Territorial Management Course reaches its second edition with debate on rights, history and border identity
Bathing in the river, festivities, breaking of chestnuts and freedom... The words quickly fill the slate, dictated by young edgers from the Morro do Anfrísio community, at the Riozinho do Anfrísio Resex, in Pará. They are answers to the question: what do you see good in the edge? The activity, which brought a reflection on quality of life and monitoring possibilities, is part of the most recent stage of the Territorial Management Course, whose second module has just been held in the three Resex of Terra do Meio, throughout the month of July.
The module lasted one month, followed by a first training session, which took place in January of this year. In the latter, about 60 students from the Resex Riozinho do Anfrísio, Rio Iriri and Rio Xingu, as well as from Esec Terra do Meio, another Conservation Unit in the region, participated in the classes, which took place in the localities of Morro do Anfrísio, São Francisco and Gabiroto. .
The Territorial Management Course was first held between 2011 and 2016, covering several stages. Promoted by the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) and Fundação Viver Produzir e Preservar (FVPP), with support from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), the training cycle aimed to train people of reference in the Resex, aiming at the development of autonomy and protagonism in socio-environmental issues present in the region.
Throughout its modules, the first edition of the course trained around 40 students, including young people and adults from Xingu, Iriri and Riozinho do Anfrísio. From the course benches, advisors and leaders of the Resex residents' associations came out.
Herculano Filho, better known as Louro, is one of them. A participant in the first edition of the training cycle, he returned in 2022 – this time as a teacher. “I am very honored, but I am also always learning,” he says. For Louro, one of the great legacies of the course is the appreciation of the border identity and the establishment of bridges, viewing the territory in a different way, with tools such as GPS and knowledge of laws. “Why learn what we already know? It's just that it's not enough to know if you don't disclose it to others,” he explains.
There are also graduates of the Management Course who have become teachers of schools that multiply throughout the territory. The numerous teaching establishments are, in fact, an indication that the Resex that received the first editions of the course today live a very different reality from that found in 2011 in terms of access to rights and citizenship. Among the achievements of the border communities, there are 21 schools in operation, with about 350 students enrolled in the territory, as well as three centers equipped with a health post and conditions for quick rescues, by air or river.
“The Territorial Management Course with Borderers from Terra do Meio aims to bring important content and languages for the management of the territory and for the relationship with the surrounding society”, explains Augusto Postigo, ISA anthropologist and course coordinator.
“It is based on an initial reflection on identity, the history of the Beiradão and the regional and national context in which these people are inserted. Hence, it brings useful tools and content such as mapping, legislation, research, monitoring to leverage the protagonism of the edgers in the processes that involve territorial management and the conquest of rights, he says.
Laws and mapping
If the advances are many and evident, the pressure vectors on the territory have also multiplied, particularly in recent years. Several Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units in the region have been increasingly invaded, appearing at the top of deforestation rates.
Therefore, one of the main themes of the training stage that took place last July was the importance of mastering tools of struggle, which include identifying instances of the State. “It is essential to know what are the laws, rules, norms that govern that territory, and the rights that have to do with the territory”, explains Nurit Bensusan, one of the coordinators of the course. “And you can only understand this if you have a minimal understanding of the country's legal system, the way it operates. Knowing this is essential to know who to turn to when you fight for rights.”
The premise that it is not enough for something to be a right provided for by law for it to automatically materialize also motivated the work with the theme of territorial monitoring. Although the Resex have crowned an important fight against land grabbing and for the territorial rights of the bordering families of the Middle Land, the defense of this territory is a reason for permanent attention.
“In March, we talked a lot about the importance of history. Our focus, from the point of view of archeology, was to show how there was a way to make an older history, and how this way of life could be seen historically from the point of view of materiality”, explains Vinicius Honorato, professor of archeology at Ufopa. and one of the course coordinators.
“In this module, we work with mapping in these two directions: first, producing information with spatial references, then thinking about the mapping tool in the various possible functions, defending the territory, supporting arguments, among others.” The classes thus included everything from literacy on maps to the installation of applications on students' cell phones that allowed the reading and production of georeferenced information.
Exchange with other territories
The second module of this last Territorial Management Course also included leaders from traditional communities from other territories. Three representatives from the region of Jureia, located on the south coast of São Paulo, were present.
Dauro do Prado, Marcos do Prado and Daiane Neves shared their experience of fighting for their traditional territory with the young Beiradeiros. “The history of struggle and resistance of the caiçaras of Jureia brings a permanent role and seeks to encourage each community to assume this role as well”, explains Dauro. “The exchange values the knowledge that the caiçaras already have and can exchange, and was based on the recognition and identification of students in our history of struggle for territory and way of life.”
Throughout history, the caiçaras of Jureia have faced different threats, but since 1986 the main one comes from the government itself, which created the Jureia-Itatins Ecological Station there and began to curtail their way of life - in recent years, even demolishing the houses of two young families, one of them that of Marcos and Daiane. “Talking about our current situation is not easy”, says Daiane, “but it made the students understand how important unity is, engagement against any form of oppression and expulsion from their territories”.
For Marcos, participation in the course contributed to verifying a series of approximations and contrasts between realities. “São Resex, a type of UC that allows people inside, who have a reality that we really wanted to have in Jureia, which is the protection of the forest with the people inside, so it was very important for us to see how it works”, he says. “In addition to transmitting all the experience we have in the Jureia struggle here, the work of the people in mapping, creating evidence and strengthening the community.”
The tools of struggle for territorial rights that the caiçaras of Jureia shared with the borders of Terra do Meio were of different types, from the use of maps to the occupation of spaces such as the National Council of Traditional Peoples and Communities (CNPCT), which Dauro was a member of. until recently.
“It is important to understand that this space was created from traditional peoples and communities, and we need to occupy it”, says the Caiçara leadership, noting that there is room for the request for entry of the Beiradeiro segment in the council.
Liliane Santos da Silva, from Triunfo, on the Iriri River, said she really enjoyed taking part in the course, which for the first time had students who, like her, live inside the Terra do Meio Ecological Station. “It was a learning experience. We thought that it was just people who lived in an ecological station, under rules", says the young woman, highlighting how the connection was inspiring to think about a horizon of change: "If they didn't give up 30 years ago, why did we Do you have to give up now?”.
Another exchange provided by the course was with Francisco Firmino da Silva, better known as Chico Caititu, border leader of the community of Montanha and Mangabal, in Alto Tapajós, municipality of Itaituba (PA). Chico Caititu has been engaged for years in the struggle for territorial rights in his region, which are also threatened by a series of infrastructure projects and territorial invasions.
“The river is a mother to us and the forest is a father. So I think this course is very important to teach young people to fight to know which tools to fight for our way of life, for our territory”, highlights Seu Chico, who was pleased with the reception of the students. “They are excited, some of them are already learning the way”.
As these threats cross borders, the struggle of the Montanhas and Mangabal borderers has joined, in recent years, to that of the Munduruku People's neighbors, in an alliance manifested in territorial defense actions, both in the indigenous territory and in the border. Seu Chico has played a prominent role in these processes of self-demarcation of territories – which has also earned him death threats.
“For me, it was very gratifying that they came and told us these stories”, says Selma Bezerra de Castro, from Riozinho do Anfrísio. “For me, this course served as an example to encourage us, too. I keep thinking how there are things we could have that sometimes we don't know where to go or run. That one day I can make a difference and help my Resex, this is my dream”, says Maria Patrícia Correia Lima.
The participation of Caiçara leaders and their Chico Caititu in the Management Course took place within the framework of the research project "Traditional Communities, Environmental Conservation and Territorial Policies", the result of a cooperation agreement between the Research Support Foundation in the State of São Paulo (Fapesp, project 2019-25507-7) and Fapespa (Amazon Foundation for Studies and Research, project 072/2020).
What is a good life on the edge?
As already mentioned, one of the topics discussed with the students was conceptions of what a good life on the edge is, along with ways to monitor this quality of life over time. In this sense, Gabe Schwartzman, a geographer who is currently doing his doctorate at the University of Minnesota, in the United States, worked throughout this second module with student teams to create a survey on quality of life on the edge. “My main expectation is that this constitutes a good first research exercise”, says the young doctoral student.
Schwartzman jointly structured questionnaires and questions, and practiced qualitative interviews with students. Until August of this year, the young Beiradeiros will carry out this research in their own communities, receiving an allowance. “Later on, this could lead to more in-depth research into the reasons why young people decide to stay or leave the Resex,” says Schwartzman.
In addition to the application of questionnaires on quality of life, students of the course will also monitor food and daily activities. The objective is to start a collaborative monitoring that allows the generation of historical series of data to monitor whether what the borderers consider a good life is being achieved.
what's next
This Territorial Management Course will have at least four more modules, scheduled to take place throughout 2023 and 2024. The training cycle has been made possible with resources from the Darwin Initiative, an organization linked to the British government, through the project “'We are the forest': Training and socio-environmental services for the edgers of Terra do Meio, Amazon”.
This second module of the course was also supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Other pedagogical coordinators for this edition of the territorial management course are Roberto Rezende, an anthropologist at ISA, ecologist Raquel Rodrigues dos Santos and Bruna Rocha, archaeologist and professor at the Federal University of Western Pará (Ufopa).