How We Operate|ISA

how we act

ISA currently has six priority themes for our political action. Based on these, we closely monitor public policy proposals and decision-making, whether by the Legislative, Executive, or Judiciary branches, that may directly impact Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, their territories, and collective rights.

Furthermore, the organization seeks to formulate and present alternatives to public policies that result in increased environmental protection and guarantee the rights of the populations that live and preserve their territories.

We monitor Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units throughout the country, following the demarcation and creation of protected areas and the threats that loom over them, such as deforestation, infrastructure works, fires, mining, prospecting, and land theft (so-called "land grabbing"), especially in the Legal Amazon, making information available to society and informing public debate.

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Indigenous People

Traditional Communities

Politics and Law

Forest Economy

Threats and Pressures

Solutions

Indigenous People

“The encounter between Indians and whites can only take place under the terms of a necessary alliance between equally different partners, so that together we can shift the perpetual imbalance of the world a little further forward, thus postponing its end.”

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, anthropologist, one of the founders of ISA

The theme of "Indigenous Peoples" is at the heart of the Socioenvironmental Institute. It has been committed to this topic for at least four decades, producing information to better understand Brazilian society's indigenous peoples. Since its founding in 1994, ISA has continued the work of the Ecumenical Center for Documentation and Information (Cedi), which began in 1980 and, in turn, dates back to the early 1970s, when the then military dictatorship government launched the National Integration Plan, which included a significant infrastructure component in the Amazon, a region then described by official discourse as a "demographic void."

Through the reports collected, data produced, and research undertaken by a network of collaborators spread across various regions of the country, CEDI helped to disprove this theory. By publicizing the information gathered by this social network from the telex era, CEDI definitively put Indigenous peoples and their lands on the map of Brazil. Its members also actively participated in the movement to include Indigenous rights in the 1988 Constitution and, together with members of the Indigenous Rights Center (NDI) and environmental activists, founded ISA in 1994.

Since then, expanding its network of collaborators throughout the country, ISA has established itself as a national and international reference in the production, analysis, and dissemination of qualified information about indigenous peoples in Brazil. The website "Indigenous Peoples in Brazil", launched in 1997, is the largest encyclopedia published on indigenous ethnic groups in Brazil, with their languages, ways of life, artistic expressions, etc. The site is one of the main references on the subject for researchers, journalists, students and academics.

Our work currently spans the territories where we operate, especially in the Xingu Basin in Mato Grosso and Pará, and the Rio Negro Basin in Amazonas and Roraima. We also involve Indigenous peoples from across Brazil through ongoing updates of the website and its more than 200 entries, the inclusion of new texts on emerging ethnic groups and recently contacted Indigenous peoples, and the monitoring and journalistic coverage of situations of violence and loss of rights against these populations. The theme "Indigenous Peoples" is still addressed on the website. "Children's GDP", aimed at children, young people and educators.

Monitoring Indigenous Lands is also a central axis of our work on the topic, and dates back to the systematization of data and dissemination of information initiated by Cedi in 1986, and is done through the production of printed books and thematic maps on pressures and threats, such as deforestation, mining, prospecting, infrastructure works, among others, in addition to the website "Indigenous Lands in Brazil".

Check out the content produced on this topic:

Image	In encyclopedia format, it is considered the main reference on the subject in the country and in the world
Image	The most complete source of information on the subject in the country
Image	Special website aimed at children, young people and educators
Image	Panel of territorial consolidation indicators for Indigenous Lands

Traditional Communities

"Each traditional people has an identity, a history, a shared memory and a territory"

Neide Esterci, anthropologist, former president of ISA

Traditional Communities, according to the National Policy for the Sustainable Development of Traditional Peoples and Communities, are "culturally distinct groups that recognize themselves as such, possess their own forms of social organization, and occupy and use territories and natural resources as a condition for their cultural, social, religious, ancestral, and economic reproduction, utilizing knowledge, innovations, and practices generated and transmitted by tradition." Thus, quilombolas, rubber tappers, riverside dwellers, caiçaras, gypsies, beradeiros (people living on the riverbanks), babassu coconut breakers, geraizeiros (people living in the region), sertanejos (people living in the sertão), among others, can be considered Traditional Communities. All these peoples and communities are a fundamental part of the enormous plurality and sociocultural diversity of Brazilian society.

ISA has been working with Traditional Communities in the Xingu region of Pará and Mato Grosso, and in the Ribeira Valley, since the late 1990s. In Ribeira, we work in partnership with local quilombola associations, city governments, and civil society organizations to implement projects for sustainable development, income generation, environmental conservation, and improved quality of life for the region's traditional communities. It is worth highlighting our support for the productive activities of the Ribeira Valley Quilombola Farmers' Cooperative (Cooperquivale), which has contributed to the strengthening and valorization of the Traditional Quilombola Agricultural System. ISA has also supported the Forum of Traditional Peoples and Communities of the Ribeira Valley, which defends the rights of the region's communities and resists pressures and threats to these territories.

In Xingu, we work with riverside communities, also known as beiradeiras, who live in the Terra do Meio region of Altamira, Pará. These riverside families and communities are descendants of rubber tappers and Indigenous peoples, and their way of life is based on a deep knowledge of the forest and rivers they inhabit. Our lines of work include structuring alternative sources of income based on extractivism, supporting community organization and increasing the prominence of local associations, and implementing sustainable development projects. ISA also works with riverside associations and families to develop collaborative research on the local way of life and promotes collaboration between riverside communities and Indigenous peoples to produce and market these peoples' traditional forest products on a fair basis, ensuring quality of life for families and the continuity of the riverside and Indigenous cultures and way of life.

At the national level, ISA also supports the struggle of traditional communities in defending their rights - we are proud of our partnership with the National Coordination of Articulation of Quilombos, Conaq - through public mobilizations and political interventions in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches.

Politics and Law

Socioenvironmental Brazil: development, yes. In any case, no.

One of ISA's mottos at its founding

Politics is the means of exercising citizenship to guarantee rights. In this field, ISA aims to contribute to Brazil's becoming a more just and sustainable country, based on legal, institutional, and public policy frameworks that reflect the challenges facing Brazilian society, including indigenous peoples and traditional communities, whose role in preserving our socio-environmental heritage is fundamental. Through our work in Politics and Law, we bring to public debate and the formulation of norms and policies the experiences developed by and with our partners, as well as the knowledge accumulated by ISA itself on socio-environmental issues.

Working on the topic of Politics and Law has been a cornerstone of ISA's work since its inception. The Indigenous Rights Center (NDI), an organization that preceded and integrated ISA's founding, was a leading figure in Brazilian civil society in the 80s and 90s, working with the authorities to implement Indigenous constitutional rights, enshrined in the 1988 Constitution. The work of the Indigenous Peoples Program of the Ecumenical Center for Documents and Information (Cedi), another institution that participated in ISA's creation, has also always focused on guaranteeing the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Since its founding in 1994, ISA has expanded its work to include other socio-environmental issues, actively participating in debates on the formulation of laws and policies fundamental to the country's sustainable development. This work requires constant inter-institutional collaboration within civil society, social movements, and other sectors, which we achieve through the participation of our lawyers, researchers, and activists in collectives, forums, and networks.

The mission of the ISA team working directly on Politics and Law is to value propositional political and legislative initiatives, enhancing public debate and presenting solutions to current challenges, but without relinquishing obstructionist tactics and strategies of denunciation and political resistance against any threat of regression.

The ISA team brings together multidisciplinary profiles and works in close collaboration with the organization's other teams, always attuned to civil society's demands and proposals for the socio-environmental agenda and attentive to the actions of political actors and decision-makers. Furthermore, we are inspired by the social movement that mobilizes thousands of hearts and minds across Brazil to transform the country into a more just and sustainable place.

Forest Economy

With guaranteed rights over their territories and their cultures valued, indigenous peoples and traditional communities seek recognition from the State, society, and the market for the economy they have practiced for centuries, in some cases millennia, based on ancestral production techniques and care for the forests.

With this forest economy—also called the Sociobiodiversity Economy, or Care Economy—communities prioritize food security, ensure well-being, and even produce more biodiversity, which benefits the entire planet. However, state-sponsored development at any cost favors highly subsidized, polluting, predatory economic models and illegal activities that threaten, kill, and destroy.

In response to this enormous and historic imbalance of power, ISA seeks to strengthen the role of partner communities by promoting productive activities, community-based tourism initiatives, and forest restoration efforts in the basins of the Negro River in Amazonas and Roraima, the Xingu River in Mato Grosso and Pará, and the Ribeira do Iguape River in São Paulo.

At the same time, ISA also seeks to raise awareness in the private sector, governments, and the consumer market about the need to promote public policies and fair and transparent commercial relations that value the socio-environmental contributions of peoples and communities and respect their ways of life, territories, and cultures.

Threats and Pressures

ISA's work in monitoring "pressures and threats" is based on the understanding that "pressure" is a process of environmental degradation (deforestation, logging, mining, forest fires, etc.) that occurs within a legally protected area, such as Indigenous Lands, Quilombola Territories, and Conservation Units, such as National Parks and Forests, leading to the loss of socio-environmental assets and services. In other words, "pressure" is a process that can lead to the legal and environmental destabilization of a given protected area. "Threat," in turn, is the imminent risk of environmental degradation occurring within a protected area.

Taken cumulatively, these pressures and threats can generate negative socio-environmental impacts of sufficient magnitude and scope to trigger the collapse of ecosystem functioning and the livelihoods of local populations—and also negatively impact cities. Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, such as quilombola and riverside communities, are directly affected by these pressures and threats, as their territories are invaded, their forests deforested, and their rivers diverted and contaminated.

Here at ISA, the work of monitoring pressures and threats is carried out by researchers specializing in anthropology, socio-environmental law, land use modeling, and public policy evaluation. The team directly responsible for monitoring ISA's protected areas works as a liaison between researchers, policymakers, and decision-makers. This team's areas of expertise include developing scientific research and applications in geographic information systems and tools for monitoring the legal and demographic situation, as well as government projects that impact protected areas.

ISA's protected area monitoring program has accumulated expertise in monitoring pressures and threats since the 1980s, as one of the first civil society programs in Brazil to build an organized platform of socio-environmental information systems, even before government sectors. This work began at the former Ecumenical Center for Documentation and Information (Cedi) in 1983, with the monitoring of Indigenous Lands in Brazil. In 1992, still at Cedi, monitoring of Conservation Units in the Amazon and other public areas began. Its Protected Areas Information System (SisArp) is a web-based system with 15 data modules by specific themes, including the pressures and threats module. SisArp powers institutional websites that provide data, maps, images, videos, news, publications, and thematic analyses. Some sites are listed below; check them out!

Image	In encyclopedia format, it is considered the main reference on the subject in the country and in the world
Image	The most complete source of information on the subject in the country
Image	Special version of the PIB Encyclopedia for early childhood education;
Image	the first reference web product on this topic, launched in June 2007
Image	panel of territorial consolidation indicators for Indigenous Lands
Image	information panel on the state of forests and alerts on pressures and threats impacting protected areas.

Solutions

"We devastated more than half of our country thinking that it was necessary to leave nature to enter history: but behold, the latter, with its usual predilection for irony, now demands nature as its passport."

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, anthropologist, one of the driving forces behind the founding of ISA in 1994.

ISA works in partnership with Indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and traditional communities to develop innovative solutions to the challenges they face. Our initiatives support and promote the defense of rights, territorial management and protection, care economies, training processes, and inclusive and productive ecological restoration. They are based on transparent, equitable, and long-term processes of experimentation and knowledge exchange with our partners, which are based on valuing the ways of life of these populations and guaranteeing their rights.

Our approach combines the power of traditional knowledge with legal, academic, and market practices. Innovation, produced from this interaction between different worlds, thoughts, and languages, offers pathways to recognition by Brazilian—and global—society that these people care for and protect the forests that provide socio-environmental services for the very survival of the planet and each of us.

There are several other initiatives that offer original solutions to the challenges faced by indigenous and traditional populations in ensuring their right to land, well-being, and the preservation of their forests and intrinsically interdependent ways of life. The training of young indigenous communicators, for example, provides technical training to young people in the Xingu and Rio Negro territories to master technology to tell their own stories, defend their rights, and connect with the culture of their ancestors. See below for other examples of solutions developed by ISA and its local and national partners:

Copycat, Relative, the first podcast made in Brazil for the people of the forest
Solar Xingu, photovoltaic energy promotion project in Xingu
Middle Earth Canteen Network, in Xingu
Intercultural research that promotes dialogue between traditional knowledge and Western science
SIRAD monitoring, in Xingu, Yanomami Land and territories with indigenous peoples isolated
Public Campaigns for the protection of territories and ways of life, such as #It'sTimeForTheCountry, #ForaGarimpoForaCovid ou #IsolatedOrDecimated
Connection Quilombos of the Ribeira Valley and vulnerable communities in the region in the city of São Paulo
Promotion of Traditional Agricultural Systems Ribeira Valley and the Basin Rio Negro.

how we act