BRL 1 billion in Extra Credit for Yanomami Aid

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has issued a Provisional Measure (PM) that releases BRL 1 billion in extraordinary credit to meet the urgent and structuring work plan in the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in the far north of the country. The PM was published in the Official Gazette of the Union (Diário Oficial da União - DOU) this Wednesday (3/13) and is effective immediately.

The PM determines the allocation of resources among eight ministries: Indigenous Peoples, Justice and Public Security, Environment and Climate Change, Agrarian Development and Family Farming, Defense, Development and Social Assistance, Family and Hunger Combat, Fisheries and Aquaculture, as well as Human Rights and Citizenship.

According to the text, most of the resources will be allocated to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, with BRL 455 million, followed by the Ministry of Defense, with BRL 309.8 million allocated for the deployment of the Armed Forces and the Operational Management Center of the Amazon Protection System in support of emergency actions in the Indigenous Land. The Ministry of the Environment will receive BRL 107 million; the Ministry of Social Development BRL 75 million; the ministries of Human Rights and Agrarian Development will each receive BRL 20 million; and the Ministry of Fisheries BRL 14 million.

This credit release reinforces the Federal Government's strategy to ensure the permanent presence of federal agencies in assisting Indigenous Peoples, as announced by President Lula in January. “We are going to treat indigenous and Yanomami issues as matters of State. That is to say that we are going to have to make an even greater effort, using all the power the State is capable of — because we can no longer lose this war to illegal mining, to illegal loggers, to people who are doing things that go against what is established by the law”, Lula said at the time.

As a consequence of this strategy, the Government House has been operational in Boa Vista since February 29 to coordinate actions in the Indigenous Land.

FOOD - Last Monday (3/11), another five thousand food assistance packages from the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance arrived in Boa Vista to be distributed in the Indigenous Land. The food is stored at the National Supply Company (Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento – Conab) unit and will be distributed in its entirety to the Indigenous Peoples. On average, the Federal Government is delivering 400 packages per day. More than 70 thousand food assistance packages were distributed from January 2023 to March 10, 2024.