By Mayara Subtil*
In response to the advance of environmental crimes, invasions and other illicit activities in indigenous territories in Brazil, IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute) and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) launched the publication Good Practices for Strengthening Participatory Surveillance Applied to Indigenous Territorial Protection in Brazil on Tuesday (12) at the Italian Embassy in Brasilia, produced as part of the project Strengthening Early Warning Systems and Responses to Environmental Crimes related to SAR-TI (Illegal Gold Mining in Indigenous Territories), with support from the Italian government, through the MAECI (Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation).
Click here to download the publication.
The document brings together evidence, experiences and recommendations, built on dialogue with indigenous and indigenist organizations, civil society organizations and public institutions, to strengthen territorial protection, preserve indigenous peoples’ ways of life and guide more effective public policies in the face of growing pressure from illegal activities on these territories.
The advance of environmental crimes, invasions and other illegal activities in Brazil’s indigenous territories poses a growing challenge to the protection of these areas and the preservation of their peoples’ ways of life. Being on the front line of the effects of climate change, these territories and their populations play a strategic role on the international environmental agenda, both in terms of biodiversity conservation and their ability to mitigate and adapt to the effects of the climate crisis, helping to disrupt criminal dynamics that degrade the environment and threaten vulnerable communities.
In this context, initiatives led by the indigenous themselves show that valuing ancestral knowledge strengthens territorial protection, increasing their ability to protect their territories, face pressures such as invasions, mining and illegal deforestation, as well as continuously maintaining the environmental and cultural conditions that sustain their way of life.
For IPAM’s Deputy Director of Science, Patrícia Pinho, “participatory monitoring, when guided by traditional indigenous knowledge, strengthens the capacity of these peoples to adapt to the growing pressures on their territories. At the same time, it ensures the continuity of practices that maintain environmental balance and cultural integrity, fundamental aspects for lasting territorial protection and which also make an unprecedented contribution to global climate regulation.”
In one of its main sections, the publication takes a concrete look at how indigenous territorial surveillance has been strengthened by systematizing practices developed in different regions of Brazil, showing how these initiatives have evolved in terms of complexity and their ability to respond to environmental crimes. Based on technical meetings, workshops and exchanges between indigenous leaders, the document organizes concrete lessons on how to strengthen effective indigenous surveillance systems, adapted to local realities and based on the protagonism of the communities themselves.
“The publication shows that territorial surveillance goes beyond the physical protection of the territory: it is a tool for strengthening autonomy, indigenous governance and the transmission of knowledge between generations, consolidating itself as a central element of the identity and contemporary social organization of these peoples,” said Ray Pinheiro Alves, a researcher at IPAM’s Indigenous Studies Centre.
Delving deeper into these experiences, the manual details how these systems work and are organized, from community-based organizational models to more formalized structures with dedicated teams, decision-making flows and coordination with public bodies. It also discusses the different formats of action, which can combine continuous presence in the territories, seasonal missions during critical periods, and rapid responses to emergency threats.
UNODC’s work in Brazil is based on the understanding that the protection of indigenous territories is directly linked to confronting criminal networks involved in the illegal exploitation of natural resources and rights violations. This approach guides the Office’s mandate, which supports member states in preventing and combating transnational organized crime through international cooperation, the production of evidence and the strengthening of institutional coordination. It is in this context that initiatives such as the SAR-TI project and the publication are inserted, which seek to strengthen the connection between territorial protection, human rights, environmental governance and the role of indigenous peoples in the country.
In his opening speech at the event to launch the publication, the Italian ambassador, Alessandro Cortese, highlighted the political and operational value of the publication as an instrument capable of bringing together the experiences of indigenous communities and ensuring effective multilateral cooperation within the framework of the United Nations to prevent and combat environmental crimes such as deforestation, illegal mining and illicit trafficking that affect the Amazon region.
Roiti Metuktire, from the Raoni Institute, stressed that the publication can support care for indigenous territories and reflect the diversity of realities in Brazil. According to him, the process involved challenges related to language and translating indigenous knowledge into Portuguese without losing its cultural meanings. He also emphasized that the construction of the material was the result of much dialogue and exchange of experiences, incorporating the practical knowledge of indigenous peoples to strengthen territorial protection.
Traditional knowledge integrated with technology
Another central theme of the publication is the integration of traditional knowledge and contemporary technologies. The document shows how indigenous surveillance integrates indigenous knowledge and technologies, such as reading forest signs, changes in the behavior of fauna and traces of invaders, with geotechnologies, data collection applications and remote monitoring via satellite and drones.
The publication also details the main types of threats monitored in indigenous territories, such as invasions, illegal mining, illegal deforestation, arson, illegal hunting and fishing, as well as impacts associated with organized crime, such as violence, exploitation and environmental degradation.
Good Practices
The publication also presents a set of key recommendations for strengthening indigenous territorial surveillance. These include information management and security – from the collection and standardization of data to its strategic use in denunciations and political advocacy – the adoption of protection protocols for indigenous agents in risk contexts, tackling the challenges of funding, infrastructure and technical training to ensure the sustainability of actions and the articulation between indigenous systems and institutional mechanisms, in order to enable more coordinated and effective responses.
Policy Brief
The publication is accompanied by a policy brief, a synthetic version aimed at decision-making, which summarizes the main evidence and recommendations for strengthening indigenous territorial surveillance. Both materials can be accessed free of charge on the IPAM and UNODC websites.
Initiatives and evidence in practice
The construction of the manual dialogues directly with initiatives already underway in the Amazon that have demonstrated, in practice, the effectiveness of integrating indigenous technology and science. One example is SOMAI (Indigenous Territorial Monitoring System), which has already strengthened the protection of more than 80 Amazonian territories.
The tool, co-developed by IPAM and the institute’s partner organizations, shows how solutions developed with indigenous people can enhance territorial protection strategies without neglecting the cultural specificities of each people.
At the same time, the manual is anchored in scientific evidence that reinforces the urgency of strengthening these protection mechanisms. IPAM’s technical note shows that illegal mining has left more than 80,000 exploration sites in the Brazilian Amazon, directly affecting more than 241,000 hectares and advancing at an accelerated rate within Indigenous Lands, where the impacted area grew 16 times between 1985 and 2022.
Even so, science has made progress in recognizing that lasting solutions necessarily involve incorporating indigenous knowledge. According to an IPAM article published in the journal Science, the combination of indigenous and non-indigenous science increases the effectiveness of conservation strategies by integrating divergent ways of understanding and managing the territory.
This convergence, reflected in the manual, points the way to more effective public policies, based not only on technical data, but also on the experience of the peoples who have historically ensured the protection of socio-biodiversity.
*IPAM communications analyst. mayara.barbosa@ipam.org.br
**Cover photo: Mayara Subtil/IPAM
