Forest Trends’ Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative (CGTI-FT) organizes its activities in indigenous territories through an integrated approach to cultural, political and economic dimensions of territorial governance, anchored in valuing the autonomy and self-determination of peoples.
Our work on indigenous economies in the Tupi Mosaic Territory, a group of Indigenous Lands in the eastern portion of the Tupi Guaporé, began seven years ago with the composition of a team with a constant presence in the Indigenous Lands. Our work with indigenous socio-biodiversity chains, which began with handicrafts and cocoa, also involves the Brazil nut, açaí and copaiba chains, as well as other products with emerging potential. In 2019, this work gained scale and started to generate more significant impacts through the implementation of the Nossa Floresta Nossa Casa (“Our Forest, Our Home”) Project, with the support and partnership of the United States Agency for International Development, CIAT (the International Center for Tropical Agriculture), and the Partners for the Amazon Platform (PPA).
We are pleased to launch a series of four books, From Indigenous Territories to Markets: Handicraft, Brazil Nut, Cocoa and Açaí Value Chains. We hope these books will serve as a kind of guide for consolidating actions aimed at indigenous economies and valuing indigenous peoples, sharing and disseminating our lessons and experiences.
The books introduce concepts on indigenous territorial governance and indigenous economies, and are organized in two parts: the first part presents data, information and aspects of the value chains and markets which indicate characteristics, challenges and opportunities. In the second part, we address specificities of the indigenous economic initiatives of the Tupi Mosaic and the arrangements that are under construction where the CGTI-FT operates. The work is active in eight Indigenous Lands where 21 indigenous peoples live and, in addition to experiencing the same socioeconomic context and facing the same challenges, share languages, cultures, histories and worldviews.
With this series of four books, we want to add knowledge and promote positive interactions to the balance of indigenous economies, so that indigenous territories have more access to markets and partnerships are maintained based on shared values.
Marcio Halla is Forest Trends’ “Our Forest, Our Home” Project Coordinator and Indigenous Economy Lead for the Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative.
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