The Management Committee of the National Policy for Quilombola Territorial and Environmental Management (CG - PNGTAQ) was installed last Tuesday (25/2). The inauguration of the committee came with a delay of one year and three months after the institution of politicsin November 2023. 

According to the initial forecast, 90 days later the edict with the criteria and procedures for quilombola organizations that wished to join the body. However, this only happened in October 2024. The result, with the list of names of the entities and representatives now sworn in, was published in the Official Gazette only on January 28th of this year (see the table below). 

PNGTAQ is essential to strengthen and protect quilombola territories, which are spaces of resistance for these communities, essential for their existence and quality of life, and also of great importance for the conservation of sociobiodiversity (learn more below). The committee is responsible for planning, coordinating, articulating, monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the policy, in accordance with the Decree 11.786 / 2023, which instituted it.

These areas and their residents are facing all kinds of pressure and threats, from land invasions and timber theft to violence from gunmen. Because of this, and because the titling of territories is also progressing at a snail's pace, the quilombola movement had great expectations for the implementation of PNGTAQ.

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“There is a difficulty in synchronizing the times provided for in the regulations with the real conditions of carrying out things in everyday life, even because the team that deals with this issue also deals with so many other issues”, explains Ronaldo dos Santos, national secretary of Policies for Quilombolas, Traditional Peoples and Communities of African Origin, Peoples of Terreiros and Gypsies of the Ministry of Racial Equality (MIR). 

“With all this, when we evaluate the implementation of the policy at its beginning, we understand that the delay in implementing the management committee did not compromise the policy. On the contrary, we are very satisfied with the results achieved,” he emphasizes. 

The Minister of Racial Equality, Anielle Franco, congratulated the establishment of the committee and reinforced the importance of the continuity of PNGTAQ, which has faced, and continues to face, a series of challenges in its implementation. “It is in these moments that we grow. As a good athlete, I always say that when the game gets tough, we play better. And this committee that is taking office here today is also part of that,” she said. 

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Budget challenge

One of the challenges in implementing PNGTAQ is the budget. Initially, R$20 million was made available, but since then, the ministries involved have joined forces to obtain more resources. “Despite the delay in the inauguration of the representatives of the steering committee, this, in part, does not affect the search for the main objective, which is financing the policy,” commented the general coordinator of Policies for Quilombolas of the MIR, Rozemberg Batista, during the inauguration of the committee. 

“The MIR has not stopped during this time, it has achieved very valuable achievements, including with partners that are present here, such as BNDES. We already have a considerable partnership to announce, which is the financing of local territorial and environmental management plans in the Legal Amazon, in the order of around R$33 million in the first batch, and we will certainly observe and fight so that this space can have even more resources”, he added. 

“My cry is mixed, as a secretary, at this moment but also as a member of a community. Our struggle is daily to have a budget. We do not need a small budget, we need a large budget”, reinforced the national secretary of Traditional Peoples and Communities and Sustainable Rural Development of the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), Édel Moraes. 

Who makes up the committee?

Representatives of five quilombola organizations, one from each region of Brazil, and the National Coordination of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ), were present to be sworn in and begin the committee's work. The committee also includes representatives from the Ministries of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger (MDS); Education (MEC); Citizenship (MC); Agrarian Development and Family Farming (MDA); Environment and Climate Change (MMA); and Racial Equality (MIR) – the latter three considered the government's “hard core” in terms of policy.

Check out the table below with members of the quilombola organizations on the management committee.

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What is PNGTAQ?

According to Decree 11.786/2023, PNGTAQ must promote territorial and environmental management practices developed by quilombola communities, act to guarantee their territorial and environmental rights, favor the implementation of public policies in an integrated manner, protect tangible and intangible cultural heritage, conserve biodiversity and encourage its sustainable use, and also promote the improvement of quality of life and climate justice for these populations.

According to political coordinator and member of the Conaq coordination team, Biko Rodrigues, “when we talk about a territorial management policy, we talk about protecting the territory; the area that you will leave for management; the area that you will produce; the way in which you will produce; how you plan this territory looking from top to bottom, with the perspective of safeguarding it for future generations,” he explains.

"What we increasingly want is to have a quality of life to protect our territories. Because we cannot deny those who will come the right to see trees standing or rivers running freely. We are committed to protecting them now," he adds.

“Territorial and environmental management already exists. In practice, territories already do this. Every territory has territorial and environmental management practices. So this policy has a single role, which is to enhance these practices. Everything that was thought of in the policy reflects the ancestral and territorial practices of the communities,” said the director of Quilombola Territories at the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), Mônica Borges. 

Borges also highlighted PNGTAQ’s relationship with the land regularization of these areas, which takes a long time. “Safeguarding the territory through territorial and environmental management means ensuring that, when regularization arrives, the territory still exists. PNGTAQ is this tool that has the function of ensuring that people remain in the territory and strengthening communities. Above all, it is about remaining and safeguarding the lives of those in that territory,” he concluded.  

PNGTAQ is intended for all quilombola communities in Brazil, regardless of their land tenure status. For the first time, the quilombola population was identified as an ethnic group (IBGE, 2024). The Census identified 8.441 quilombola communities throughout the country, which reinforces the importance of robust investments so that this public policy reaches where it needs to go. Joint efforts by ministries and partners are essential to achieve the commitment to defend quilombola territories. To get an idea of ​​the problem of land regularization in these areas, it is enough to remember that there are currently more than 3,7 communities certified by the Palmares Cultural Foundation (FCP), while only 395 communities have been titled, according to Incra.