The Alok Institute has joined forces with the Indigenous Environmental Collective for Action in Nature, Agroecology, and Sustainability – CAIANAS, from the Terena people in Mato Grosso do Sul.
The support aims to develop the “Guardians of the Climate” project with training for 20 young Indigenous people in Ethnoagroecology for climate emergencies.
The participants range between 14 and 25 and belong to the Kinkinau and Terena ethnicities from the Cachoeirinha and Pílad Rebuá Indigenous Territories, located in Miranda (MS).
These young people will be trained to revive the ancestral Terena agriculture, which encompasses social, cultural, environmental, cosmological, and spiritual dimensions. These practices were abandoned, leaving the Terena people with great challenges in rebuilding their fields and producing food for the families’ subsistence.
Arquivo Caiana
The stages of this partnership include:
- Mobilization and awareness-raising
- Presentation, discussion, and validation of the training program
- Basic training in audiovisual production
- Construction of nurseries and seed collection of native species from Pantanal and Cerrado
- Production of native plant seedlings
- Training on the cultural agricultural calendar
- Workshop on “Implementing Traditional Farming”
- Survey and multiplication of ancestral seeds and ethnovarieties
- Workshop on food culture
- Processing and preparation of fruits from the Pantanal and Cerrado
- Workshop on “Implementing Agroecological Gardens”
- Ethnomedicine and traditional Terena spirituality
The organization is one of the Brazilian Indigenous entities that received the 2024 EQUATORIAL PRIZE, awarded by the UNDP – United Nations Development Programme for recognizing solutions that sustainably manage nature and biodiversity.
About the Organization: Indigenous Environmental Collective for Action in Nature, Agroecology, and Sustainability – CAIANAS
CAIANAS is an Indigenous organization that defends the full quality of life and the environment, particularly in Cerrado and Pantanal.
The organization strives to defend the rights of Indigenous territories, and the autonomy of Indigenous families through cultural and ethno-agroecological practices focused on caring for, fighting for, and cultivating the land.
The organization has mobilized and benefited women, youth, children, elders, families, and their territories through actions like recovering springs and degraded areas; planting in traditional agricultural systems and agroecological agroforestry systems; revitalizing ethnovarieties; establishing seed libraries; producing and distributing seedlings; introducing debates on traditional Terena agriculture in Indigenous schools; valuing traditional knowledge and spirituality; and more.
The CAIANAS Collective also organizes courses and training on ethnoenvironmental themes; publishes booklets; exchanges with other Indigenous peoples and agroecological communities; participates in environmental events; and supports research and academic activities through internships for undergraduate students and researchers.
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