In Santarém, Pará, the Borari territory - without demarcation and without protection - has suffered from disorderly occupation, buying and selling of public lands, speculation, and real estate expansion in recent decades. The absence of inspection and control by public agencies is evident in the socio-environmental impacts: archaeological sites threatened, the surroundings of lakes devastated, streams buried, open-air dumps, and new neighborhoods dug into the forest, without urban planning.

ALTER DO CHÃO, THE MOST FAMOUS INDIGENOUS VILLAGE IN THE AMAZON

 Alter do Chão is a small Indian village, an administrative district of the city of Santarém, located on the right bank of the Tapajós River. It is a place that was elected by the British newspaper The Guardian as the most beautiful freshwater beach in the world, a "paradise" that attracts tourists from all corners of the planet.

 However, Alter do Chão also needs to be recognized as an indigenous land (TI) with the millennial presence of the Borari people, who also live in the TI Maró, located on the Arapiuns River, in the Lower Tapajós region in Pará. In both cases, the struggle of the Borari people involves the demarcation of their territory and the defense of their culture and traditions.

In 2010, Alter had just over 8,000 residents. This year, it is estimated that the village has approximately 12 thousand inhabitants, 2 thousand of which belong to the Borari population, according to information obtained from City Hall employees and the Special Indigenous Health Secretariat (SESAI), respectively. When contacted, the regular Health Secretariat and SESAI did not confirm the number in time for the publication of this report. In any case, what can be verified is an accelerated growth of the village population.

 Alter do Chão is witnessing an uncontrolled process of urbanization, with the gentrification of most of the native residents of the village, the steep increase in real estate prices and, recently, verticalization. The village has been undergoing a rapid occupation, which occurs in a context of lack of supervision and infrastructure planning.

In the last decade, many tourists have bought properties in the village’s center, displacing native residents to peripheral regions, such as the so-called Bairro Novo or Bairro Nova União. In this region, there is an intense process of unplanned occupation, with the sale of small plots of land, 10 meters by 30 meters, without basic sanitation. Already saturated, the neighborhood is expanding into new areas, such as the Nova Esperança subdivision and the Athennas real estate development, which foresees the construction of a large condominium. Questioned through the Access to Information Act, the Santarém City Hall informed that both have no environmental licensing process.

 The village of Alter do Chão is also located above the aquifer of the same name, which has more than double the amount of water than the Guarani Aquifer, and is an important national water reserve.

Even with the population explosion and the strategic importance of preserving water and natural resources, only in 2020 was a water and sewage sanitation project presented to the community. The impacts of neglect can already be felt in the streams and sacred places.

 The coordination problems also go through the confusion of competencies between municipality, state and federal government. In September 2019, the savannas and forests of Alter do Chão were ravaged by fire, generating international repercussions.

The process on the responsibility for the fires began in the state court, because it was a municipal conservation area, but was then transferred to the federal court, because it occurred in the federal land parcel Mojuí dos Campos I. Despite being in a municipal environmental protection area, the fires affected a federal public forest under the management of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA).

Amidst so many protection regulations and so little political will to implement them, the attraction of tourism gains predatory traits, impacting both the local population and the very landscape that attract visitors.

"Alter do Chão has suffered all ills of disorderly growth. In this direction, without zoning, without a posture code appropriate to its context and without regulation of its APA (Environmental Protection Area), it runs the risk of becoming one more peripheral neighborhood of Santarem. Then we can kiss our 'golden egg goose' goodbye."

 Tamara Habib, architect and urban planner, member of the Alter do Chão Urbanists Working Group

 To obtain an environmental license within the APA, a construction site needs only the analysis of the Municipal Secretary of Environment, without any consideration by the Managing Council of APA Alter do Chão. Today, there is no difference in the requirements for a construction site in Alter do Chão and another one in the center of the city of Santarém. This has allowed the verticalization of the town.

 The greatest proof of the Managing Council’s omission is the 18 years without a Management Plan for the APA, that is to say, almost two decades without any definition regarding which zones are of ecological interest, which ones are of sociocultural interest, or which needs the use and occupation of the soil must respect.

"First of all, an awareness is needed. We have to enforce law and need a management plan. This is the guiding point. The City Hall and the public ministries have to be charged. We must associate with these modern forms of participatory environmental management like what happens in Fernando de Noronha and has shown results, greatly improving protection." 

 Jackson Rêgo Matos, professor at the Federal University of Western Pará (Ufopa) and forest engineer

 The Jacundá Dossier is a document organized by the leaders of the Borari Indigenous Land with a history of decades of land conflict. The dispute over territory was marked by the year 1998, when an intense process of land grabbing took place on the lands of traditional use and occupation of the Borari people. According to the dossier, Rui Nelson Taveira da Silva - who worked in the land legalization sector of the Santarém City Hall (CDHU) - claimed ownership of an area of 4 km². During the conflict, many residents suffered death threats and were expelled from their lands and fields.

“With truculence, using force, terror, and trickery, accompanied by civil police officers, he expelled and arrested the former residents, tore down fences, set fire to houses, clogged artesian wells, invaded and took possession of the area called Jacundá.”

Dossier Jacundá

 The mobilization and collective organization of the Borari people - among leaders, young people, women, and elders in defense of their territory - was answered in 2003, when the judge Antonieta Maria Ferrari Mileo handed down a sentence stating that the territorial rights of Rui Nelson were based on fraudulent documentation, since the area in conflict was public land. Even with the decision favorable to the Borari, the landowner remained in possession of an area.

"IAfter this experience, indigenous leaders requested FUNAI, through the Federal Public Ministry, to demarcate Borari territory in order to preserve this people’s cultural identity and prohibit the sale of land.n 2003, we went to Brasília and, in the following year, we did a preliminary study by the Itaituba regional office. In 2008, the official anthropological study (by FUNAI – National Indian Foundation) took place. We sent it to Brasília and the answer we got is that the process is under analysis, but this analysis never arrives."

Neca Borari, cacica Borari

 After this experience, indigenous leaders requested FUNAI, through the Federal Public Ministry, to demarcate Borari territory in order to preserve this people’s cultural identity and prohibit the sale of land.

"Today we see that the territory has practically become a commercial product. The image of Alter do Chão, of the sacred places, has been sold as a tourism market. Many people come to visit and end up staying. In a certain way, they end up deceiving the local indigenous residents into selling their lands. This has promoted the growth of real estate speculation here."

Fabiana Borari, cacica from Curucuruí village

 The demarcation procedure for the Borari Indigenous Land, of which Alter do Chão forms part, was initiated by Administrative Ruling No. 77/2008 which created the FUNAI Technical Group (GT 776) responsible for the ethno-historical, sociological, legal, cartographic, environmental and land studies for the delimitation and identification of the Indigenous Land. The anthropological report was concluded in September 2009, with the stages of preparation, field work and elaboration with the collective participation of the indigenous people.

"The great threats to physical and socio-cultural survival that the Borari are currently suffering demand urgency in the identification and delimitation of the TI Borari. The lands of traditional occupation identified and delimited in this report constitute a constitutional right and a 'light at the end of the tunnel' for the Borari. [...] Finally, it is important to emphasize that the omission or moroseness of the official indigenous agency can be a determining factor for the survival of this people. Avoiding the extinction of yet another Brazilian indigenous people and the consequent loss of one of the greatest national heritages - which is indigenous sociocultural diversity - is the duty of the Brazilian State and the legal responsibility of FUNAI, officially recognizing the Borari's traditional occupation of their lands."

Circumstantiated Report of Identification and Delimitation of the TI Borari of Alter do Chão/Ministry of Justice, Funai (2009).

 The inability to control invasions and the lack of official response to demarcation have increased the fear of losing our family land and traditional areas. Amidst a situation of economic vulnerability, some indigenous people are being lured into selling their land.

“I believe that with the demarcation, the real estate sector would slow down. It wouldn't go back to what it was before, but at least we would have a way to preserve what hasn't been disturbed yet and try to reconstitute the vegetation of what has been deforested, so that we can keep our Lago Verde, the headwaters of the Cuicuera stream, and the meeting of the waters of the Camarão stream alive. And to walk freely in the bush, to be able to fish for subsistence.”

 Nelma Borari, tuxaua of the Curucuruí village.

 While these invasions are being curbed, some memories have already been buried. Where the center of Alter do Chão is today - with its bars, restaurants, handicraft stores, supermarkets - is the nucleus where many former inhabitants lived. Despite being fully occupied by the Borari before the colonization of the region, this area today has few indigenous people living there and was outside the limits of the preliminary demarcation. According to cacica Neca Borari, in this central space - where today is located the “7 de Setembro” Square - many indigenous people were born and buried.

“In that space our history begins, everything begins there. Why was it left out [of the demarcation]? There are many navels buried there. When a woman was about to give birth, what happened? The child and the placenta came. The placenta and the umbilical cord were buried there, in that yard."

Neca Borari, indigenous leadership in Alter do Chão.

 Amidst the different forms of protection and regularization of the territory (APA, TI, PAE), there is the illusion that the village of Alter do Chão would be an environmentally protected place and, even because of the tourist appeal, a constant target of environmental, land and urban monitoring and inspection by municipal, state and federal agencies. However, this is not what we see. On the contrary, a state of impunity is spreading in relation to the expansion of the rights violations reported by the Borari indigenous people.

 In the Environmental Prosecutor's Office there is only one procedure that deals with Alter do Chão, regarding the Chão de Estrelas Condominium development, licensed by the Municipal Secretary of Environment last year. There are no proceedings about irregular forms of land occupation, irregular dumps or other forms of environmental degradation present in the territory.

 The responsible prosecutor, Lilian Braga, believes that the different forms of protection and regularization of the territory are important to provide a greater framework of protection of Alter do Chão, but that more effective social control is needed, which can be definitive even for the modification of the current state of underreporting to the Public Ministry.

 The Santarém City Hall's housing and environment secretariats were not available to comment on the subject.

Without protection or salvage

Desde a Portaria 316, de novembro de 2019, o Instituto do Patrimônio Since Ordinance 316, of November 2019, the Institute of National Historic and Artistic Heritage (Iphan) has been restricting "salvage" actions only to previously registered sites. Salvage is a sampling work to get an idea of what is being destroyed, to the detriment of works that offer full environmental protection, with community and city hall involvement.

In the municipality of Santarém, according to researcher Anne Rapp-Daniel, about 100 archaeological sites are already known, of which only 81 are registered in the National Register of Archaeological Sites (CNSA). Without effective planning, municipal zoning, environmental licensing or inspection, these sites do not even undergo rescue actions. 

"The archaeological sites in Borari territory run the same risk as the archaeological sites in Santarém. The work with heavy machinery, reshaping of the relief, earthworks, removal of black earth in large quantities lead to the total destruction of the archaeological site."

Anne Rapp-Daniel, Professor of Archaeology at the Federal University of Western Pará (Ufopa) and researcher of Amazonian archaeology since 2002. 

 In 2020, after a complaint by Iphan, the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) had to publish a recommendation to the City Hall of Santarém to ensure the institute's contribution in environmental licensing processes. Ufopa professor active in archeological research in Santarém, Camila Pereira Jácome also develops research projects in archeology in Santarém, one of the oldest human occupation areas in the Amazon. According to her, the frequency with which traces are found often contributes to the population giving little importance to these sites.

"It is very common to find in the backyards, in the actual houses in the village, these black earth stains, where archaeological remains are contained, such as ceramic fragments, pottery vessels. People usually collect ceramics that have little animal heads, representation of vultures, little frogs, this is very common. Besides the black earth spots, we can identify in Alter do Chão the ceramics on the beaches, which is an indication that the spaces were circulated by people, and may be a natural process of erosion itself."

 Camila Jácome, professor and archeologist at Ufopa

Only knowledge saves

 Many dwellers and visitors are still unaware of the existence of archeological sites in Alter do Chão, as it is still a topic restricted to the academic world. Raising awareness about the historical and touristic importance of these sites requires the involvement of old and new residents, ensuring effective protection measures.

 The archeological site identified in the Sister Dorothy Field School is an example of protection with the effective participation of the community, among chief, women, elders, youth, and children. Enilda Borari, a teacher of the Nheengatú language, from the Caranã Village, fights for the preservation of the Borari identity, and participates in the extension project “Archaeology at School: Stories of the Amazon”, a work that has existed for three years in partnership with Ufopa.

"We know that this is an archaeological site. If you go here in the Enchanted Forest, in the dry season, you will find pieces of artifacts from pots, from stoves. Going further up the stream, our Dorothy School is an archeological site that is about to be recognized. It already has a name given to it by the students and by the Caranã indigenous movement: it will be called Makukawa, the name of a bird. If there is deforestation on the banks of the igarapé, it will affect our archaeological site, which with the water will take the pieces, the local traces, where they are found" 

 Enilda Borari, Caranã village leadership

 Due to the lack of inspection by the environmental agencies, the constructions have not respected the Permanent Preservation Areas/APPs foreseen in the Forest Code. This has caused deforestation of the riparian forest, silting up, and drying up of the springs.

After numerous complaints, in 2020, the MPF forwarded to the Santarem City Hall yet another recommendation that the municipality should not grant licenses for construction or suppression of vegetation in APPs in the district of Alter do Chão, also requesting that the City Hall draw up an inspection plan to avoid clandestine construction in preservation areas and conduct educational campaigns to raise environmental awareness of the residents.

 Raul de Paula Fróis, from the Post-graduate Biodiversity Program (PPGBEES) at the Federal University of Pará/UFPA, in his master's degree in biodiversity, observed in the field research that the most threatened streams were the Macaco, in Alter do Chão/Ponta de Pedras; São Luiz, on the Pindobal road; and Boroca, in the Laranjal community.

"Comparing data collections of streams in Alter do Chão made in 2006 and 2018, we could observe processes of siltation of the streams, resulting from the deforestation of the riparian zone, which is the strip of vegetation that extends along the banks of the streams."

  Raul de Paula da Silva Fróis, master in Biological Sciences (Biodiversity) at Ufopa

 The degradation of waterways impacts the quantity of fish and the whole local fauna, which depends on the same water. The region is home to 300 species of birds; 93 species of reptiles; 62 species of bats; 38 species of medium and large mammals (jaguars, maracajás, guaribas, tapirs, anteaters, armadillos), as well as small mammals. This data on local biodiversity was collected by Ufopa at the request of the MPF.

The president of the Community Council of the village of Alter do Chão, Junior Sousa, says that many streams have disappeared and others have been fenced in.

"Some of the springs that we knew and frequented no longer exist. In the igarapés of São Raimundo and Sonrisal, people started buying and building houses, surrounding the igarapés. They didn't care about preserving them, because the igarapé and the rivers belong to everyone, everyone has to go there, everyone has to take care of them, but the people who bought them think they own the igarapés."

 Junior Souza, president of the Alter do Chão Community Development Council

"What is happening here in Capadócia is a very serious situation, but we had a neglect there. We went several times after IBAMA (Brazilian Institute for the Environment) and the Municipal Secretary of Environment of Santarem to solve this invasion, but no one gave us a position. We also asked for support from the Council of the APA Alter do Chão. We don't have the support of a proper inspection. As leaders, we don't have enough people to do this surveillance in such a large area." 

 Cacique Dengo Borari, indigenous leadership in Caranã village

 According to the Federal Public Ministry, in mid-2015, allegations on the sale of public land and deforestation began to emerge in the region of Capadócia, an area of great ecological value, with springs, streams and flood plains, in the transition between savanna and forest.

"These savannah areas in Alter do Chão are quite old. Some studies from INPA, by researcher Tânia Sanaiotti, show that these areas have existed stable as savanna for approximately 7 thousand years. They are formed by topsoil with more than 90% sand. So, the movement of this soil, with disordered parcelling, can cause us to have gigantic landslides, and this affects the water quality, for instance, the water quality of Lago Verde"

Rodrigo Fadini, professor and researcher at the Federal University of Western Pará.

 The person responsible for selling plots in an area called "Sítio Bom Futuro", with 410 hectares (an area larger than the urban area of Alter do Chão village), was Silas da Silva Soares. Although he claimed to be the owner of the area, he presented to the inspection teams the property's provisional rural environmental cadastre, a merely declaratory document, without any land value. Later, Silas indicated the existence of a public Deed of Declaration of Ownership of the area, but in fact the area is a federal public land parcel, Mojuí dos Campos I.

"Since I can remember, my grandmother had a house around there, which we knew as Areia Branca and now, since 2001, is Bom Futuro. This area is also Capadócia. I just see the comments that people buy land and drill the springs to make pools. That will end up with the streams, the source of Lago Verde is there."

 Nelma, Curucurui village leadership

 The alleged owner of the area acted outside the law all these years to transform the subdivision into a fait accompli, opening a branch line with a bulldozer, parcelling plots even inside APPs, and managing to install an electric power network. The landowner threatened residents of the village Caranã - where the community of Caranazal is also located on the Everaldo Martins highway -, the village of Alter do Chão and the City Hall's own employees.

 inally, he was sentenced to six years and ten months in prison and a fine for installing a private urban development and promoting illegal deforestation in the Lago Verde region. In the civil suit, the land grabber was sentenced to pay for the recovery of the degraded area. Today, he is on the run.

The Public Ministry of the State of Pará (MPPA) sent the case to the Federal Court at the request of the MPF, to force the city of Santarém to inspect and prevent the installation of irregular occupations on the banks of the lake. The MPF also submitted a request to the courts for the municipality of Santarém to execute the Plan for Recuperation of Degraded Areas.

 "I see many farms being sold, I see people posting pictures of the igarapés on the internet. So, in my mind, I still have that igarapé that I knew as a child, where we used to get water, drink water. Now, I don't know how to differentiate anything anymore, because everything is fenced in with wire."

Nelma, leader of the Curucurui village.

 In the last four years, the occupation of the savanna has increased rapidly, especially along the banks of streams and rivers. This is a problem for biodiversity and for the local population that depends on the maintenance of the landscape for tourism. Losing this landscape of forest and savanna can compromise local tourism.

 "As here in the region you have this improper land parcelling and the sale of very small lots, 10m per 30m in most cases, on the bank of the streams, you have a compromise of environmental services and the compromise of Alter do Chão landscape"

- Rodrigo Fadini, professor and researcher at Ufopa