The main objective of this program is to produce and publicize information that can influence decisions about public policies and government actions concerning the defense of collective rights and the protection and conservation of Brazil’s environmental heritage. The program bases its operations on a georeferenced databank on Protected Areas (Indigenous Territories and Federal and state Conservation Units) as well as other public lands (military areas and mining reserves), which are compared with information on various topics at the national level.

The main feature of this program is its capacity to give rapid, detailed analyses by crossing spatial data on Protected Areas and various topics. ISA’s geoprocessing system takes information from its databank and projects it in spatialized form on a map of Brazil. The data is updated daily by members of the team. These dynamics have created and consolidated a system of cumulative data for the last twenty years, facilitating time-lapse studies on situations in the study areas.

 

History

The program was initiated in 1983 with the monitoring of Indigenous Territories in Brazil, and expanded in 1992 to cover Conservation Units and other public areas for specific uses. It allows information to be gathered on the official recognition and environmental situation of these lands, which is crossed with data on deforestation and the human impact on vegetation.

By monitoring government projects and private economic enterprises, such as hydroelectric dams, highways, waterways, railroads, mining, and logging, ISA can generate analyses that assist projects such as those promoting the sustainability of indigenous societies or of the environment in the face of economic development policies. These analyses make it possible to find out, for example, the percentage of the Brazilian biomes that are protected through different legal measures, which can assist discussions about environmental conservation, decisions about political actions, and evaluations on future impacts of legislation proposals on protected areas.

By constantly updating its data, this project produces a stream of articles, maps, reports, news, and information for organizations of traditional populations, indigenous support groups, environmental movements, the administrative, legislative, and judicial branches of government, multilateral agencies, and public media.  

Team

Coordinator: Fany Pantaleoni Ricardo (anthropologist)
Researcher: Cristina Velasquez (forestry engineer)
Intern: Tigê Castro Sevá (social sciences student) 

Partnerships and funding sources

  • Interecclesiastic Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), Netherlands: institutional support

  • Norwegian Church Aid (NCA): institutional support

  • Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation, Norwegian Program for Indigenous Peoples (NORAD-PNPI): financial support

  • European Union: financial support