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| Guarani tribes in western Brazil complain of persecution at the hands of sugar cane farmers |
A biofuels
company set up in Brazil by oil giant Shell has signed a landmark agreement
giving up plans to buy sugar cane grown on indigenous lands.
The
company, Raizen, was sourcing some of the raw material for ethanol from farmers
who encroached on the lands of the Guarani tribe in Mato Grosso state.
The deal
comes after months of pressure by the Brazilian authorities and indigenous
tribes.
The leader
of the Guarani tribe, Nisio Gomes, was shot dead last year.
Gomes, 59,
was killed in front of his community in the town of Amambai, near Paraguay
border.
Indigenous
leaders and pressure group Survival International have welcomed the agreement
signed by Raizen, but warned that the tribe's future continued to be threatened
by illegal logging and farming on their ancestral lands.
Valdelice
Veron, an indigenous Guarani in Mato Grosso do Sul state, says their rivers
have been polluted by pesticides.
"We
will be able to drink water from our land again. We will be able to start
afresh," she told Survival International.
Booming
demand
Raizen was
established in 2010 as a multi-billion joint venture of Shell and Brazilian
ethanol company Cosan to produce ethanol from sugar cane.
The company
says it produces 2.2 billion litres of ethanol every year, for export and to
supply the Brazilian market, where most a great deal of the cars run both on
petrol and biofuel.
Shell's
move came under renewed pressure after the killing of Nisio Gomes.
In the deal
signed with Brazilian indigenous agency Funai, Raizen says it will not source
sugar cane from any land declared by the Ministry of Justice as belonging to
indigenous tribes.
The
agreement comes into force in November.
The Guarani
are Brazil's largest indigenous minority, with around 46,000 members living in
seven states.
Many others
live in neighbouring Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina.
The group
suffers from a severe shortage of land in Brazil, which has worsened as a boom
in agriculture has led farmers and ranchers to extend their holdings.
Indigenous
activists say farmers in Mato Grosso do Sul frequently use violence and threats
to force them off their ancestral territory, and that the local authorities do
little to protect them.
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