“The non-indigenous people believe that the sky is where they go when they die, but for the Wari’ people, it’s the river,” explains Eva Canoé, an indigenous leader in Guajará-Mirim, in the northern Brazilian state of Rondônia. “The rivers are their heaven.”
Last week, the city council of Guajará-Mirim approved a law that defines the Laje River as a living being and rights holder, making it the first Brazilian body of water to receive such individual protection.
The Laje River’s newly acquired rights include to “maintain its natural flow,” “nourish,” and “be nourished,” and to coexist with humans and their spiritual, recreational, and cultural practices.
The Laje River is a tributary of the Mamoré, which joins the Madre de Dios River in Bolivia to form the great Madeira River — the largest tributary of the Amazon. Most of the Laje River is located within the protected indigenous territory of Igarapé Lage, a 1,070-square-kilometer rectangle of forest situated between the municipalities of Nova Mamoré and Guajará-Mirim.
Igarapé Lage and the Laje River are the ancestral home of the Wari’ people, who were first contacted in 1956 after years of conflict with the white man. According to 2017 estimates by the Brazilian indigenous peoples foundation Funai, 1,101 people live within the Igarapé Lage territory.
“The Laje River is fundamental to the indigenous population,” notes activist Iremar Ferreira, of the Committee for the Defense of Amazonian Life (Comvida), which played a key role in the project to recognize the river’s natural rights. “As they say, that’s where the spirits of their dead go; when we violate their river, we violate their sacred land.”
The law foresees the creation of a “guardian committee” that will oversee the river’s rights and be consulted before any intervention that could affect its waters. “The committee will be...
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