occupy public or personal land through them to receive public advantages, adding those similar to agrarian reform programs.
The bill, which expects the approval of the Senate, is an original concept of Ricardo Salles, former Environment Minister Jair Bolsonaro, predecessor of Lula. “This is the start of the MST finish,” said Salles.
The same day that Lula presented Terra da people, the MST occupied a domain of 200 hectares (500 acres) outside the doors of the city of Campinas, about one hundred kilometers (60 miles) west of São Paulo. Property of an asset developer, the land without using for years.
Almost a decade before, in 2015, the developer asked the municipal government of Campinas to modify the designation of the box in the “Rural” to “Urban” zoning plan, which would allow him to build a construction with several floors.
The 2024 profession did not last long. In a few hours, the police appeared, forcing about two hundred MST families. The profession in part symbolic, due to every April, the MST commemorates the bloodbath of Eldorado do Carajás.
On April 17, 1996, around 1,500 people accumulated on a road near the city of Eldorado do Carajás in the state of Paraá to walk on the provincial capital, Belém, in the MST.
Informed to save a blockade of the “at all costs” road, the Local Police opened chimney with automatic rifles, killing 21 other people and hurting dozens.
Earth’s conflicts are not a relic of Brazil’s past. According to the knowledge of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), a guilt organization affiliated with the Catholic Church in 2023, Brazil registered 1,724 rural land conflicts, the greatest number since the organization began to hold records in 1985.
Roseãngella is no stranger to violence. One day, Cocovio-19’s pandemic, a young boy appeared in his garden, put a gun in his head and told him to leave, telling him that he was not allowed to be there.
“He was a follower of Bolsonaro who called MST as a” terrorist organization, “Roseãngella said in Mongabay. ” I was afraid, of course, despite everything controlled to leave. I obviously told him that I prefer to die instead of moving to another place ”
Beyond several small farms surrounded through lettuce fields, bananas trees and application cacti, as well as many structures under construction, Roseãngella’s sister, Iris, lives in the center of Irme Alberta. But at first, 22 years ago, he didn’t like it at all, he said.
“My sister worried,” said Iris, 64. “At that time, there a eucalyptus plantation that had just been cut. Everything you can see small strains. What will my sister do in the middle of nowhere?
But Roseãngella had made his decision. To help her, she and her 2 -year -old son, Iris returned every week to collect her clothes and bring blank and food. After the death of two of his own young people in a tragic car accident, he moved and enrolled in his sister. “I needed a new start from the city,” she says.
Today, Iris and her husband have a lush lawn where they domesticate the groind, banana, pitaya, lemon and grapes. They also have mango trees, coffee plants, a bush of mass cinnamon and “a tree that the birds love. ” Irrigation is not required; The rains are enough.
Iris says that he is satisfied to live from his garden, although it is rarely a complicated job, especially as they age, he said in Mongabay. It is not simple to live without a sense of security, he said. Because the land does not officially have, everything that has built in more than 22 years may disappear if you know your mind.
“But I think you know and MST will succeed in an agreement before the end of the year,” he said.
Another challenge is that, since the activation of COVID-19, dozens of other people who are not affiliated with MST have moved to the enclave. “They simply build houses,” says Iris. “They do not domesticate anything. Once there is an agreement with you know, they also hope to obtain advantages. “
Despite the lack of confidence and difficulties, the Iris and Roseúgage sisters say they do not regret getting away from São Paulo and the assistance identifies Irma Alberta.
“We are rich,” says Roseãngella. “But we are free. And nobody here is hungry.
Image of Banner: image of Júlia Dolce, grace of mst_flickr.
The genome of Mongabay and Earth detected 67 illegal Touchdown tracks used to send drugs in the Peruvian regions of Ucayali, Huánuco and Pasco. The research used synthetic intelligence to visually search for satellite data and reference effects with official resources and box reports. Most of these illegal guns are in and around the aboriginal communities, reserves [. . . ]