The Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN) was present at the XII Brazilian Seminar on Protected Areas and Social Inclusion (Sapis) and at the VII Latin American Meeting on Protected Areas and Social Inclusion (Elapis), which this year had as its central theme: Territories, Conserved Areas and Sociobiodiversity: paths to equity and peace.
ISPN's participation in these debates sought to increase the visibility of indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, and traditional communities as historical and contemporary protagonists in the care of protected areas. Furthermore, it presented projects and networking efforts that help demonstrate the role of indigenous and traditional peoples in biodiversity conservation through the protection of their territories.
Visibility
A recurring theme throughout the entire program of this edition of Sapis/Elapis, held from May 18 to 22 in Brasília (DF), was the relevance of territorial demands and environmental management strategies led by traditional peoples in the country..
In this context, ISPN, IPAM, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, and the Cerrados Institute held a thematic session on the importance of self-mapping of territories entitled "Areas Protected by Traditional Peoples and Communities: Territory, Conservation, and Life." In addition to discussing current challenges in defending traditional territories, the session included reports on some mapping experiences on Marajó Island (PA) and in southern Maranhão.
“Many of the identified communities were not on the map. While carrying out the work and starting to look at the satellite images, the communities became aware of several threats they were unaware of. In one case, they observed that the neighboring farm had extended its fences into their territory, including an area considered sacred,” reports Lidiane Vilhena, a member of the Quilombola Action and Resistance Nucleus of Campina, Marajó Island (PA).
In Lidiane's assessment, working with the Tô no Mapa app enabled an intergenerational dialogue by involving the griots (Storytellers, who preserve the memories of their people, keeping traditions and ancestral heritage alive.) and young people. “I was able to realize the size of my territory, which is much larger than the part I used to travel through and know. When a territory is mapped by those who live in it, the information becomes a tool for transformation, networking, and belonging.”
According to Lidiane, based on the report generated by Tô no Mapa, Malungu, the Coordination of Associations of Quilombo Remnant Communities of Pará, managed to accelerate the certification process for the quilombo community of Boa Esperança by the Palmares Foundation, a process that had previously been shelved.
Public policies
The president of the Quilombola Association of Macacos, Brejim and Curupá, Raimunda Ribeiro, also participated in the thematic session and reported that the mapping of "Tô no Mapa" brought, in addition to visibility, advances in public policies.
“With their mapping and the report generated by the application, the community requested the installation of digital inclusion points from the Justice for All Program, aimed at quilombola communities in Maranhão, and solar energy panels for all families in the Territory. Both requests were fulfilled,” Raimunda points out.
During the Experience Report, the president of the Peasant Association (ACA), Raimunda Francisca Paz, explained that one of the community's objectives in joining the "Tô no Mapa" program is to seek the implementation of public policies, especially land regularization.
"Based on this database, we have already been able to map how many communities are in conflict, how many have already experienced significant deforestation, and how many have already initiated [legal] processes," he explained.
multipliers
ISPN, together with the Public Prosecutor's Office and IPAM, promoted the Mini-course. Platform for Traditional Territories And the "Tô No Mapa" program, which introduced participants to these two fundamental tools for the visibility and protection of traditional territories in Brazil. The objective of this activity was to empower course participants so that they can support the registration of traditional territories and act as multipliers in their own territories.
ISPN's socio-environmental analyst, André de Oliveira Moraes, explained to the participants the importance of registering the community on all available platforms. “Experience tells us that even for Indigenous and Quilombola communities who have their territories titled, there is no guarantee of much, so we recommend that the more territorial safeguards, the better. Therefore, complete the CAR PCT [Rural Environmental Registry of Traditional Peoples and Communities], register on the Platform and on Tô no Mapa, surround yourself with all possible tools.”
The leading role of peoples in the climate agenda.
In the roundtable discussion "Traditional Territories: regulations and implementation of a national system, interactions with Latin American countries and relations with the CBD and Target 3," ISPN contextualized the Brazilian situation of lack of knowledge and formal recognition of collective territories of traditional communities and the importance of these territories for environmental conservation.
Current challenges include addressing threats to Traditional Territories, such as illegal land grabbing and the impacts of large-scale projects, and giving greater visibility to communities and their environmental contribution.
“It is important that we can realize the right to free, prior and informed consultation. One of the bottlenecks in not realizing this is because the territories are not on the map,” says Isabel Figueiredo, coordinator of the Cerrado Program at ISPN.
Traditional Territories: regulations and implementation of a national system, interactions with Latin American countries, and relations with the CBD and Goal 3. Photo: Amanda Vieira/ISPN Archive
Amazon Forest
In the Conversation Circle Women's empowerment in the management of traditional collective territories: experiences of beneficiaries of the Floresta+ Amazônia Project., Three women were invited to share their stories: Elisângela Conceição, a riverside leader from the Uatumã River Sustainable Development Reserve (AM), Natália Alves, a leader from the Cariongo Quilombo, and Marina Cíntia Guajajara, a member of the Nairuy-Taw Association and a leader from the Arariboia Indigenous Territory (MA).
"That Forest+ project "It taught us a lot, it taught us about unity, collective work and, above all, about women supporting each other," lists Marina Guajajara.
Indigenous leaders emphasize that this collective not only helped generate income for women, but also became a welcoming space, especially for those who rarely left home. “There was a time when some women were having relationship problems. Working in the collective, being in that group, pulled them out of a period of anxiety, almost depression.”
The project coordinated by Marina, Guajajara Women: Protecting the Forest and KnowledgeThe project aimed to strengthen women's contribution to the conservation and protection of all forms of life and the ancestral heritage of the Guajajara people, as well as to restore degraded areas at the headwaters of the Buriticupu River.
Approximately 70% of the projects supported under the Forest+ Communities program are directly related to gender issues. In the initiative coordinated by Marina, women received guidance and carried out activities such as project management workshops, installation of organic chicken coops, construction of seedling beds, implementation of Agroforestry Systems (SAFs), training in traditional medicines, and indigenous art.
Executed in partnership with the Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN) and with the support of the Amazon+ Forest Project, the initiative is funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA), and the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
Mosaics of Protected Areas
ISPN has participated in several debates on Protected Area Mosaics as a central strategy for integrated territorial management in Brazil, articulating the conservation of socio-biodiversity, social inclusion, and the strengthening of public policies, especially addressing the importance of Indigenous Lands in this policy, which gained momentum with the recognition of... Gurupi Mosaic, in the Amazon region of Maranhão and eastern Pará, in July 2025, where he serves as Executive Secretary.
Envisioned within the National System of Conservation Units (SNUC), mosaics operate by integrating conservation units, indigenous territories, quilombola territories, and other protected areas, promoting participatory governance and systemic approaches to the landscape.
The Working Group Integrated Socio-environmental Management and Democracy: Governance Arrangements in Protected Areas and Mosaics in Brazil, brought together mosaics from the Atlantic Forest, the Amazon, and proposals for creating mosaics in the Cerrado, and debated the crucial role of the alliance between indigenous, quilombola, and traditional peoples with academia and government institutions in the constitution of mosaics.
In the Conversation Circle Socio-environmental Governance in Protected Areas: Institutional Experiences and Critical Factors in Different Biomes. Organized by member institutions of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the ISPN was able to bring to the discussion the innovations of the Gurupi Mosaic in terms of governance in the field of integrated management of protected areas.
Finally, the Parallel Event Mosaics of protected areas in Brazil: integrated territorial management, social inclusion, and pathways towards a national system. Organized by the Network of Mosaics of Protected Areas of Brazil (REMAP), it was an important moment to address the current panorama and future perspectives for the qualified inclusion of Indigenous Lands in mosaics.
“We argue that the inclusion of indigenous lands in mosaics cannot have only a pragmatic objective, a formality to serve a specific policy, but a qualified construction that takes very seriously the ways of life and territorial management of indigenous peoples, as well as the due processes of consultation, decision-making and production of collective understandings around the idea,” considers the coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples Program at ISPN, João Guilherme Nunes Cruz.
According to João Guilherme, the discussion process must also calibrate expectations and highlight potential, "a mosaic will not solve all territorial and environmental issues. It is just another management tool, with an important specificity, since it opens the possibility of articulating territorial management in a network, based on collaboration between protected areas," he concluded.
Learn more about traditional peoples and communities.
Indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, and traditional communities have their own forms of social organization, occupying and using territories and natural resources as a condition for their cultural, social, religious, ancestral, and economic reproduction. They employ knowledge, innovations, and practices generated and transmitted from generation to generation and contribute to the conservation of Brazilian biodiversity.
Indigenous and quilombola communities, respectively, have their territories recognized and guaranteed by... articles 231, of the Federal Constitution, and 68, of the Act of Transitory Constitutional ProvisionsThe other groups are still fighting for legal instruments to recognize their territories.
The Brazilian State recognizes 28 segments of Traditional Peoples and CommunitiesThese groups represent the guarantee of forest protection and climate regulation, respect for biodiversity, and the maintenance of life globally.