Brazil

Brazil Program Overview

The Brazilian Amazon is one of the world’s best-known ecosystems and is a rallying point for people concerned about the global environment. Besides its importance in biodiversity, the Amazon also is home to many of the most remote indigenous cultures in the world. All of us are aware of the fact that the Amazon basin is facing the immense pressure of unbridled development, which is endangering its plants and wildlife. The areas where the forest is best preserved mostly coincide with Indigenous Territories: the indigenous populations are major stakeholders, since they depend on the forests for their very survival.

The Brazil Program of the Amazon Conservation Team became full-fledged in 1999 with two efforts: the successful protection of the Uwasu Rainforest Reserve, and the initiation of an biocultural mapping project for Kamayurá indigenous ancestral lands in the Xingu National Indigenous Reserve upon the direct invitation of the tribe. Since then, the Brazil Program has grown to encompass a variety of conservation projects, and we now have offices in Manaus, Macapá, and Canarana to complement our main administrative office in Brasilia.

Current Projects

• Mapping in the Xingu

ACT and its indigenous partners completed the collaborative mapping process for the entire Xingu Indigenous Park, an area that encompasses more than seven million acres. This mapping project has brought together the 14 tribes of the Xingu, representing the first time they have ever worked together to complete a single project.

“This is truly the first effort in the history of our territories that has united our 14 tribes toward a common end, and these are the first maps to be published in our native languages.”
—Tunuly, Yawalapiti Tribesman

• Brazil-Suriname Border Region Biocultural Protection

ACT seeks to protect 20 million acres of rainforest on indigenous lands in the Brazil-Suriname border region through proven biocultural conservation strategies. ACT is working with the Tirio, Wayana, Apalai, and Kaxuyana of the region as well as local government agencies and tribal councils in building local conservation capacity by strengthening local culture and by completing parallel conservation and management plans for both sides of the border.

• Indigenous Handicrafts and Self-Sustainability

ACT is implementing a sustainable development project in the Tumucumaque region under an agreement already signed in December 2002 between ACT, APITU, the indigenous communities of the Xingu, and the FUNAI Amapá regional administration.

Selected Achievements

• Kamayurá and Yawalapiti Mapping Project

In 2002, ACT and its indigenous partners completed maps of the Kamayurá and Yawalapiti areas of the Xingu Indigenous Park, covering 1,250,000 acres. ACT equipped the indigenous researchers with handheld GPS units and provided training in ethnographic map composition, while western-trained cartographers assisted with the technical map assembly. In the process, ACT worked in collaboration with FUNAI (the Brazilian indigenous affairs agency), and with PPTAL(the Pilot Program to Preserve the Brazilian Rainforest). The maps were released in a three-day ceremony in the Xingu.

MSNBC Coverage of the Mapping Project | The New Scientist Coverage