EU-Mercosur Trade Deal Threatens Indigenous Lands, Activist Says

By Reuters
|
June 29, 2023, at 1:00 p.m.

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A planned free trade deal between the European Union and South American bloc Mercosur risks increasing demand for farm produce from Brazil at the expense of Indigenous people's land and rights, a leading activist said on Thursday.

"We are against this agreement," Dinamam Tuxa, the coordinator of Brazil's largest umbrella Indigenous organization, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) told Reuters in an interview.

"It may be very difficult to stop but we want to make our proposals on prior consent and territorial rights of Indigenous people."

The European Commission struck a trade deal with the Mercosur bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay in 2019. Now the Commission and some EU member states have raised the possibility of reviving it after it was put on hold largely because of EU concerns over Amazon deforestation.

More:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-06-29/eu-mercosur-trade-deal-threatens-indigenous-lands-activist-says



Dinamam Tuxa