Brazilian singer Gilberto Gil and more than 25 artists joined forces and talents in the song “Demarcação Já” (Demarcation Now), released during the Indigenous National Mobilization Week, in April 2017, to call attention to the urgency for the legal recognition of Indigenous lands in Brazil, a process known as “Demarcation.”
Throughout Brazil, there are longstanding requests from Indigenous Groups to have ancestral land rights recognized and protected. Today an Agribusiness-dominated Brazilian Government is considering proposals that would make it even harder for future demarcation.
Indigenous rights are being heavily attacked in the form of proposals underway in Congress and through administrative measures that would slash indigenous lands.
Numerous demarcation petitions, which ensure indigenous peoples their territory and protects their way of life, have been paralized, leaving ancestral territories vulnerable to invasion and conflicts over land, placing Indigenous Peoples in danger.
With beautiful and powerful lyrics and images, the music poetically communicates the challenges Indigenous Peoples face in Brazil. It connects their struggle with the importance of protecting the forests, remembering that we share the same planet. To deny their lands is to deny their right to exist.