Residents from 29 communities in six municipalities in southern Maranhão participated in two "Tô No Mapa" workshops in the city of São Raimundo das Mangabeiras, on November 17th and 18th; and in Riachão, on November 20th and 21st. "Tô no Mapa" is a mobile application developed by the Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), and the Cerrado Network, in partnership with the Cerrados Institute, to enable communities and traditional peoples to self-map their territories.
According to anthropologist and ISPN technical advisor Carlos Lourenço de Almeida Filho, who coordinated the two workshops, the result was positive. "We managed to get the message across and guide the entire registration process, from how to download the app, enter the information, draw the map, and the validation of the registration with the community," he stated.
Mapping territories is a strategy to strengthen communities in the fight for rights, including land rights, and helps in the management of natural resources and collective decision-making. "Tô no Mapa" (I'm on the Map) is an accessible and free tool, built so that traditional communities, quilombola communities, indigenous communities, family farmers, extractivists, among others, can self-map their territories.
To validate the mapping and guarantee the accuracy and legitimacy of the information entered, Tô no Mapa requires the inclusion of the minutes of a "self-mapping meeting" in the community's registration. This meeting aims to verify whether the community agrees with the self-mapping. The meeting minutes must describe the points discussed, the agreements made, and the authorizations granted for carrying out the mapping.
With the workshops completed, the next step will be to support the leaders in registering the communities. "We formed groups on messaging apps to monitor and support the mobilization of each community, the holding of the self-mapping meeting, and the completion and submission of the registration form," explained Carlos Filho.
Communities
Most of the participants in the "Tô no Mapa" workshops in southern Maranhão were family farmers from traditional communities, some over 100 years old; or from settlements, in communities that were formed more recently, but have already existed for decades.
Some of these communities face conflicts in their territories, as is the case of Novo Horizonte, in Balsas, the largest city in the region. The community, home to 73 families, covers 1.214 hectares, is crossed by a stream, and has a communal farm with the cultivation of cassava, corn, beans, and rice; watermelon, okra, pumpkin, gherkins, as well as raising pigs and chickens.
“We have been squatters for many years, some families have been there for 40 years, but some people appeared claiming to be the owners and that they went there to extract minerals,” stated Sufia Cabral Neta, who is part of the community's residents' association. The land dispute in Novo Horizonte is in court.
Other communities, such as the Vale do Tapuio settlement in Riachão, do not face land tenure problems, but suffer from the absence of public services. Raimundo Barbosa, a settler and family farmer, says that the community of 184 families does not have a health post and that they have gone 30 days without water. The access road to Vale do Tapuio, which is 42 kilometers from the center of Riachão, is also another problem pointed out by the farmer.
“The roads are terrible. In the dry summer, you can travel fine by motorcycle, car, or animal, but when winter comes, the road falls apart. The truth is, we live in a rural slum,” he says.
By the first half of 2023, the Tô no Mapa initiative had recorded the self-mapping of more than 24 families from 241 communities across Brazil, more than half of them in Maranhão.