URL: http://www.amazonteam.org/index.php/201/Park_Guard_Training

Park Guard Training

Newly trained indigenous park guards The maintenance and integrity of protected areas is a key function of any land management plan: it can mean the difference between "paper parks"—officially designated protected areas with no meaningful protection—and areas that make a true contribution to world conservation.

In 2005, ACT commenced a project to train a generation of South American indigenous park guards to assist in the protection and management of their traditional lands, areas encompassing tens of millions of acres. The goal of this project is to protect indigenous rainforest lands from external threats, to protect the cultural and natural treasures in the region, and to increase the capacity of indigenous communities to work with outside actors in the management of their lands.

Training and Certification

Pard guard training sessionAnnually, in partnership with local tribal associations, ACT conducts an indigenous park guard training course in the northern Brazilian state of Amapá. The course is certified by the International Park Ranger Federation and produces 20-25 guards per session. ACT supplies all equipment and transportation, and provides uniforms, tools and instruction manuals to those successfully completing the course. Among the many course collaborators are a range of state institutions typically including Brazil’s environmental protection agency, the national firefighting corps, the national indigenous affairs agency, and the federal university of Amapá.

The two-week course curriculum includes modules including but not limited to:

On-The-Ground PresenceIndigneous park guards visit with villagers

The newly certified rangers—currently representing over a dozen ethnic groups from two countries—are capable of assuming the on-the-ground responsibilities required to protect their traditional lands, which are often pressured by external forces including illegal logging and mining.

The rangers assume the responsibility for protecting their natural and cultural treasures, while leaders of the different indigenous organizations carry the responsibility for coordinating the rangers’ activities so that the area may be optimally managed.  They share their surveillance information with state and national environmental protection agencies to enable better enforcement of existing laws—such joining of forces greatly increases the reserves’ chances for remaining whole.  The rangers represent a significant advance in ACT’s effort to build indigenous capacity so that these communities have the tools to face the challenges of the modern era on their own terms.

Non-indigenous Park Guards

After observing the content and rigor of ACT’s first indigenous park guard training course in 2005, governmental and NGO institutions from the state of Amapá requested that ACT consider conducting a parallel course for non-indigenous representatives of agencies involved in conservation and protection work in the Brazilian Amazon.  In 2006, ACT met this demand by offering its first institutional park guard training course, drawing participants from dozens of official state institutions. By 2008, demand had become so great that ACT decided to conduct the course twice annually.

In Brazil

To date, the great majority of participants in both ACT’s indigenous and institutional park guard training courses are Brazilian. Trainees have come from across the nation, but most are residents of the northern rainforest state of Amapá, in which some of the most pristine rainforest lands in the northern Amazon remain. Indigenous trainees originate from areas within and surrounding the 10-million-acre Tumucumaque Indigenous Park, ethnographically mapped in a partnership between ACT and local tribes in 2002. There, they provide indispensable monitoring manpower along Park borders where none had previously existed. Additionally, several indigenous trainees have been hired by the Brazilian environmental enforcement agency to serve as rangers in the adjacent and equally large Tumucumaque Mountains National Park. More..

In Suriname

Representatives of Suriname’s Trio and Wayana tribes first graduated from ACT’s indigenous park guard training course in 2007, and quickly became important figures in the vast interior as replicators of their acquired knowledge and as monitors of indigenous border areas. The immediate impact of these seven individuals led the Suriname government to ask ACT to help it design and conduct its first official national park guard training course, conducted in November 2008 with the participation of ACT-trained rangers and the guidance of ACT staff. ACT provides ongoing support to the annual implementation of this course. More..

Results