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First Group of Students Graduate from Amazon Indigenous Training Center

January 9, 2007

The Conservancy’s Amazon Conservation Program and partner COIAB, the largest indigenous federation in the Amazon, recently celebrated the graduation of the first group of 15 students from the Amazon Indegenous Training Center (CAFI) in Manaus, Brazil.

CAFI, as it is known locally, is a pilot initiative in the promotion of conservation in indigenous lands, which comprise nearly 22 percent of the Amazon Basin—an area the size of Texas, California, New York and Florida combined. The Center is the first of its kind in the Brazilian Amazon to work exclusively in training indigenous youth in conservation techniques specific to indigenous lands.

Traditionally, indigenous people have sustainably managed natural resources for their communities. However, increasing internal and external pressures for natural resources including illegal logging, poaching and over fishing threaten indigenous lands. In order to counter these threats, indigenous people themselves identified the need for increased, culturally-appropriate technical assistance in sustainable land management. Out of this scenario, CAFI was born and inaugurated in August 2006. CAFI’s mission is to strengthen local and regional indigenous organizations by training indigenous technicians to work in land management in their own territories.

The first group of students, coming from 14 different groups of the Brazilian Amazon, completed the first 5-month course offered: Ethno-environmental Management. Disciplines offered as part of this course include: monitoring and patrolling in indigenous lands, geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing techniques, indigenous and environmental law and ethnomapping, among others.
 
CAFI’s graduating students are excited to return to their homes to put into practice the technical knowledge gained. Andréia Naique Taukane, from the Bakairi group, says that her future plans include developing a database to monitor the environmental impacts of mechanized agriculture on indigenous lands in her home state of Mato Grosso. “I hope to be able to pass along the techniques learned at CAFI to my people. This is important in order for us to strengthen our autonomy and sustainably manage our territories.”

The next group of students will begin classes at CAFI in February 2007 in a course centered on Project Management specific to indigenous lands. According to Lúcio Terena, CAFI’s director and member of the Terena group, “the experience gained with the first class was very positive and allowed us to learn, analyze and perfect our actions in order to better receive the next group of students.’’     

For More Information:

• Where We Work: Brazil

  Many of Brazil’s plants and animals are found no where else on earth. Brazil’s sheer size, 3.3 million square miles—an area larger than the continental United States—and its abundant natural resources crystallize its importance. Brazil’s environmental health has the potential to impact all of us on a global scale. 

• Where We Work: The Amazon

  Covering an area larger than the entire continental United States and containing the largest tropical forest in the world, the Amazon River Basin harbors nearly one-third of the world’s species and contains nearly one-quarter of the earth’s fresh water. 

• How We Work: The Nature Conservancy and Indigenous Peoples
  Most of the world’s biodiversity exists in areas inhabited by people. Effective conservation cannot be achieved unless the people who live and rely on those lands are an integral part of the conservation process.

• Save of the Week: Conservancy and partner launch indigenous training center for conservation in the Amazon
  This past week, the Conservancy’s Amazon Conservation Program and partner COIAB, the largest indigenous federation in the Amazon, formally inaugurated the Amazon Indigenous Training Center (CAFI) in Manaus, Brazil.

• Archive of our Saves of the Week and Success Stories
  Read more about The Nature Conservancy's work to save the last great places on Earth.