STRENGTHENING THE AUTONOMY AND RESILIENCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES – SUPPORT FOR FIGHTING FOREST FIRES AND TERRITORIAL MONITORING IN THE AMAZON

The Casa Socioambiental Fund opens a call for projects with the aim of supporting indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon in protecting forests and their territories. This is the eighth call for Casa Fund projects in 2023 and will allocate more than R$2 million to strengthening the autonomy and resilience of the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon in combating forest fires and in territorial monitoring. 

This is the third consecutive year that Fundo Casa has issued calls for projects focused on supporting community brigades led by local and traditional communities, with the aim of expanding the capacity and speed of response of these communities to the threat of forest fires. In the years of 2021 It is 2022 84 community brigade projects were supported and around R$2.7 million was allocated to these projects. Now in 2023, within the Casa Amazônia Program, support will be aimed at strengthening indigenous organizations that are dedicated to protecting the biome. 

This call is based on the recognition of the importance of the Amazon biome for the planet's climate balance, for the conservation of biodiversity and for guaranteeing the right of all living beings to a healthy and safe environment, recognizing as fundamental the contribution of Indigenous Peoples for its maintenance. 

Indigenous lands in the Amazon are major barriers against deforestation. It is estimated that Indigenous Peoples and traditional peoples are responsible, together, for protecting one third of the forest areas in Latin America, as presented in the FAO study “Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples and climate change in Latin America”.

Over the last 35 years, Indigenous Lands have been responsible for protecting 20% of the total national forests, according to the Socioenvironmental Institute – ISA. In the Brazilian legal Amazon, studies prepared by IPAM estimate that the forest area protected by indigenous communities corresponds to a stock of 12.9 billion tons of carbon, equivalent to 26% of all the carbon stored in the forest areas of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. These data highlight the global importance of the ecosystem services provided by these people.

However, despite the great importance of forests for the world's climate balance, the preserved areas in the indigenous territories of the Amazon live under constant threat and pressure, being the target of invasions, land grabbing, in addition to the illegal exploitation of forest products and minerals. 

Criminal forest fires are used by invaders as a strategy to open fields and subsequently occupy these territories. Data from Global Forest Watch show that between January and October 2020 alone, more than 100,000 fires were detected in Brazilian Indigenous Lands, with more than 60% of these territories affected by fires. Territories located in the Amazon occupy the worrying top of the list with the highest number of fire outbreaks. 

In this scenario, indigenous people take risks fighting fires in the dangerous mission of preventing the flames from spreading to the point of becoming uncontrollable, often without the appropriate safety equipment and training for this work. According to data from the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), in 2020, almost 2,000 indigenous people worked on the front line against fire in all Brazilian biomes. They join other groups of volunteers who risk their lives to protect the environment and their territories.

In this sense, this call for projects seeks to contribute to strengthening the autonomy and resilience of Indigenous Peoples to combat forest fires and monitor their territories throughout the Brazilian Legal Amazon.

Source: Casa Socioambiental Fund