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Hello, my name is Lilian Painter. I'm the
Country Director for the Wildlife
Conservation Society in Bolivia and a
Lead Author of the Science Panel for the
Amazon. In this chapter, we're going to
talk about strengthening land and
natural resource governance across
multiple
scales. Indigenous Territories (ITs) and
Protected Areas (PAs) cover around 50% of the
Amazon Basin. They are crucial for
safeguarding land rights and well-being
of peoples and communities that live in
them, addressing deforestation,
maintaining a stable regional climate,
and mitigating global climate change.
Land rights in the Amazon are at
critical risks from political and
economic interests that drive land
profiteering, agribusiness expansion, and
illegal logging and mining, resulting in
deforestation and threats to change
territorial rights
legislation. Given the low government
investment in infrastructure and
protection of these territories, the most
creative and effective strategies for
protection and management come from the
people and communities that live in them.
In this chapter, we will describe efforts
and success stories in governance and/or
enforcement activities, and propose a
path forward to strengthen natural
resource governance in the Amazon. One of
the most inspiring solutions is
territorial management. It reaches its
objectives when it reflects the peoples'
and communities' standards, values, and
principles, as well as interests, by
empowering and promoting their access
and participation in the definition of
procedures, instruments, and
resources. Territorial management, in
either public lands or community-managed
areas, must equally encapsulate the
political and environmental dimensions——
both anchored in interdisciplinary
scientific
endeavor. Collective territorial
management——based on guaranteeing rights——
is needed because territorial security
is the foundation and condition for its
autonomous, integrated, and participatory
management. In order to engage with other
stakeholders from a position of strength,
local people need their rights
recognized over controlling their own
lands, resources, institutions,
social and cultural
organizations, and a path to negotiation
with the State. Central elements of this
rights-based approach is the
valorization of local, natural, technical,
and human resources oriented towards
autonomy and self-support, the
recognition of existing cultural
traditions and knowledge regimes, the
care and respect for the environment, and
an approach to collective well-being
according to the perspectives of the
people and communities involved.
Life Plans and Territorial and
Environmental Management Plans are
implemented to ensure the governance of
Indigenous lands by Indigenous
communities themselves, and it has been
shown to be one of the most effective
ways to guarantee ecosystems, quality of
life, and respect for cultural and
territorial rights. Secure rights are
essential for effective environmental
stewardship. Life Plans and Territorial
and Environmental Management Plans are
ways of guiding the use of Indigenous
territories and their natural resources,
with the objective of meeting the
current cultural, social, and economic
needs of the people that currently live
there, while also conserving the
environment for future
generations. Within Indigenous
territorial plans, goals and actions are
elaborated from collective agreements on
how to manage territories based on
cultural values and social organizations.
They can serve both as an
internal agreement between the
communities——between the Indigenous
people——as well as external agreements
with the State or other
stakeholders. Examples of strategies
implemented in Indigenous territorial
plans include monitoring and territorial
surveillance, natural resource management,
recovery of degraded areas, new economic
activities, upbringing and education of
the new generations. This attempt to
regenerate ancestral conceptions of
territories and their care, that are
aligned with state policies and the work
of cooperation agencies and NGOS, as
a means of not losing connection with
their
territories. Quality of Life (QoL) Plans with
Indigenous and local communities expand
and deepen engagement with local people
and ensure more sustainable, just, and
locally appropriate conservation
strategies. QoL methodology builds on other
Indigenous Life Plan processes, but
focuses on aligning environmental
conservation and quality of life. This
methodology was developed by The Field
Museum's Keller Science Action Center in
Chicago, Illinois. WCS and Indigenous
partners have outlined a methodology for
strengthening Indigenous territorial
management that can be broadly described
in 10 steps: the first, consolidation of
land rights; the second, strengthening and
leadership of the organization; the third,
Indigenous Territorial Management Plans;
the fourth, zoning processes; the fifth,
rules and self-regulation of natural
resources; the sixth, specific management
of natural resources; the seventh,
territorial control and surveillance; the
eighth, development of administrative
capacity; the ninth, sustainable finance
mechanisms; and the 10th, capacity
building for monitoring and research.
Traditional knowledge is key as a basis
for territorial management. Studies have
shown that deforestation rates are very
low in Indigenous Territories, due to the
way Indigenous people live and their
vision of the human-nature
relationship. However, this knowledge is
not always valued by different
government and civil society-led
socioeconomic development programs, that
have different visions and end up
imposing less effective ways of
management of Indigenous Territories,
denying the Indigenous relationship of
coexistence, reciprocity, and regeneration.
The importance of generating new
dynamics of intercultural relations and
joint management, allowing the
translation of Indigenous and local
knowledge into intercultural territorial
management instruments, constitutes a
regenerated paradigm that strengthens
governance within Indigenous Territories
and management strategies on a regional
scale. Some successful examples of
implementation of Indigenous Territorial
Plans are the Yaigojé Apaporis National
Park and Indigenous Territory in
Colombia, and the Jaguars of
Yuruparí. These examples are key to
consider because no single culture has
the answer to all the challenges and
questions we face with the climate
crisis. Another successful proposal
arising from the Indigenous peoples
themselves is the autonomous community
consent protocols, developed by
Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local
peoples. Indigenous People and Local
Communities have developed and proposed
to national governments autonomous
protocols for prior consultation and
consent, in which they explain the time,
manner, places, and people that must be
called upon to participate in free, prior,
and informed consultation (FPIC) processes,
regarding public policies that include
conservation policies, development
programs and projects, private
undertakings, legislation, and other
measures that may affect them, their
territories, and Life and Management
Plans. They have proposed clear and
objective paths to guarantee the
fundamental right to participation of
Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, and
other local communities in state
decision-making
processes. The right to prior
consultation was established by ILO
Convention 169, the UN Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), the American
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (OAS), and other human rights treaties
that recognize free, prior, and informed
consent as a basic principle of the
contemporary relationship between States
and the peoples with different
cultures. This process is mediated and
regulated by the country's respective
legal frameworks. Consultation protocols
emerge as a complementary tool to
organize the dialogue between Indigenous
people and the State. Nevertheless,
effective implementation and full
compliance still remains a challenge.
Examples of effective natural resource
management also exist in the aquatic
realm, such as the case of co-management
of fisheries and recreational fishing. A
model of co-management of fisheries can
be built based on a dialogue between
local and scientific knowledge,
and the formalization, which is the
recognition by the official
environmental agency and authorities at
the state level, of the local fisheries
agreements to ensure the conservation of
fishing stocks and the commercial
activity of artisanal fishing. Such is
the case of the Piracuru fisheries in Amazonas
State, Brazil. The adoption of
managed Piracuru fishing——where there are
collective agreements, in addition to
recovering local stocks and reactivating
commercial fishing activity——reinforces
the territorial rights of artisanal
fishers over aquatic environments for
the collective use, and preserves their
local knowledge and culture associated
with the fishing of this iconic species. The
Amazon is one of the world's most
popular recreational fishing
destinations. The collapse of traditional
recreational fish stocks has driven
commercial fishers to unexploited
regions, especially protected areas and
Indigenous land. Community-based tourism
and partnerships can establish
sustainable recreational fishing
projects in Indigenous
Territories, with their participation in
every step of the process. This has been
done in the recreational fishing project
for the Marié River in Amazonas,
Brazil. We can list some key strategies
for territorial management and
development: (1) the use of participatory
socioenvironmental assessments
and diagnostics, as well as planning and
zoning; (2) construction of Life Plans, where
the sustainable use or management of
natural resources are considered, and
agreements for
self-governance and implementation of
the
plans; (3) strengthening the role of
Indigenous people at a local and/or
regional scale to act as multipliers and
technical advisers on territorial and
environmental management in villages and
communities; (4)
promoting connections between local and
scientific knowledge in the generation
of methodological and technological
innovations, and management tools that
are appropriate to the local,
socioenvironmental
specificities; (5) the development and
implementation of local initiatives, such
as agroforestry systems, and the
management of different wildlife species,
as well as the reconstitution and/or
maintenance of local agrobiodiversity,
associated sometimes with income
generation or used for
subsistence; (6) the development and
implementation of actions to improve
territorial protection, with local
surveillance and monitoring strategies,
and approaches or engagement with
surrounding jurisdictions; (7) institutional
strengthening of Indigenous, Afro-
descendant, and other local community
associations to build and implement
management plans, carry out social
control of public policies, and support
community business initiatives; (8) the
development and implementation of
collective autonomous protocols for
consultation of people and communities
potentially impacted by development
schemes. Partnerships and commitments at
multiple scales are, therefore,
critical. They are important to develop
and implement effective environmental
policies to avoid, mitigate, and
compensate for the impact of destructive
projects. They are also key to
enhance collaboration on science,
technology, and innovation to advance a
bioeconomy based on healthy standing
forests and flowing rivers. The Amazon
Cooporation Treaty Organization (ACTO) and the
Governors' Task Force for Forests and
Climate are important examples of
collaboration in the
region. In conclusion, territories provide
a framework for social, technological, and
organizational resource management.
Through collective and individual
innovation, the organization of economic
activities and services, the valorization
of local and cultural heritage knowledge
and resources, and the design of public
policies, the territory is a relevant
scale to address both local and global
challenges related to deforestation,
climate change, erosion of cultural and
biological diversity, renewal of natural
resources, anticipation of migratory
processes, and organization of exchanges and
security. Partnerships will be crucial to
develop sustainable finance for
Indigenous and local territorial
management, based on respect for rights,
transparent financial management, and
effective implementation for nature and
people. There is no future for the Amazon
without uplifting the voices and rights
of its people and their territorially
based lifestyles, and it is imperative to
appreciate conservation-friendly
creative alternatives that are based on
the full respect and strengthening of
territorial rights, that are currently
being supported in the region.
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SDGAcademyX: AMZN001 The Living Amazon: Science, Cultures and Sustainability in Practice

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