Where we operate | Socio-environmental Institute

Where We Work

ISA works side by side with indigenous, quilombola and extractivist communities in the Vale do Ribeira, in São Paulo, Rio Negro (AM and RR) and Xingu (MT and PA) basins, with a presence in four states of the Brazilian Amazon. Our work in these territories is long-term, including multidisciplinary teams with permanent action in line with our institutional mission and in accordance with the priorities presented by local partners.

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Rio Negro

The Rio Negro Basin extends through the states of Amazonas and Roraima, in Brazil, and also advances through the neighboring territories of Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana. In its portion in the Amazon, the basin is one of the most preserved regions of the entire Amazon biome, with incalculable biodiversity. On the other hand, the part of the basin located in Roraima has been suffering great environmental degradation caused by illegal gold mining, deforestation and land theft, or "land grabbing".

Approximately 68% of the Rio Negro Basin in Brazil is formally protected by a set of legally recognized conservation units and indigenous lands. The cultural diversity of the region is enormous: 45 indigenous peoples live there and two cultural heritage sites of Brazil are located – the Cachoeira de Iauaretê and the Traditional Agricultural System of the Rio Negro – in addition to the highest point in Brazil, Pico da Neblina, a sacred place of the Yanomami people.

In Rio Negro, ISA maintains long-term work and institutional partnership - which fills us with pride - with indigenous associations and their leaders, including the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Rio Negro (Foirn), the Hutukara Associação Yanomami (HAY) and the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR).

We maintain an office and team in the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM), considered the most indigenous municipality in Brazil, located in the Alto Rio Negro. From São Gabriel, we also went down with the waters of the Negro to support indigenous communities and associations in the municipalities of Santa Isabel do Rio Negro and Barcelos, both in the Amazon. In 2009, ISA incorporated the Pró-Yanomami Commission (CCPY) organization, its team and legacy, opening an office in Boa Vista (RR) and starting to work directly with the Yanomami people and other peoples of Roraima.

Currently, ISA works in the Rio Negro Basin with the promotion of training processes, articulating partnerships for the protection of indigenous territories, appreciation of socio-environmental diversity, food security for communities, development of value chains for the forest economy to generate income and production of intercultural research that gives visibility to the traditional knowledge and ways of life of the populations that, for many years, have kept the region's forests preserved.

Xingu

The Xingu River Basin is a region between the states of Mato Grosso and Pará that symbolizes Brazilian socio-environmental diversity. A diversity of peoples, forests and rivers that are born in the Cerrado and flow into the Amazon forest, in the center of the national territory.

This socio-environmental diversity of the Xingu is largely sheltered within a "corridor" of protected areas (indigenous lands and conservation units) that represents 50% of the area of the Xingu Basin. These protected areas and their forests, connected to each other, shelter one of the richest biodiversity on the planet and 26 indigenous peoples and riverine populations, who resist and insist on existing as part of the present - and the future - of Brazil.

Today, the Xingu is the scene of conflict between these ways of life and an economic model based on predatory activities that involve deforestation, fires, intensive use of pesticides, mining, illegal logging, land grabbing, construction of hydroelectric plants, railways and roads. .

The forests, rivers and peoples of the Xingu are the shield against the devastation that advances in Brazil. In the basin are located the municipalities and indigenous lands with the highest deforestation rates in the last 10 years in the Legal Amazon. The sources of the Xingu River have already lost more than 40% of their forest cover. Despite this, the socio-environmental diversity and the incredible resilience of the Xingu peoples represent a concrete opportunity to agree on a new model of development and relationship with the forest and your people.

That's what we at ISA have been working for almost three decades with our feet on the ground, with teams and offices in the cities of Canarana (MT) and Altamira (PA), together with our local partners, in three main lines of work: economy of forest, forest restoration and territorial protection.

Ribeira Valley

The Ribeira Valley, between São Paulo and Paraná, is a region of Atlantic Forest, with a strong presence of indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, caboclas and caiçaras. It is these traditional populations that, with their cultures and ways of life, keep the region's forests standing, resisting predatory activities and the uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources. The quilombola, indigenous, cabocla and caiçara presence makes Vale do Ribeira a socio-environmental heritage in Brazil and a fundamental region for climate balance, biodiversity protection and rain production between two large metropolises in the country: Curitiba and São Paulo.

ISA has been working in Vale do Ribeira since the late 1990s in partnership with associations and local civil society organizations to guarantee the territorial rights of quilombola communities, as well as the protection of forests, rivers, estuaries and other ecosystems in the region. We are grateful for the learning of struggle that communities and their leaders have passed on for so many centuries and teach new generations.

ISA's work in the Ribeira Valley currently follows three strategic lines: political articulation for the defense of rights, strengthening of resource management in quilombola territories, with emphasis on the structuring of the Vale do Ribeira Seed Network and valorization of the Traditional Quilombola Agricultural System Ribeira Valley, and promotion of forest products, with emphasis on support for the production and marketing, by communities, of organic production from local agrobiodiversity for income generation.

Amazon

The Amazon (or "Pan-Amazon", to look at the biome as a whole, beyond Brazilian borders) is an integral socio-ecological system, shared by eight countries and a French province in South America, which benefits all the inhabitants of the planet. Its enormous socio-environmental diversity is a strategic asset both for the tropical environment of South America and for the balance of the Earth's climate. forests, such as quilombola and riverside communities.

We at ISA believe that in order to strengthen an integral vision of the Pan-Amazon, look at the biome as a whole, it is necessary to overcome fragmented approaches and promote initiatives with territorial synergy, considering regional, national and international geographic scales to, in the end, strengthen the territories indigenous peoples and protected areas throughout the Pan-Amazon, which means increasing forest protection. To move in this direction, in 2007 ISA helped create the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (Raisg), a network formed by civil society organizations from Amazonian countries with extensive experience of working in the Amazon and with its peoples.

In these 14 years, Raisg has produced and disseminated maps, statistical data and socio-environmental information on the Pan-Amazon, which contribute to the monitoring of 3,8 million hectares of indigenous lands and protected areas in 6 of the 9 "Amazonian countries" (Brazil , Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela). O Atlas Amazon Under Pressure 2020 brings together the most recent versions of many of these maps.

As Information produced by the network of South American organizations also generates evidence on the value of the Pan-Amazon to face the climate crisis and can help in decision-making in sustainable development processes at different planning levels (municipal, state, national and international ) to prevent and mitigate environmental degradation in the region. Since 2017, Raisg has partnered with the MapBiomas Brasil initiative to map land use cover in the Amazon region. The products and cartographic data produced by the network are available for download on its platform: www.amazoniasocioambiental.org.