Community Empowerment Facility Profile

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BACKGROUND

During the decade from 1970 to 1980, some segments of Brazilian civil society were able to forge new kinds of relationships with indigenous peoples in the regions where they worked. The effort to set up a network of NGOs providing political advisory assistance to indigenous peoples, together with increasing organization at the local and national levels of indigenous movements, resulted in changes referred to by the indigenous as the "time of Rights". Work was done on the fundamental task of recognizing and setting the boundaries of indigenous lands and supporting new productive and commercial strategies to deal with the advancing frontier of gold-seekers, farmers and timber interests.

Major achievements to date have included not only the conquest of all indigenous lands, but also the ability of indigenous peoples to live on, manage and conserve this territory. Moreover, they are increasingly able to conceive and carry out alternatives for sustainable management of their environment, and to plan and implement their own social, cultural and economic projects by identifying new solutions to the problems currently facing them, their indigenous lands and environment, and consequently the Amazon region as a whole.

There are 28 indigenous lands recognized by the Federal Government in the State of Acre today. The Upper Juruá Valley is home to 25 indigenous lands, 89% of those located in Acre .

The indigenous lands covered by the project are all either defined or in the process of certification, and most are located in the Juruá Valley, one of the country's richest regions in terms of its unique heritage of biodiversity.

The conquest of most indigenous lands in Acre represented a major accomplishment by the indigenous movement and by society generally. Now the need arises to manage those territories productively and sustainably. Defining boundaries secures territory but establishes physical limits and impedes traditional migrations. In combination with population growth, this calls for collective planning to avoid scarcities in natural resources essential to communities.

The indigenous agro-forestry agents (AAFIs) of Acre are professionals working on environmental management of indigenous lands. They have received training from Comissão Pró-Índio do Acre (Acre Commission for Indigenous Advancement - CPI/AC) in the form of classroom courses, laboratories, travel to provide advisory assistance to villages and exchange visits. The programme began with 15 agents in three indigenous lands. Currently there are close to 100 AAFIs working in 22 indigenous lands. This can be considered a successful experience considering the large increase in the number of agents over the eight years of the programme, high community demand to train new AAFIs and the relevance of training and action to indigenous actors in charge of environmental management in other regions of Brazil.

The main problem faced by this project is ensuring continuity in training for agents still functioning with initial training, as well as supporting and strengthening their activities. These include food production, breeding and husbandry of forest animals, management of natural/agro-forestry resources and territorial protection. Linkages for this purpose already exist between AMAAI-AC and IBAMA, FUNAI and other partners.

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INTERVENTION

Overall Objective

To promote the sustainable use of natural resources and protection of indigenous land in the project area, through outreach activities by AAFIs in their communities.

Specific Objectives

To strengthen actions by the AAFIs to enable them to identify, systematize, enhance and use environment-related knowledge and technologies in environmental management on indigenous lands.

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Activities

• Two classroom training courses for AAFIs
• Two itinerant workshops on indigenous lands: Caravana River Kaxinawá workshop and Upper Purus River Valley workshop
• Providing advisory assistance for all 17 indigenous lands in the project area and discussion of issues with AAFIs relating to their actions; involving communities (teachers, students and other village members) in advisory assistance activities; developing teaching products; establishing local associations with indigenous and non-indigenous organizations; supporting the implementation and management of agro-forestry model systems; obtaining socio-environmental data on indigenous lands
• Producing teaching materials

The programme pursues an environmental and intercultural philosophy of teaching, recognized as a complex task to be replicated in day-to-day training. This approach encourages communication among indigenous peoples and supports systematization of their lore and knowledge-building. The methodology proceeds through the ongoing, coordinated and coherent establishment of a set of actions and reflections. This practice involves the members of the CPI/AC technical team, the indigenous agro-forestry agents and other community members (health agents, teachers and students, relatives, etc.) and takes place, in the specific case of training for AAFIs, through demonstrational actions in natural resource production and management. These are reflected in actions by agro-forestry agents and their communities as they define elements to qualify interdisciplinarity, interculturality and interscientificity and the principle of authorship.

The implementation process involves a range of activities from logistical preparations for travel and courses to more qualitative activities such as planning meetings and seminars, curriculum development, oversight, evaluation, development of materials (questionnaires, fact-sheets) to gather data on the environmental management procedures being adopted by AAFIs and their communities, selection of teaching materials and support for training and community discussions.

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BENEFICIARIES

The project is intended to reach 17 indigenous lands covering an area of 1 486 072 hectares, with a population of 8 242.

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