Infrastructure
In the first six years of the Augustinian Recollects’ presence in Lábrea (1926-1932) alone, the missionaries built a school, an agricultural center, a carpentry workshop, a water treatment plant, an indigenous care post, three boats, painting and photography workshops, and rebuilt the cathedral; and they had three other buildings under construction, the first electric lighting, the first water networks in Canutama and Floriano Peixoto (Acre), and a supply well for Lábrea.
The first electricity arrived in Lábrea with a 230-volt, 11-amp, 2,530-watt DC generator connected to a four-horsepower internal combustion engine. This network was extended again in 1937. They also achieved industrial brick manufacturing and installed the first lighthouse in the port of Lábrea.
In 1932 they acquired a 14-horsepower motorboat for 20,000 pesetas (23,000€ today in terms of inflation, but around 100,000€ in terms of purchasing power) which they named Saint Augustine.
With the expansion of aviation in the 1960s, they were the driving force behind the construction of the Lábrea airport, guided by the Recollect friars Saturnino Fernández and Constantino Junqueira. An area 2,000 meters long by 150 meters wide was prepared in 51 days by 350 volunteers, all by hand, without machinery. In the early days, the missionaries promoted agricultural and timber production using motorized saws in Lábrea and Pauiní.
One of the most impactful projects has been the construction of Community Houses, which began in the 1990s to provide decent housing for migrants leaving the jungle and settling in the municipal seat of Lábrea. A total of 140 houses have been built, 110 of them in a new neighborhood called Solidarity Land. This project has also required the construction of wells, water and electricity distribution networks, and sanitation systems. In Pauiní, 23 houses were built between the municipal seat and a riverside community.
Digging drinking water wells was one of the Church’s traditional tasks until recently. Between 2000 and 2005 alone, five were drilled in Tapauá, five in Pauiní, and three in Lábrea, reaching depths of around 50 meters.
Many of the educational structures built by the missionaries are now publicly run, such as schools and sports centers. The three Hope Centers in Lábrea, Tapauá, and Pauiní have acquired their own spacious facilities to meet all the project’s needs: classrooms and workshops, sports facilities, green areas, an auditorium, a large kitchen, and more.
Telecommunications infrastructure was also largely developed by the Catholic mission. The first internal radio communication system allowed for messages and announcements of a family or civilian nature. It remained in operation until it was superseded by mobile telephony in the 21st century.
Since 1997 the Prelature has launched community FM radio stations in Lábrea, Canutama, and Tapauá; and a television station, associated with the Catholic broadcaster Rede Vida, in Lábrea. In 2015, it also established its own TV station, TV Nazaré.
Integral ecology and sustainable rural life
One of the main problems in the Prelature of Lábrea has been land, with the cruel paradox of being one of the least densely populated areas on the planet. The struggles to possess it have been constant, driven by the desire for its economic exploitation.
The first victims were the Indigenous peoples, increasingly relegated from their traditional territories to clear the way for the production of rubber, timber, and rainforest fruits. Those who refused to leave were massacred or forced into labor. Years later, the problem reached non-Indigenous river dwellers, harassed by large corporations and landowners from other parts of Brazil.
The defense of Indigenous peoples has been systematically undertaken since 1978 with the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and the publication of a denunciation by Bishop Florentino Zabalza in 1979. The massacre of the Juma people and the constant threats against Indigenous people led the Prelature Assembly in 1983 to adopt Indigenous pastoral care as a priority. The assassination of the Augustinian Recollect missionary Cleusa Carolina Rhody Coelho in 1985 reaffirmed the Church’s commitment and the necessity of this pastoral work.
In the late 1980s, a German priest, Günter Kröemer, organized CIMI and made the first contact with the Zuruahã people; the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Middle Purús was also created, comprising the Apurinã, Paumari, Jamamadi, Jarawara, and Deni peoples. In 2003, there were only four demarcated indigenous areas; today there are 31, with two demarcation processes underway. The indigenous population is growing after more than 300 years of continuous decline.
In the 1970s, missionaries organized the riverine communities through local ecclesial base communities, and through cooperatives, community plantations, and agricultural training courses within the Prelature. At that same 1983 Assembly, the Pastoral Care of the Land was prioritized as part of a mechanism to defend traditional communities and promote sustainable coexistence with the rainforest.
Thanks to CIMI and CPT, the Middle Purus region now boasts one of the largest mosaics of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon: more than three-quarters of the territory of the Prelature of Lábrea is protected. There are 12 conservation units: four Extractive Reserves (RESEX), two National Forests (FLONA), two State Forests, one National Park, one Biological Reserve, one Ecological Station, and one Sustainable Development Reserve.
The Church has achieved this social organization to confront the challenges of capital, which sees the rainforest only as an economic resource to be exploited. It has involved many hours of meetings, gatherings, training, trips along the rivers and their tributaries, securing resources for boats and launches, fuel, and food.
In 2005, the formerly antagonistic Indigenous and riverine communities held their first joint assembly in Tapauá to defend Abufari, a network of lakes threatened by large fishing vessels. This would become the first extractive reserve and pave the way for other models of territorial defense. Similar measures were achieved in Pauiní and Lábrea, in Ituxí.
The Church has denounced the bad practices of the logging companies, predatory fishing, the corruption that allows the theft of public lands and slave labor, a remnant of the aviamento agreement that persists to this day; one of the complaints in the town of Luzitânia, in Lábrea, in 2014, even implicated the municipal government.
In 2003 a livestock project for families was carried out in Belo Monte (Canutama) and another reforestation and seedling production project in 2009 in Lábrea.
