Empty the Land · Episode 9 of 12 · 23 min
Soy, Palm Oil, and Sugarcane: The Farms That Erase Villages
Monoculture needs flat, empty, uncontested ground, and ancestral land is rarely any of those until it is cleared. The episode follows soy and cattle against the Guarani-Kaiowá in Brazil, sugarcane evictions in Guatemala's Polochic valley, palm and pulp leases on Orang Asli and Dayak forest, and the Merauke food estate in West Papua, which targets three million hectares.
Who's who
- Joko Widodo+1 more episodeIndonesian president whose government launched the Merauke estate as a national project
- Prabowo SubiantoIndonesian president who denied UN allegations about Merauke in 2025
- Marçal de SouzaGuarani leader assassinated in 1983 after petitioning for land
Where it happens
- Mato Grosso do Sul, BrazilGuarani-Kaiowá homeland now soy and cattle country
- Polochic valley, GuatemalaFourteen Q'eqchi' communities evicted in 2011 for sugarcane
- Gua Musang, Kelantan, MalaysiaTemiar blockades against logging and plantation concessions
- Merauke, South Papua, IndonesiaFood estate targeting three million hectares
- Central Kalimantan, IndonesiaDayak communities facing palm and pulp concessions
Timeline
- 1988Brazil's constitution recognizes Indigenous rights to traditionally occupied lands
- March 2011Police and soldiers evict about 3,000 Q'eqchi' from the Polochic valley
- September 2023Brazil's Supreme Court rejects marco temporal; Congress passes Law 14.701
- March 2025Nine UN rapporteurs write to Indonesia about Merauke
- July 2025Cimi reports 211 Indigenous people murdered in Brazil in 2024
- December 2025Brazil's Supreme Court again rejects marco temporal but leaves most of Law 14.701
Still debated
Cimi's count of 211 murders is a civil-society tally and a documented floor. Indigenous groups read the December 2025 ruling as a defeat dressed as a win, while agribusiness counsel read it as legal certainty.