On the eve of ISA's 30th anniversary, the president and founding partner, Márcio Santilli, tells a little about the history of the organization and socio-environmentalism in the country
Article originally published on the Coletivo Brasil website, on 17/04/2024.
O ISA, Instituto Socioambiental, will turn 30 in April. It was founded by people active in the defense of indigenous rights and the environment, collaborators of CEDI, the Ecumenical Center for Documentation and Information, and NDI, the Center for Indigenous Rights, organizations that ceased to exist with the creation of the ISA, in addition to SOS Mata Atlântica, which continued to exist as an autonomous institution. A few years later, two other entities, FMV, Fundação Mata Virgem, and CCPY, Pro-Yanomami Commission, were also incorporated into the ISA.
In 1994, Brazil was experiencing a moment of democratic consolidation, after the impeachment of Fernando Collor, the inauguration of Itamar Franco and the implementation of the Plano Real, under the command of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The country was also digesting the impact of Rio-92, a UN conference held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which brought together heads of state from around the world to sign conventions on biodiversity and global climate change.
The preparation and holding of this meeting led to the concomitant mobilization of environmentalists, indigenous people, artists, scientists and social movements, crossing agendas that, until then, had rarely met, and sharing experiences and expectations about the country and the world. The conventions resulting from this event are the main international references for sustainable development and established a new perspective on Brazil's socio-environmental diversity, its assets and liabilities.
Forest people
The convergence between social and environmental agendas is not obvious and results from a historical construction. When northeastern migrants advanced through the Western Amazon to work in the rubber plantations, there were many conflicts between rubber tappers and indigenous people. But the advance of the agricultural frontier and deforestation fronts has placed them facing a common threat. The rubber tappers promoted “draws”, led by Chico Mendes, to stop the devastation that was advancing on the rubber plantations. The original peoples fought to protect their territories from loggers, miners, land grabbers, among others. In this context, the Forest Peoples Alliance* emerged, bringing the two populations together.
Chico Mendes did not come from the environmental movement. He was a union leader. The rubber tappers' struggle for agrarian reform forged extractive reserves (Resex), associated with forest conservation and the subsistence of communities that depend on the standing forest. The Resex became part of the SNUC, the National System of Conservation Units. The constitutional definition of lands traditionally occupied by indigenous people also incorporated environmental protection and their future use.
Historically, political leaders have used, for better or worse, the creation of conservation units (UCs) on lands occupied by indigenous peoples and other traditional populations. For example, in 1961, when there were still no solid legal bases to demarcate traditional indigenous territories, then president Jânio Quadros created, by decree, the Xingu National Park (MT), fundamental for the survival of several indigenous peoples. On the other hand, in 1987, President José Sarney issued decrees creating the National Forests of Amazonas and Roraima, covering the Yanomami indigenous territory. The objective was not to demarcate the area in its continuous extension and reduce it to 21 discontinuous “islands”, guaranteeing stretches of forest for exploitation by non-indigenous people.
There are frequent cases in which indigenous, quilombola or extractivist communities, whose territories overlap with those of restricted-use UCs, are constrained for planting their fields and making other traditional uses of the land.
Concept
In 1994, it was already evident that, in the context of an emerging Amazonian country, the protection and management of forests are intrinsic to the ways of life of traditional populations. With the advancement of demarcations of indigenous lands, starting in 1992, it also became evident that the degree of conservation in them is equivalent to that of restricted-use conservation units.
Over this time, environmentalists, leaders of social movements and supporting organizations have understood that the future political sustainability of territories and other legally protected areas will be increasingly associated with the services they provide to society as a whole. The defense of the environment and social rights must go hand in hand.
Today, the use of the expression “socio-environmental” has become widespread. It can be in an advertising piece, in a religious sermon, in a military document or in a doctoral thesis. In 1994, it was not a common word, but it summarized the processes underway. By adopting it as a name, the founders of the ISA They established the epigraph “socio-environmental is written together”.
Roots and antennas
O ISA inherited institutional cultures, funders, collections, projects, collaborators and partners from different organizations. Based on these legacies, it maintains four lines of action: (1) production and dissemination of knowledge, with more than 660 publications produced, including books, research, diagnoses, technical notes, opinions and booklets, among others, in almost 30 years; (2) defense of rights, which seeks to influence public policies regarding the socio-environmental agenda; (3) communication, which produces and disseminates news and specialized information, through its own channels and press offices; and (4) support for local partners, with institutional strengthening actions, development of forest production chains, territorial monitoring, formation of networks of communicators, identification of partnerships and training processes.
For that, the ISA has a vertical structure, with three regional programs, anchored in long-term partnerships with quilombola, extractivist and indigenous organizations, in the basins of the Negro (AM-RR), Xingu (MT-PA) and Ribeira de Iguape (SP-PR) rivers ). The performance of regional programs is defined and planned with local partners.
O ISA it also has a thematic program on Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, which maintains databases and specialized reference publications, with a team based in São Paulo. And, also, the Socio-Environmental Policy and Law Program, based in Brasília, which monitors the treatment of the socio-environmental agenda by the powers of the Republic.
In addition to these programs, the ISA develops permanent executive secretariat, administration, information technology, documentation and communication services, coordinated from São Paulo.
The teams from ISA operate from eight offices: São Paulo (headquarters), Brasília (DF), Eldorado (SP), Canarana (MT), Altamira (PA), Manaus (AM), São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM) and Boa Vista (RR ). O ISA integrates several inter-institutional coordination networks, regional in scope, such as the Xingu + Network, national, such as the Climate Observatory, and international, such as RAISG, the Amazon Network for Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information.
In addition to the socio-environmental conceptual synthesis, the “root-antenna” relationship, which aims to connect, in a two-way street, local communities and territories and political decisions, mainly at the national level, guides the actions of the ISA. Far from being linear, the daily friction between general norms and policies, and local expectations and demands, reveals contradictions, which require adjustments and corrections. The “root-antenna” relationship also derives from the diverse nature of the partners, their regional insertions and national political situations.
Accumulations
With all these years and so many insertions, it is not easy to list the failures and successes of the ISA. Breaking down hundreds of activity reports would be inglorious and the list would fall outside the format of this publication. Furthermore, it would be confused, at one end, with the growth and achievements of local partners and, at the other end, with the merits of our allies, be they partner organizations, scientists, public authorities, businesspeople or communicators, in the construction of laws, international policies and agreements.
The continued institutional presence of ISA has been fundamental for the construction of a socio-environmental perspective for Brazil. Starting from the premise that, in the plural and horizontal field of the third sector, “no single swallow makes summer”, the ISA helps to vertebrate this field and would not make sense without its allies and local partners. O ISA It is a springboard, but only social movements in this field together will lead us to Socio-Environmental Brazil.
O ISA It currently has around two hundred employees, but it has been and will still be the work space for hundreds of people, who take some of it to other institutions and other areas of activity. The organization is a school for a type of activism that cannot be learned at school. He invited an entire generation to look at Brazil from a socio-environmental perspective and, thus, consolidate the concept.
O ISA It is a bank of information and experiences about Socio-Environmental Brazil. Its collections are the subject of millions of consultations and a source of information for teachers, researchers and communicators. Between 2020 and 2023 alone, the institution's set of websites had more than 18 million unique visitors. In the same period, the organization was cited more than 3,7 times by the largest newspapers and other press outlets in the country.
The qualified information made available by the ISA help public bodies seek answers to the demands of indigenous and traditional communities. Ministries, federal executive bodies, parliamentary fronts, Federal Justice, Public Ministry and state governments demand the organization's information and opinions. O ISA It is part of, for example, Conaveg, the Executive Commission for Controlling Illegal Deforestation and Recovery of Native Vegetation, among other bodies representing civil society. The organization monitors legislative processes related to the socio-environmental agenda, promotes and participates in relevant legal processes for the defense of collective and diffuse rights.
Institutional transition
O ISA reaches 30 years with an extensive schedule of celebrations, in São Paulo, and mobilization of employees and partners. The memory of those years, its main actions and the results of its projects will be recovered. A film and a book will be released about the trajectory and legacy of the anthropologist Beto Ricardo, protagonist of its construction.
In recent years, bodies have been created to welcome and listen to employees, relationships with partners, affiliates and supporters, policies against gender and racial discrimination. O ISA is changing its face, incorporating Brazilian diversity.
O ISA finalized the strategic planning of its activities for the next five years, whose expectations will be shared in the celebration of its 30th anniversary. The advances of indigenous, quilombola and extractive movements in recent years, demonstrating resistance and mobilization capacity, and occupying their own spaces in governments, invite the ISA and other organizations to rebuild their relationships on new bases.
These will be years of intolerance and political polarization. The country will be subject to the worsening impacts of climate change and will have to face its social and economic differences. Strategic planning must prepare the ISA for difficult times, which require institutional changes and creative paths, capable of convincing and mobilizing new generations.
*Forest Peoples Alliance was a movement that aimed to establish natural reserves in the Amazon where economic subsistence was possible through the extraction of latex from rubber trees, as well as the collection of other forest products