Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) began deliberations this Wednesday on the Temporary Framework, the legislation that restricts the demarcation of indigenous lands, which is crucial for the protection of the Amazon and the global fight against climate change.
The court will analyze two constitutional challenges against the law, passed by the conservative-majority Congress in 2023, and one challenge defending its validity.
RELATED:
Amazon Hits 1.5°C Above Historical Average, Reaching Paris Agreement Threshold
The legislation established by Congress stipulates that indigenous peoples can only claim the lands they physically occupied on October 5, 1988, the date the Constitution was promulgated.
In 2023, the Supreme Court itself declared the Temporary Framework unconstitutional in a specific case. However, Congress passed the law that same year, defying both that ruling and the veto proposed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
El senado brasileño se anticipó a la votación en la Corte Suprema y aprobó el Marco Temporal, un artilugio del agronegocio para restringir la demarcación de tierras indígenas con la excusa de que deben demostrar ocupación territorial el 5 de octubre de 1988.
La trampa es que… pic.twitter.com/M3wT6f59UF
— Nacho Lemus (@LemusteleSUR) December 10, 2025
Faced with the deadlock, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) initiated a conciliation process led by Justice Gilmar Mendes, while Indigenous organizations asserted that the Temporary Framework is a “historical injustice.”
They denounced the fact that many were violently expelled from their ancestral territories, especially during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), and would be unable to prove their occupation on a specific date.
For its part, the spokesperson for the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), one of the organizations demanding that the deliberations be held in person at the court to exert pressure, stated that “this framework ignores centuries of dispossession and violence. Our presence and our struggle for the land are ancestral.”
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Senate approved a constitutional amendment to include the Temporary Framework in the constitution, a move that seeks to enshrine the legal argument. Social organizations say the text still needs to be voted on by the Chamber of Deputies, but it reflects the pressure from agribusiness to consolidate the restriction on indigenous territorial rights.
From teleSUR English via This RSS Feed.