December 6, 2021

08:12

Karol Rocha – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – In December of this year, the first repossession action that took place in the area known as “City of Lights”, in the West zone of Manaus, completes six years and the reality of that irregular occupation, currently, continues the same: a reflection of the lack of a housing plan in the capital that invades the forest and degrades the environment. The invasion, called a neighborhood by its occupants, is located on the border with the Parque das Tribos Indian community, in the Tarumã neighborhood. There, hundreds of residents feel in their skin the difficulties of living without access to drinking water, electricity, and urban mobility since public transportation does not access the streets.    

“We have three kinds of difficulties here: the electric power that we don’t have, the second is water, we use wells, and the third is the transportation that we don’t have. The bus stop is 1.5 kilometers away, we need to leave the neighborhood”, said housewife Ednelza Pereira Campos, 53 years old.

The domestic says she lives in irregular occupation for, at least, four years, on land donated before the repossession action occurred on December 11, 2015. At the time, the operation was coordinated by the Amazonas Secretary of Public Security (SSP-AM). Even without having lived through that moment, she says she is afraid of a new action. “Here I built a masonry house. I came from Itacoatiara for a medical treatment for my daughter. Today she is waiting in line for knee surgery. I am scared to death that they will take our house”, added Ednelza.

Igor Pimentel Almeida, 43, earns his living working as a fish vendor. He chose to live and work in the “City of Lights” because of the lack of food sales in the community. “Before I worked there in Manoa and since there was a lack of fish here, I started to sell. I sell all kinds of fish, from pirarucu to jaraqui, fruits, vegetables, flour, and juice. Everyone who lives here is a family man and a worker”, he said.

Dreams

It may seem like a small dream if you live in a noble neighborhood in the largest capital of the Amazon, but the dream of Luzia Lima Câmara, 38, is to have a refrigerator. In the simple masonry house, she has only a bed and a stove. “We don’t have a refrigerator. I buy food to eat on the day or I keep food in my neighbor’s house. What I want most in my life is a refrigerator, because it is very humiliating to ask people for help, and there are many people here who don’t like to help”, she said.

Luzia lives with her husband and two small children. Her expectation for the future is to educate the children and return to the labor market as a general service. “I’ve worked in a family home, I’ve worked in a company with general services. For the future, I want to continue living here, put my son in day care, help my husband, and buy things for the house. It’s very bad if you want to buy things and you can’t”, she explains.

Losses remain in the memory

The construction worker Jeisiam Souza Ferreira, 33, was one of the residents removed from the site with his family in 2015, when gas bombs were thrown against the families, while men and machines destroyed the irregular shacks. A year later, in 2016, he made a point of returning to the housing, where he is to this day. He remembers that he lost what little he had. “From the past, we only remember the loss. Everything we had went down the drain, but thank God, He has restored us and we are in the fight for housing and for our well-being,” he said.

Devastated environment

According to the State Department of Environment and Sustainability (Sema), Manaus has more than 55 invaded areas. And one of the most important and protected areas which is under threat of invasions is the Adolpho Ducke Forest Reserve, located in the Cidade de Deus neighborhood, north of the capital.

According to environmentalist Carlos Durigan, the deforestation and degradation of these areas threaten the natural heritage and species such as the collared sauim, which is currently one of the most endangered primates in Brazil. “Deforestation also promotes the increase of carbon emissions, contributing to global warming and the reduction of forest cover in the urban space. It compromises our quality of life and opens space for the propagation of various health problems”, he said. He continued: “We are in the heart of the Amazon and even our forest fragments are still important for biodiversity and for the provision of ecosystem services that provide us with quality of life.  

Lack of public policy

According to a MapBiomas study, 45% of the urbanized area in Amazonas is composed of slums. The work was released on November 4th this year and the survey is based on satellite images, gathered between the years 1985 and 2020. The doctor in Social Sciences and professor at the Federal University of Amazonas, Marcelo Seraphic, explains that the origin of the formation of invasions is in two situations:

“One is related to the public housing policy, which is non-existent or insufficient; and the other, from the limit imposed on a huge contingent of people from accessing the participation in the wealth produced in the country, which is expressed in the low income and the situation of poverty and social vulnerability.” He points out that people in poverty are the ones who usually look for irregular areas to build a house, and the exceptions “need to be identified and explained”, he says.

Read more: Manaus mayor’s assessor had brothers awarded with apartments; she was a candidate for the Avante party

Among the most common problems of this type of housing is the lack of basic services. “In addition to the problems common to most of the city, in these areas the lack of public services and the privatization of public space are even more serious, expressed in sanitary conditions, housing and inadequate streets; in addition to lack of recreational spaces, schools and health clinics; exposure of people to situations of violence, among other problems”, he pointed out.

As a solution, Marcelo Seraphic believes in fighting social inequality. “In this case, it is presented in two types of wealth distribution: on one hand, the distribution that results in greater investment in public services related to urbanization (sanitation, housing, health, education, transportation, and security); on the other hand, the distribution that results in stable access to income, which enables people to maintain and plan their lives”, he concluded.