Amazon Alliance

Training Center for Indigenous Conservationists Opens in Brazil

Andréia Naique Taukane, a 29-year-old Bakairi Indian from the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso (which means “thick woods” in Portuguese), recently left her homeland and its remaining ancient forests to study 21st-century ways to protect them.

Armed with an education in geographic information systems, ecological management tools and the legal history of the indigenous movement, Taukane says she plans to return better prepared to defend her homeland. “It is important to learn how to manage our lands in order to obtain autonomy,” she says.

Taukane is one of 15 students from 14 indigenous groups to enroll in classes at the new Amazon Indigenous Training Center in Manaus, a city of 1.5 million on the Rio Negro. The center, which opened in August 2006, is the fruit of a Nature Conservancy partnership with COIAB, the largest indigenous federation in the Brazilian Amazon.
Hundreds of different indigenous groups control more than 20 percent of the Amazon basin. That’s about 220 million acres of indigenous land—an area as large as the states of California, Florida, New York and Texas combined. Meanwhile, about 160 million acres lie within the government’s system of protected areas in the Amazon.

Even though the right to use their lands rests solely with the indigenous peoples, says Paulo Celso de Oliveira, an instructor from the Pankararu indigenous group who holds a master’s in economic and social law, the lands “are often invaded or suffer pressure from third parties who seek their natural riches.”

The Bakairi, along with other indigenous groups, are proving to be an indispensable line of defense. According to a forthcoming study by the Conservancy and COIAB, “74 percent of indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon suffer less deforestation than surrounding lands” and have lower deforestation rates than many federally protected areas. “Indigenous lands,” the report says, “are acting as a barrier to the deforestation of nearly 8.64 million acres of tropical rain forest.”

At the training center, which is located in a renovated house in a tranquil neighborhood, students spend five months learning to accurately measure and mark tribal lands using Global Positioning Systems, remote sensing and computer data analysis, among other methods. The students also learn about the history of the indigenous movement and legal history, as well as how to patrol their lands against poachers and illegal loggers.

Taukane is already inspired to study the effects of mechanized agriculture in Mato Grosso. “This is just an initial idea, a dream,” she says, but notes that she now has the “tools possibly to make this dream come true.”

—Tristram Korten

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Margaret Francis/TNC