📋 Tender Overview
The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA) held, last Tuesday (11/18), the panel Traditional Peoples and Communities: practices and knowledge of environmental conservation in the Amazon. The activity was promoted at COP30 and brought together extractive leaders to debate conservation policies, land regularization and strengthening traditional territories.
The national secretary of Traditional Peoples and Communities and Sustainable Rural Development (SNPCT) of the MMA, Edel Moraes, highlighted that Brazilian environmental policy has been strengthened to reflect the diversity of peoples and ways of life that make up the so-called deep Brazil, which is home to 28 segments of traditional peoples and communities -- extractivists, coconut breakers, pantaneiros, geraizeiros, fishermen, shellfish gatherers, faxinalenses and andirobeiras, among others.
According to her, the recognition of this plurality is the central axis of the National Plan for the Sustainable Development of Traditional Peoples and Communities (PDPCT), which is being built by the MMA in dialogue with social movements, federal agencies and community representations. The initiative will be the guiding instrument of Brazilian public policy for the coming years, consolidating guidelines, goals and actions that resume and expand the foundations of Decree No. 6,040/2007.
We are building a State policy that recognizes the diversity of people and ways of life in deep Brazil. The national plan will be the guiding framework for the Brazilian States actions over the next few years, integrating environmental conservation, territorial justice and appreciation of community practices, stated Secretary Edel Moraes.
The session was moderated by the director of the Department of Socio-Environmental Management and Traditional Peoples and Communities of SNPCT/MMA, Claudia Pinho. Our commitment is to ensure that social participation and the voices of the territories are at the center of the formulation of environmental policies. It is this dialogue that strengthens conservation, territorial justice and the recognition of community rights, highlighted Claudia Pinho.
Among the highlights of the agenda was the presentation of the Forest Territories Program, aimed at guaranteeing territorial security for traditional peoples and communities living in undesignated federal public forests. The program introduces an innovative model of environmental protection and recognition of rights, based on the granting of collective Real Right of Use Concession Contracts (CCDRU) for an indefinite period.
The general coordinator of the Department of Territorial Environmental Planning of the Extraordinary Secretariat for Control of Deforestation and Territorial Environmental Planning of the MMA, Bruno Miguel, emphasized that the initiative arises from the intersection between the need to combat deforestation and the urgency of recognizing territories historically occupied by traditional communities. The Forest Territories was born from this understanding and from a historical debt with traditional territories. It is an innovative mechanism that protects the forest and guarantees rights, he stated.
The meeting also presented advances in the Bolsa Verde Program, a policy that combines income transfer, productive inclusion and environmental conservation. Coordinated by the MMA, in partnership with the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Combating Hunger (MDS), the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture (MDA) and the National Agency for Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (Anater), the program already reaches 50 thousand families and has been expanding its operations through territorial workshops in different regions of the Amazon and federal conservation units. The policy integrates agroecological technical assistance, sustainable management, training and community strengthening, consolidating a strategy that combines environmental protection with improving the living conditions of traditional populations.
Among the voices present, extractivist Joaquim Belo highlighted the historical importance of the fight to protect territories. He recalled that the extractive movement, inspired by Chico Mendes, has always argued that conserving the forest is inseparable from guaranteeing rights to the people who live from it. I learned from Chico Mendes that the fight begins against the privatization of land, our greatest asset. Conserving the forest also means protecting those who live on it, he stated.
The agenda also included the participation of professor Claudinete Angelina Alves, who presented the environmental education experience Jucara Kids, an initiative that teaches children the importance of the jucara palm tree for forest conservation and combating climate change. We showed that it is possible to use the fruit of the jucara palm tree without tearing down the plant, strengthening the lives of communities and inspiring other regions, highlighted the professor.
