Indigenous people who could gain demarcation were already considered extinct for 100 years in Acre

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The Nawa indigenous people, in the interior of Acre, are closer to achieving the official demarcation of their traditional territory after decades of fighting for recognition. This week, Funai validated the technical report that identifies and delimits the area occupied by the group.

The recognized territory is between the municipalities of Mâncio Lima and Rodrigues Alves and covers around 65 thousand hectares. With the approval of the study, the area is no longer treated merely as a claim and begins to have a defined administrative delimitation, a stage that precedes the following legal phases of the demarcation process.

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Now, according to the established procedure, it will be up to the Ministry of Justice to analyze the case. The minister will have 30 days to officially declare the limits and determine the physical demarcation of the land or reject the identification.

According to the Terras Indígenas portal in Brazil, the Nawa territory is occupied by more than 500 indigenous people, considering data from 2014.

A people considered extinct for about a century

Despite today fighting for territorial recognition, the Nawa spent around 100 years being officially considered extinct.

According to a report by , the erasure occurred after people left areas close to the current city of Cruzeiro do Sul in the 19th century, fleeing epidemics, violence and conflicts caused by economic expansion in the region.

The article reports that historical documents recorded, in 1893, that Nawa no longer existed in the location. In practice, however, the people simply dispersed throughout the forest to survive. Over time, many began to live as rubber tappers, working under heavy exploitation during the rubber cycle.

Recognition of the people’s survival gained strength again in the 2000s, when indigenous people found families who maintained their Nawa identity, even after decades of invisibility.

The Vozes da Floresta report highlights that the indigenous people “were not defeated, but suffered violence from bullets, fire, diseases and also the pen”, referring to the official historical erasure.

Fight for territory and identity

According to the article, the Nawa maintain a traditional presence in the Moa River region, in and around the Serra do Divisor National Park. There, they faced new conflicts when the conservation unit was created without prior consultation, which generated disputes over permanence and use of the land.

Over the last few decades, leaders have reported threats such as land pressure, infrastructure projects and the absence of adequate public policies. In response to the State’s delay, the people even carried out actions of symbolic self-demarcation of the territory.

The validated identification process now represents a historic advance, as it officially recognizes the traditional occupation of a people who, for decades, were treated as non-existent in official records.