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11. Challenges and recommendations for the Amazon – Brazil

Author:
Renata Avelar Giannini and Camila Nadalini de Godoy
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
In the Amazon, women face a dual challenge. On one side, there are social expectations regarding their role in society; on the other, the risks and vulnerabilities that the multiplicity of identities they belong to can create. These expectations significantly impact how they see and face the challenges that surround them. At the same time, these identities related to the regional context they live in and other social markers – such as age, social class, sexual orientation, gender identity,race, ethnicity, religion, among others – add unique experiences and specific risks. The collection of experiences of these women cannot, therefore, be generalized, placing them in a key position to propose solutions. This work aims to identify the vision of Amazonian women on their territory and its challenges, as well as highlight the solutions they propose, considering their peculiarities and diversity. This study, conducted by the Igarapé Institute in collaboration with Amazonian defenders, sought to understand the perspective of Amazonian women concerning their territory, challenges, and the solutions they propose, recognizing their unique experiences and diversity. The study shed light on the daily violence that has already victimized 765 women in conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon over the past decade. The report is divided into four parts. In the first part, we address the context of the Brazilian Amazon, where this research was conducted. In the second part, we explain the methodology used for this listening process. In the third part, we highlight the risks and challenges identified by the defenders who participated in the research. Finally, we describe the solutions suggested by these same women, along with recommendations on how the incorporation of a gender perspective into discussions about sustainable development in the region is essential for navigating the context of climate change and promoting peace and stability.
Topic:
Climate Change, Women, Sustainability, Vulnerability, and Activism
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin

12. Brazil’s critical and strategic minerals in a changing world

Author:
Nicholas Pope, Peter Smith, Rodrigo Werneck, Andreia Bonzo Araújo Azevedo, and Ilona Szabo de Carvalho
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
Featuring a diversified supply of strategic minerals – raw materials in demand for the transition to green energy – Brazil is witnessing a growing demand for crucial minerals in a decarbonized world. The country holds 94% of the world’s niobium reserves, 22% of graphite, 16% of nickel, and, as well as accounting for 17% of rare earths, the third largest deposit on the planet. With 30% of these mineral reserves located in the Legal Amazon, Brazil has the potential to strategically position itself as a responsible and trusted partner in the global strategic minerals market, both to boost its portfolio and protect its biome and the communities living within it. This study suggests the country can leverage this potential to set global social and environmental standards in the market. However, it indicates that Brazil’s strategic minerals’ role in the energy transition remains unclear, with an undefined strategy for global market integration. Moreover, there is a pressing need for widespread social consensus on the importance of environmental and cultural protection in this context. The study aims to provide insights for discussions on the country’s natural resource management and establish commitments for a fair, coherent, and sustainable energy and environmental policy. To this end, the report offers a comprehensive overview of the scope, scale, and distribution of strategic minerals in Brazil and the rules and regulations governing access to these minerals. It examines the key players and companies involved in the country’s mineral extraction and discusses the implications for some of Brazil’s main biomes, especially the Amazon.
Topic:
Climate Change, Natural Resources, Minerals, Resource Management, Extractive Industries, Green Transition, and Raw Materials
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin

13. Guide for the Protection of Human Rights and Environmental Defenders in the Amazon – Colombia

Author:
Camila Nadalini de Godoy, Katherine Aguirre, and Renata Giannini
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
In the Amazon Basin, women stand out as the main defenders of the forests, their biome, and their people. This makes them targets of various types of violence. The Guide to Protecting Human Rights and Environmental Defenders in the Amazon aims to help these women identify risks, and learn some strategies to protect themselves. and seek help. (The Brazilian guide is available only in Portuguese.)
Topic:
Environment, Women, Violence, Activism, Protection, Amazon Rainforest, and Biome
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin

14. Inventory of data on economic activity and deforestation in the Amazon Basin

Author:
Igarapé Institute
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
Multiple factors shape land change and land use patterns in the Amazon Basin.This note aims to identify data sources for two specific phenomena: changes in land cover and GHG emissions. It also considers key economic sectors that accelerate deforestation including livestock and agricultural development. To this end, the focus is on available data sources across three countries with an analysis of their geographic scope, depth of detail, and the frequency and periodicity with which they are reported.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Environment, Economy, Carbon Emissions, and Deforestation
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin

15. Connecting the Dots: Territories and Trajectories of Environmental Crime in the Brazilian Amazon and Beyond

Author:
Laura Trajber Waisbich and Terine Husek
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
A new study by the Igarapé institute analyzing more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 found that environmental crime in the Amazon region is not only organized but far more than a local problem. Indeed, this vertibable criminal ecosystem behind Amazon plunder has expanded nationwide, reaching 24 of Brazil’s 27 states as well as neighboring nations. According to the study “Connecting the Dots: Territories and Trajectories of Environmental Crime in the Brazilian Amazon and Beyond”, published Wednesday July 20, the federal operations flagged criminal networks in 846 venues across Brazil and the region. This article is the latest in our series “Mapping Environmental Crime in the Amazon Basin.” The police ops focused largely on the nine states comprising Brazil’s Legal Amazon region, where spreading criminal activities took investigators to 197 municipalities, representing 75% of total interventions. Police also targeted environmental crimes in 57 Brazilian municipalities outside the Amazon region, and another eight cities in neighboring countries. The Federal Police interventions were triggered by unchecked deforestation associated with a variety of unlawful economic activities, from outright crimes to nominally licit market activity tainted by crime. These include illegal timber extraction, illicit mining (especially gold), land grabbing and predatory farming and ranching. This criminal network was first explored in Igarapé’s strategic paper, published earlier this year, “The Ecosystem of Environmental Crime in Amazonia: An Analysis of Illicit Economies in the Forest.” The current study takes a deeper dive into the widening criminal nexus that undergirds environmental crimes and related offenses, including illegal money flows, tax evasion, corruption, fraud and criminal violence.
Topic:
Crime, Environment, Law Enforcement, Deforestation, and Illicit Financial Flows
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin

16. Indigenous People’s Food Sovereignty in Ecuadorian Amazon

Author:
India Belgharbi
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
Accessing healthy and affordable food is highly intertwined with the biggest challenges of our century, such as climate change or conflict resolution. The United Nations has established eliminating hunger as one of the seventeen goals of the international community to achieve sustainable development. The largest part of the food the world consumes is produced by smallholders, peasants and Indigenous communities, but their own food sovereignty is not always practically implemented. This paper explores the extent to which Indigenous Peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon are able to practice food sovereignty, and traces colonialism’s continuous influence on the application of international law to this marginalized community. Though the Indigenous concept of Buen Vivir is linked to food sovereignty and was integrated into the Ecuadorian constitution since 2008, post-neoliberalism, land ownership issues, access to seeds, the use of chemical fertilizers within agriculture, and tourism in the Amazon are all elements impeding its realization.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Food, Economic Policy, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
South America, Ecuador, and Amazon Basin

17. El Enfoque Territorial en la Política Nacional para Consolidar el Sistema de Ciudades en Colombia (PNCSC): El caso de las Ciudades Amazónicas

Author:
Isabel Peñaranda Currie
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios sobre Desarrollo (CIDER), Universidad de los Andes
Abstract:
La Política Nacional para Consolidar el Sistema de Ciudades en Colombia” (PNCSC),plasmada en el CONPES 3819 del 2014, surgió para fortalecer las ciudades del país como motores de desarrollo local y nacional. La PNCSC busca adoptar un enfoque territorial y diferenciado para incorporar las particularidades locales y regionales del país. La PNCSC es importante para regiones como laAmazonía, donde la mayoría de la población vive encentros urbanos y donde hay grandes obstáculos a nivel local para desarrollar políticas urbanas. Sin embargo, para que la PNCSC pueda responder a estas necesidades, el enfoque territorial debe tener en cuenta las particularidades de esta región y sus ciudades. La PNCSC tiene un sesgo que privilegia a las grandes ciudades enla aplicaciónde los fundamentos teóricos, sus diagnósticos y sus recomendaciones. Este sesgo se manifiesta en los dos pilares de la definición del Sistema de Ciudades (SC), específicamente, en la interpretación de los conceptos de “economías de aglomeración” y “relaciones funcionales”. Este documento busca aportar a la mejora del enfoque territorial del PNCSC con la introducción de la escala subregional y la dimensión urbano-rural, mediante el desarrollo de una tipología basada en las categorías de ruralidad de la Misiónpara la Transformación del Campo, y la tipología de subregiones funcionales adelantado por el Departamento Nacional de Planeación (DNP) y el Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural (Rimisp). Se contrastan los dos pilares – de economías de aglomeración y relaciones funcionales – del Sistema de Ciudades según la interpretación por la PNCSC, y la tipología aquí propuesta que incorpora la dinámica urbano rural y la escala subregional. Se concluye que la tipología propuesta captura mejor las realidades territoriales que la primera. Con relación a las economías de aglomeración, se recomienda desarrollar una metodología para analizar economías de aglomeración urbano-rurales, además de una estrategia para promoverlas. Adicionalmente, la PNCSC debería contemplar expresiones de las economías de aglomeración, especialmente aquellas basadas en la diversidad. En cuanto a las relaciones funcionales, se requiere una definición y aplicación más sistemáticas de dichas relacionesbasadasnosoloenla conmutaciónlaboral, sinotambiénenlas relacionesde servicios comoeducacióny salud, como aquellas identificadas por el estudio de DNP-Rimisp. La PNCSC debe promover una mayor intervención estatal consistente con las características de las ciudades amazónicas que reconozca el papel que éstas juegan en la provisión de servicios vitales.
Topic:
Development, Governance, Rural, and Cities
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, and Amazon Basin

18. What Railway Deals Taught Chinese and Brazilians in the Amazon

Author:
Adriana Erthal Abdenur, Maiara Folly, and Maurício Santoro
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Over the past decade, Chinese investments in Brazil have expanded and diversified considerably, especially ones involving infrastructure. Chinese investors have also diversified geographically. Increasingly, major Brazilian infrastructure projects are being planned or implemented with Chinese backing in environmentally sensitive regions such as the Amazon rain forest and the Cerrado, a large savanna region in Central-West Brazil. Chinese actors have become directly involved in such projects against a backdrop of sharpening debates about sustainability and other consequences of large-scale infrastructure projects. This is especially true in protected areas such as land populated by Indigenous groups and conservation units. A notable example is the Ferrogrão project, a major railway line designed to cross sections of the Amazon and Cerrado to deliver goods to Brazilian ports. This paper examines the diverse ways that Brazilian and Chinese actors have learned from each other as they negotiate the terms of these deals. It also explores how these learning processes have been conditioned by intense domestic political debates over these projects in Brazil. Official documents and secondary sources reveal that, rather than a set Chinese way of doing business or a stock Brazilian response, such projects entail dynamic institutional learning. Such learning is shaped not only by the particulars of the Ferrogrão project but also by Chinese actors’ broader engagement with Brazilian infrastructure projects over the past ten years.
Topic:
Environment, Infrastructure, Investment, and Sustainability
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin

19. Desarrollo y suicidio de indígenas tikuna en Leticia y Puerto Nariño, Amazonas: un análisis desde la decolonialidad y el postdesarrollo

Author:
Yendri Velásquez
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios sobre Desarrollo (CIDER), Universidad de los Andes
Abstract:
Esta investigación analiza la relación entre el modelo de desarrollo implementado en Leticia y Puerto Nariño, Amazonas y el suicidio de indígenas tikuna. Emplea perspectivas teóricas decoloniales y del postdesarrollo, y una metodología cualitativa. El artículo identifica las principales características del modelo de desarrollo implementado en estos municipios; analiza cómo este modelo restringe la visión tikuna sobre buen vivir, e impacta en el suicidio. Como resultado, se evidencia que las principales características del modelo de desarrollo se fundamentan en una visión eurocéntrica sustentada en lo material y visiones de raigambre moderno/colonial que conllevan a un desbalance de los elementos del ser tikuna: pora, naẽ, maü̃ y kua̰, cuya alteración afecta el bienestar individual y colectivo; produce crisis de identidad y sujetos vulnerables al suicidio. Si el Estado quiere revertir o abordar seriamente esta situación, debe empezar por habilitar las condiciones para poner en práctica la noción tikuna sobre buen vivir.
Topic:
Development, Decolonization, Mental Health, Indigenous, and Suicide
Political Geography:
South America and Amazon Basin

20. Technology Solutions for Supply Chain Traceability in the Brazilian Amazon: Opportunities for the Financial Sector

Author:
Brodie Ferguson, Julia Sekula, and Ilona Szabo de Carvalho
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
The Amazon is reaching a point that may be irreversible, in which its biome, and with it the global climate, will suffer irreparable damage, negatively impacting not only local communities, but also entire regions and industries. In this article, the Igarapé Institute analyzes challenges around illegal deforestation and recommends measures that, when supported and adopted by financial institutions, will have a rapid, effective and large-scale impact on the control of illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. To this end, the article analyzes current practices in standards and benchmarking for soy farming, livestock and timber extraction. Although the financial sector has started the process of adopting policies against deforestation, few institutions make them mandatory for loan contracts or actively monitor them. This article also highlights some of the key technologies that support greater traceability of the supply chains needed to measure progress on ESG metrics. Remote sensing, big data and artificial intelligence now offer unprecedented ability to track specific environmental impacts of properties, licenses and concessions.
Topic:
International Political Economy, Science and Technology, Finance, Data, Supply Chains, and Deforestation
Political Geography:
Brazil, Latin America, and Amazon Basin