The Experience of the GATI Project in Indigenous Lands in the Construction of Public Policies for Environmental and Territorial Management of Ils
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The Project for Indigenous Territorial and Environmental Management (GATI) contributed to the recognition of Indigenous Lands (ILs) as protected areas essential for biodiversity conservation in Brazilian biomes, and strengthened traditional indigenous practices regarding management, sustainable use, and conservation of natural resources. In addition, it fostered indigenous leadership The Experience of the GATI Project in Indigenous Lands in the construction of public policies for environmental and territorial management of ILs. The Project was a joint effort of the Brazilian indigenous movement, the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), the Ministry of Environment (MMA), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Articulação MATO GROSSO ARTICULAÇÃO DOS POVOS E ORGANIZAÇÕES INDÍGENAS DO NORDESTE, MINAS GERAIS E ESPÍRITO SANTO Agroecology Agroforestry Empoderando vidas. www.theGEF.org Fortalecendo nações. Environmental Restoration PRESIDENCY OF THE NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES Artur Nobre Mendes TERRITORIAL PROTECTION DIRECTORATE - DPT Walter Coutinho Jr. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORATE - DPDS Patricia Chagas Neves ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT DIRECTORATE - DAGES Janice Queiroz de Oliveira GATI PROJECT MANAGEMENT UNIT NATIONAL PROJECT DIRECTOR - DPDS/FUNAI Patricia Chagas Neves NATIONAL PROJECT COORDINATOR - CGGAM/FUNAI Fernando de Luiz Brito Vianna UNDP PROJECT OFFICER Rose Diegues TECHNICAL COORDINATOR OF THE PROJECT - UNDP Robert Pritchard Miller PGTA COORDINATOR - UNDP Ney José Brito Maciel FINANCIAL COORDINATOR OF THE PROJECT - CGGAM/FUNAI Valéria do Socorro Novaes de Carvalho ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS - CGGAM/FUNAI Caio César de Sousa de Oliveira Sofia Morgana Siqueira Meneses Cataloguing in-Publication Data (CIP) (eDOC BRASIL, Belo Horizonte / MG) A281 Agroecology, agroforestry, and environmental restoration in indigenous lands / Robert P. Miller... [Et al.]. – Brasilia (DF): IEB, 2016. - (The experience of the GATI Project in Indigenous Lands) 57 p. : 20.4 x 27.4 cm Includes bibliography. ISBN 978-85-60443-47-5 1. Agroecology. 2. Territorial and environmental management. 2. Indigenous peoples - Brazil. 4.Project for Indigenous Environmental and Territorial Management. I.Miller, Robert P. II. Macário, Dafran. III. Weber, Ingrid. IV. Modercin, Isabel. V. Antonio, Leosmar. VI. Title. VII. Series. CDD-980.41 Technical Data Organization of systematization Andreia Bavaresco - IEB Marcela Menezes - IEB Robert Miller - GATI Translation Cristiane Feitosa Photos GATI Project collection Funai collection Collaborators Artwork Nina Coimbra Editing Demian Nery and Tiago Trigo (support) The use of images of indigenous individuals of Reference Areas of the GATI Project for dissemination purposes was agreed under Terms of Commitment signed by participating communities during the clarification process, when the responsibilities of the parties were established. photo base for previous page: Agroforest in the Guarani IL of Bracuí (2016) ©Dafran Macário Agroecology, Agroforestry, and Environmental Restoration in Indigenous Lands: the Experience of the GATI Project Robert P. Miller,1 Dafran Macário2, Ingrid Weber2, Isabel Modercin2 e Leosmar Antônio2 Preface 4 Regional, Environmental and Historical Contexts 12 Mechanisms Supporting Actions in Agroecology, Agroforestry and Environmental Restoration in the Gati Project 20 Regional Experiences of The Gati Project with Agroecology, Agroforestry and Environmental Restoration 30 Conclusions - Some Lessons Learned 52 1 Technical coordinator of the GATI Project 2 Consultants of the GATI Project Preface The purpose of this publication is to As they represent closely related and systematize initiatives in the areas of overlapping areas, the publication combines agroecology, agroforestry and ecological these three rather broad themes of restoration carried out by the GATI Project agroecology, agroforestry and ecological in its fve years of implementation in restoration. In the context of Indigenous different regions of Brazil. Lands (ILs), these themes bring together a body of traditional agricultural knowledge and practices with new and emerging demands, such as the need for the provision of healthy foods, conservation of natural environments and their resources, and restoration of degraded areas. The Experience of the GATI Project in Indigenous Lands Agroecology, among the possible defnitions, can be understood as the ecological management of natural resources through different forms of collective social action, with participatory development of proposals ranging from forms of production to the alternative distribution of products, with the establishment of production-consumption relationships capable of countering the ecological and social crisis... (Embrapa’s Group on Organic Agriculture and Agroecology) Agroforestry (or agroforestry systems) is a collective name for land-use systems and technologies where woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palms, bamboos, etc.) are deliberately used in the same management unit as agricultural crops and / or animals, either in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence. In agroforestry systems there are both ecological and economic interactions among the different components. (Lundgren and Raintree, 1982). Ecological Restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed. (International Society for Ecological Restoration, 2005) To a large extent, even though the themes In systematizing the processes and dynamics addressed in this volume constitute new related to the arrival of agroecology, names - in the sense of technical terms or agroforestry and ecological restoration in concepts - for traditional practices, they are the ILs that are “Reference Areas” of the novelties in many ILs. Furthermore, since GATI Project, besides the Project´s role as they represent relatively new and growing a “laboratory”, in terms of presenting and disciplines, combining technical and scientifc testing new methodologies, approaches knowledge with social and environmental and practices, we also discuss its role activism, these themes bring not only new as an “observatory”. To that effect, the knowledge and techniques, but also an document will address: (1) the meaning exposure to new paradigms, which seek to and relevance of these themes in ILs, and place the relationship of human societies how they vary in different regions / biomes and the environment within the logic of as well as according to environmental and sustainability. It is important to note that ethnic contexts; (2) the philosophy and although the GATI Project was responsible initial assumptions guiding the approaches for bringing several such novelties in terms used by the Project; (3) the administrative of concepts and approaches, the Project mechanisms used to turn these approaches more often played the role of facilitator into concrete actions in ILs; and (4) how and supporter of existing processes and these approaches and mechanisms were initiatives, to the extent that it found received and appropriated by the indigenous activities already underway in Reference communities, based on the analysis of Areas, resulting from the indigenous examples from different regions. Finally, this peoples´ own interests or initiated with the analysis will draw on broader lessons about support of partner organizations. the themes of this publication, their inclusion in ILs, and implications for public policy. 6 Agroecology, Agroforestry, and Environmental Restoration • a) to promote actions to recover and restore degraded areas in Indigenous Lands; • d) to identify the native species of socio- cultural importance in Indigenous Lands and prioritize their use in agroforestry systems and in the recovery of landscapes in degraded areas; • e) to promote the recovery and conservation of agricultural biodiversity and other natural resources essential to food and nutrition security of indigenous peoples, in order to value and safeguard This broader analysis will cover part of the traditional seeds and crops of each history of the GATI Project, addressing indigenous people; regional and local contexts, Project • f) to promote actions for the recovery background, and its connection to the of degraded areas and environmental parallel movement that resulted in the restoration in Indigenous Lands, and National Policy for Indigenous Territorial and especially the prevention and combating of Environmental Management - PNGATI3 . desertifcation. Further information about the Project can also be found in the other volumes of the series “The Experience of the GATI Project We can consider that the implementation of in Indigenous Lands”. the GATI Project was a “laboratory” for the implementation of PNGATI, as the Project This background of the Project, which will developed actions closely linked to the be further examined below, constitutes an objectives of the Policy. At the same time, important part of this history, as it sets the in its role as an “observatory”, the GATI tone and direction for the actions of the Project also evaluated and analyzed how GATI Project in ILs. As for the PNGATI, it these themes are contributing to PNGATI is important to note that the relevance of implementation, in the broader sense of the Project’s actions, are established through promoting well-being and consolidation the objectives set out in Axis 4 - Prevention of indigenous rights and