Madre de Dios - Brazil - Peru Border
Consultant: Anthropologist Luis Felipe Torres Espinoza
Collaborator: Fernando Mendieta Herrada
2022
GEOGRAPHICAL SCOPE AND INDIGENOUS TERRITORIES
Difficult-to-access region encompasses different ethnic groups
The region is located between the Mamoadate Indigenous Land in the Brazilian state of Acre and the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve in the department of Madre de Dios in Peru. This is the cross-border corridor for recognized indigenous peoples such as the Yine, Manchineri, and Mashco Piro.
The Yine are located in native communities on the Piedras and Tahuamanu rivers, and the Manchineri in the villages of the Mamoadate Indigenous Land. The so-called Mashco Piro peoples, on the other hand, currently recognized as being in a situation of ‘isolation’, move through these territories and national borders to the boundaries of Manchineri villages in Brazil and Yine communities in Peru.
In this way, the territories of the Yine and Manchineri are surrounding the Mashco Piro, and their populations have various types of interactions with the Mascho Piro. The communities that maintain the greatest degree of relationship with the indigenous group in isolation are: Nueva Oceanía (Rio Tahuamanu), Monte Salvado (Rio Las Piedras), Puerto Nuevo (Rio Las Piedras), Santa Alicia (Rio Las Piedras), and Aldea Extrema (Rio Yaco). In the case of the communities and villages that are a specific part of the diagnostic, the information was collected in the field and updated until November 2021. The number of people living in these localities was 535 people.
Box 1: Indigenous Lands and Peoples of Peru
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Community Name
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Indigenous People
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Province
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District
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|---|---|---|---|
Box 2: Indigenous Lands and Peoples in Brazil (Acre)
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Indigenous Territory
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Indigenous People
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Municipality
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Language Group
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|---|---|---|---|
MAPA INTERATIVO
Observe no mapa interativo do Módulo Povos Indígenas, onde se localizam os territórios indígenas na região amazônica e observe as regiões fronteiriças estudadas pelos consultores da OTCA:
ISOLATED PEOPLES
Lack of protection and threats to health and life
In addition to peoples settled in native communities and villages, in the broader cross-border region of Madre de Dios and Acre there are several peoples/groups in isolation and initial contact, occupying mainly the headwaters of the rivers. The Brazilian government recognizes, for example, different isolated groups such as the Mashko of the Iaco River, the Mashko of the Chandless River, and some Pano groups in initial contact or isolation on the Envira River, while in Peru the Mashco Piro are considered part of a single people regardless of their geographical reference.
In the border territories where the IPACI live, different threats put the health and life of these populations at risk, given their special social and epidemiological vulnerability.
The threats of invasion of their territories by illegal economic activities such as logging, mining, and drug trafficking are the most serious. However, legal activities (such as logging in concessions overlapping the expansion of the Madre de Dios Reserve) can also affect the territory as a subsistence space for these peoples and promote physical contact with isolated populations, triggering violent episodes or the transmission of diseases.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONTEXT
First records date back to the 17th century
The Yine indigenous people are recognized by the government of Peru as one of 51 indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon. Besides the study region, in the Madre de Dios Natural Reserve, they are distributed in other native communities in the Madre de Dios region, and also in Cusco, Ucayali, and Loreto. The Yine language belongs to the Arawak family.
The first records of encounters with the Yine date back to the 17th century when Franciscan missionaries settled in the region, however, the first mission among this people was not founded until the end of the 18th century. Another moment of intense interethnic exchange in the region was during the period when the rubber extraction activity was installed in the Amazon, from 1880 to 1918 (approximately). At that time it was the Yine, then known as Piro, who guided and established routes between the rivers so that the rubber tappers could include the Madre de Dios region in the rubber business. After the decline of the activity in the region, many indigenous people were sold as local labor for other economic activities that emerged in the area, such as extensive farming, ranching, cutting and harvesting. From 1920 on, most of the Yine worked (began to work?) on plantations.
It was not until around 1940 that American missionaries settled in the area and promoted the Indians leaving the farms to group together in communities around the schools.
The Manchineri, like the Yine, speak an Arawak language and share a common cosmology and history. In Brazil, most of the Manchineri inhabit the Mamoadate Indigenous Land and former rubber plantations. The Mamoadate TI is located in the Purus river basin, between the Iaco and Curanja rivers. They are known for their cotton clothing (cushma for men and two pieces for women), their shamanic rituals, and the use of ayahuasca.
The Mascho Piro is the name given to a large indigenous group that moves between the departments of Madre de Dios and Ucayali in Peru, crossing the border into the state of Acre in Brazil. Given this connection of the language spoken by the Mashco Piro with the language of the Yine and Manchineri, they are also recognized as belonging to the Arawak linguistic family. The Mashco Piro are characterized by constant mobility over large areas, mainly hunting and gathering.
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PROFILE
Respiratory infections, infectious diseases, hypertension, and diabetes
he main morbidities in both the Madre de Dios Reserve and the Mamoadate IT are Acute Respiratory Infections, which are prevalent in the entire population, but especially in children under 5 years old. Similarly, although to a lesser extent, diarrheal diseases play an important role in the health records of the region. Other morbidities of special importance for the health systems of the region are Hepatitis B, Dengue, Malaria, Leishmaniasis, Tuberculosis.
On the non-communicable diseases side, we have a notable presence of hypertension and diabetes on both the Peruvian and Brazilian sides, which are diseases of great importance because they are direct comorbidities to COVID-19.
HEALTH SYSTEMS
Different models and responsibilities
The governments of Peru and Brazil establish different models of care for indigenous populations. In Peru, the health care policy for indigenous peoples is within the Ministry of Health while care is the responsibility of the regional governments. In the case of Brazil, health policy for indigenous peoples is coordinated by the central level, the Ministry of Health, which has decentralized units, the Special Indigenous Health Districts (DSEI), in the Brazilian indigenous territories.
In the study locality, in the Peruvian territory, the first level of health care is organized in a network of services that includes 02 types of offer: the fixed offer and the mobile offer; the latter includes several options, such as itinerant hospitals and mobile teams. There are health centers in the Madre de Dios Natural Reserve – Monte Salvado and annex – that only have nursing technicians and belong to the Planchón Sanitary Micro-network. In more serious cases, patients are referred to the Santa Rosa Hospital in Puerto Maldonado. Besides not having enough staff, it also lacks the logistics (neither boat nor fuel) to move between the communities. However, recently, the Monte Salvado Post was provided with equipment to carry out Telehealth.
In Brazil, the Extrema village, in the Mamoadate IT, does not have a health unit in the locality. Therefore, patients are referred to the health center of the village Jatobá (Mamoadate IT) or to the municipality of Assis Brasil (Mixed Unit). Assis Brasil.
COVID-19
Despite the high rate of contamination, no deaths were registered in the region
By June 2021, more than 90% of the population of Monte Salvado was infected with COVID-19. Similarly, in the cities of Puerto Nuevo, Santa Alicia, and Nueva Oceanía, the population showed widespread COVID-19 symptoms. However, there were no fatal cases in any of the communities. In the case of the Manchineri population of Acre, generalized COVID-19 symptoms were also reported in the population, but there were no reported fatalities in the village.
The communities of Monte Salvado and Santa Alicia have good vaccination coverage (90%), while in Puerto Nuevo and Nueva Oceanía they did not reach the majority of the population (50%) due to the resistance of certain people to receive the vaccines due to religious issues or fears of various kinds, mainly based on false information from the internet. In the Mamoadate IT and specifically in the Extrema Village, the majority of the population has already been vaccinated with the 2 doses of the vaccine. As in the case of Peru, however, false information about vaccines influenced a group of people to reject the vaccination.
Importantly, the indigenous federations and associations in Peru and Brazil have made an extremely important contribution to ensuring timely health care for indigenous peoples in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
