Brazil registered a dispute over land or water every 4 hours in 2022

In 2022, 2.018 conflicts in the countryside were registered, involving 909 thousand people and about 80 million hectares of land in dispute throughout the national territory, corresponding to an average of one conflict every 4 hours.

The data are in the annual report on violence in the countryside, released by the CPT (Pastoral Land Commission) on Monday (17).

These numbers indicate an increase of 10.39% in relation to the previous year when 1,828 total occurrences of rural conflicts were registered.

These occurrences cover specific disputes over land and workers rescued in conditions analogous to slavery, contamination by pesticides, murders, deaths, and other violent cases.

“In the last 10 years, it was only in 2020 that we had an overall number of conflicts greater than this, in the middle of a pandemic. Therefore, last year’s numbers are dire,” observes Isolate Wichinieski from CPT’s national coordination.

In terms of conflicts over land, there were 1,572 occurrences in the country. The number represents an increase of 16.70% in relation to the previous year.

In all, 181,304 families lived in Brazil’s crosshairs of this type of conflict, which is 4.61% more than in 2021.

The cases in this axis are the occurrences of violence against occupation and possession and people, in addition to collective actions of land occupation and camps.

THE AMAZON UNDER ATTACK

Of the states with the highest rates of land conflicts, four are in the Legal Amazon. The region concentrated, in 2022, a total of 1,107 conflicts in the countryside, which represents more than half of all disputes in the country (54.86%), points out the report.

Of the 47 murders in the countryside recorded in Brazil last year, 34 occurred in the Legal Amazon (72.35%).

“The upward curve in the Legal Amazon makes it one of the most serious epicenters of violence in the countryside today,” the CPT says in the survey.

The report describes the region of the largest rainforest on the planet as follows: “Stage of exploitation and devastation, creating a real minefield, in which 121,341 families of native peoples and peasant communities were affected in 2022.”

The CPT data also present the leading causes of these conflicts. Last year, farmers were responsible for 23% of the occurrences of conflict over land, followed by the federal government with 16%.

Next, come businessmen (13%) and land grabbers (11%). The main change in relation to the year 2021 was the increase in the federal government’s participation in land conflicts, which jumped from 10% to 16%.

Areas of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon have registered increasing rates of conflict.

This is the case of the Sustainable Development Zone Abunã-Madeira, which encompasses 32 municipalities located in southern Amazonas, eastern Acre, and northwestern Rondônia, covering an area of more than 454 thousand square kilometers.

The region has been the scene of an increasing number of conflicts over land in recent years, focusing mainly on traditional communities, such as indigenous territories.

In 2022, 150 cases of land conflicts were registered in this region specifically, the third highest number in the last ten years, according to the CPT.

“The commission has observed that, since 2004, there has been a change in the focus of these conflicts, which are no longer mostly landless conflicts, disputes over land and against the agrarian reform, but conflicts that go against communities, especially indigenous ones, through illegal occupation or invasions”, says Isolete Wichinieski.

SLAVE LABOR

The CPT report indicates that, throughout 2022, 207 cases of labor analogous to slavery were notified in rural areas, with 2,615 people involved in the denunciations and 2,218 rescued, the highest number in the last 10 years.

Compared to the previous year, the increase was 29% in the number of people rescued and 32% in the number of cases.

The survey reveals that Minas Gerais concentrated the highest number of this type of violence (62 cases with 984 people rescued), followed by:

• Goiás (17 cases with 258 people rescued);
• Piauí (23 cases with 180 people rescued);
• Rio Grande do Sul (10 cases with 148 people rescued);
• Mato Grosso do Sul (10 cases with 116 people rescued);
• São Paulo (10 cases with 87 people rescued).

These numbers refer exclusively to people rescued in rural areas, representing 88% of the cases in the country. The other 12% are cases of slave labor in urban areas, which are not included in the report.

“These data do not represent the total number of people working in subhuman conditions in the Brazilian countryside since not all occurrences are notified or even discovered,” says the entity.

According to CPT, agribusiness and monoculture companies are the main ones responsible for the degrading work situation flagged in the country. Only in the sugar and alcohol sector, for example, 523 people were rescued last year.

PESTICIDE RAIN

Another worsening of violations in the rural environment was observed with the increase in cases of contamination by pesticides. There were 193 people affected, an increase of 171.85% compared to 2021.

The number of families affected by the application of a poison in crops totaled 6,831, which represents 86% more than in 2021 and the highest number recorded by CPT since 2010, when this type of violence began to be investigated by the pastoral.

With information from Poder360