Prologue

The learning of Amazonian Governance

Since 1990, when the anthropologist Martn von Hildebrand rst took me to
visit the indigenous people of the Caquet and Mirit rivers, I became witness to the
world of the Colombian Amazon rainforest. Great transformations were underway in
Colombia.

The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) had been struggling for
indigenous rights in the national arena, within the context of the then recently
ratied Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Amazonian
indigenous leaders and their people were striving to reassert their identity, while also
distancing themselves from colonial mentality which manifested itself in the religious
missions; and they dreamed of having their own projects and governing their
ancestral territories.

The Colombian Amazon was the best-preserved region of the immense Amazon
Basin , due to its difcult accessibility. The economic boom of the cocaine industry
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in the 1980s that swept over the eastern parts of the Colombian rainforest creating
an illusion of wealth, and the presence of a guerrilla movement in the region was just
beginning. During that period like now the agricultural frontier was at the
piedemonte, the Andean foothills of Colombia, there was little colonization because
miners were more interested in Brazil and Venezuela, and petroleum exploration was
concentrated in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon.

By the end of the 1980s, the government of President Virgilio Barco Vargas
recognized the territorial rights of indigenous people over 20 million hectares of the
Colombian Amazon an area they already occupied prior to the Spanish Conquest.
During the same period, a new Constitution was being drafted in Colombia (adopted
in 1991), which included, in addition to territorial rights, the right for indigenous
people to govern their territories as part of the State political-administrative
structure, with State funding.

As such, a wide array of activities and cooperation unfolded in the Colombian
Amazon, to support the 62 ethnic groups in exercising their rights and acquiring the

The Amazon Basin compromises nine countries: aside from Colombia, it is shared by Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela,
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Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana.
necessary skills to articulate themselves within the State framework based on their
own cultural values. Thus, indigenous people were able to reassert themselves as
custodians of the Colombian Amazon and its biodiversity. This was an
unprecedented situation in the countrys history, and promised a sustainable future
for the region.

This was the message that Martn, a close advisor to President Barco on indigenous
issues, hoped to transmit to Europe after my visit. I was helping the European
Community Commission in Brussels to develop their programme for environmental
cooperation with other countries in the world, subsequent to the report "Our
Common Future", or Brundtland Report, published in 1987 by the World Commission
on Environment and Development.

We were two years from the Rio Conference of 1992. The world I was discovering in
the Colombian Amazon was a natural and cultural treasure, just at the time when
ideas were spreading about biodiversity being under threat and how renewable
natural resources were in danger of disappearing from the planet forever.

In the company of Martn, I visited many malocas (community longhouses) of the
Tanimuca, Letuama, Yukuna, Matapi, and Miraa ethnic groups, along the Mirit and
Caquet rivers. We spent entire evenings in discussions and conservation with the
captains, or chiefs, of the malocas, with the shamans chewing their sacred coca
leaf, and observing how they analysed the situation of their forest and began to
dene their desired future.

Back then I felt there was no better approach to the conservation of the Amazon
than through supporting the indigenous cultures - given their great wisdom and
potential in caring for these vast forest territories combined with government
regulations and planning techniques.

In the European Community, a group of high-level employees of the Commission
understood the importance of these new opportunities for the indigenous people
and the region. This resulted in a process of cooperation, which eventually brought
together European countries such as Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and
Sweden.

The ten years that followed the Rio 1992 Conference were marked by an
accelerated and less positive global change than previously expected by scientists in
the 1980s. The international agenda centred on eradicating poverty, along with
addressing HIV/AIDS, deforestation, pollution (especially urban) and climate change.
In Colombia however, forest peoples were making strong progress and becoming
aware of their responsibilities regarding the future of the Amazon region.

The new Constitution of 1991 was in place and opened a pathway for indigenous
administration of their territories (resguardos) as legal entities. By establishing their
own Associations of Traditional Indigenous Authorities (AATIs), indigenous peoples
began a process of demonstrating a level of local organization compatible to the
State governance system.

The Colombian foundations that accompanied these processes had formed an
alliance known as COAMA , coordinated by Martn, and were adapting their support
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in accordance with the life-plans being developed by the indigenous peoples. When
I returned to Mirit ten years after, in 2000, there were concrete advances in the
path to self-governance; many of the indigenous groups had taken signicant steps
in strengthening their culture and organization, through micro-projects, and were
formulating their health and educational plans.

Along the same rivers I witnessed a change in the malocas they appeared more
impressive. The fact that the indigenous people of this region now had their own
governance, with their own life-plans to direct their future, their own education,
health and territorial ordering (land-use), not only gave them the right to receive
State funding for the autonomous management of their AATIs, but it also gave
them security and appreciation of their indigenous culture.

The following decade (between 2000 and 2010) I returned several times as an
external observer of the indigenous processes taking place, and also to evaluate
projects that were enabling them to build capacity and consolidate their
governance. This allowed donors, in particular the European Commission, which has
been cooperating for more than 20 years, to understand the importance of
supportive processes in the Colombian Amazon.

In the company of the COAMA foundations, I travelled to many corners of the
Colombian Amazon, which covers some 480,000 km
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of tropical rainforest, of which
half is under the custodianship of approximately 70,000 indigenous peoples from 62
ethnic groups. I met many of them: the Barasano of the Pir Paran river, the
Piapoco and the Curripaco of the Negro river, and the Tanimuka and Letuama of the
Wakaya and Oiyaca rivers, tributaries of the Miriti river. I witnessed the birth and
consolidation of many of the AATIs, and was able to appreciate the institutional
creativity of the COAMA foundations in accompanying indigenous processes in
Colombia and in the border regions with Brazil and Venezuela.

The foundations that constitute the nucleus of COAMA are: Gaia Amazonas, coordinated by Martn von Hildebrand, and
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Etnollano, created by Miguel Lobogerrero y Xochitl Herrera, both basd in Bogot.
Ten years after Colombia and other countries reached agreement, with the 1997
Kyoto Protocol, to jointly engage on climate change, the planet was starting to
show strong signs of climatic deterioration. Indigenous people were concerned
because of the new phenomenon they were observing in the forest changes in
animal behaviour, in the yucca and coca crops, and the rainy seasons - which
conrmed much of what scientists were saying.

Global warming and climate change could quickly undermine their sustainable
livelihoods. The indigenous people were confused by the decisions taken during
national and regional forums. The AATIs of Amazonas continued with their own
research led by the shamans, increasingly focused on ancestral ways of governing
the territory, and on the changes that were being generated due to climatic
variations. It seemed that the world was spinning ever faster. Indigenous leaders and
the AATIs were receiving more invitations to participate in large Colombian and
international forums on indigenous rights, conservation, protected areas and climate
change. They learned to debate with other national and foreign citizens, in search of
new development and conservation paradigms.

At the same time, there was growing confusion and delusion among some about
solutions that could bring short-term nancial benets. International congresses, the
COPs (Conference of the Parties), and the United Nations Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), became the platform for indigenous leaders to
disseminate the interests and projects of their people. New global strategies, such
as REDD+, sought to make indigenous people key actors in a global system aimed at
reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation.

Nonetheless in 2012, after more than twenty years of an intense process by the
indigenous people of consolidating and governing the resguardos of the Colombian
Amazon, new threats were emerging on the eve of the Rio+20 meeting. At the
forefront were the enormous mining interests.

During the last twenty years, applications for mining extraction permits have been
made for nearly the whole eastern region of the Colombian Amazon, because the
subsoil is owned by the State. This is a test of re for indigenous governance. After
a long period of capacity building and learning about governmental functionality and
international institutions, ACAIPI, ACIMA and other AATIs, face new perils that are
testing the indigenous project for sustainability of this region.

The indigenous people of the Colombian Amazon, surrounded by these pressing
issues, know that they cannot afford to falter. The political and institutional
panorama in Colombia and other neighbouring countries is much clearer than in
previous years, and indigenous people have a key place and an ofcially recognized
role. However, they have also learned that these processes are fragile, especially in
regards to land tenure and governance, and are always exposed to ups and downs.

In solidarity with these indigenous people, I have accompanied Martin in drafting this
publication in order to shed light on the fact that indigenous people today - after
centuries of exploitation and mistreatment have signicant organizational
processes and the capacity to govern their part of the world in a sustainable way.

The extensive indigenous resguardos are remote from the centres of power, but
have a great weight and signicance for Colombia and for this moment in history
when we evaluate the current situation of our planet and possible actions necessary
to avoid global disasters.

As this text demonstrates, indigenous people after centuries on the verge of
extinction, have over the past decades forged a diversity of friendships and alliances
that have helped them re-value their cultures and knowledge for the benet of the
planet; it comes at a time when they needed that support, but also when indigenous
wisdom and knowledge are required to focus new directions.

The situation in the Amazon is an indicator of the current state of the planet.
Studies and publications about the Amazon over the past few years demonstrate
that things are not going well. It is well known that the gradual destruction of the
Amazon is a great threat to the planet and to humanity; the root causes of this are
global and it is the responsibility of everyone.

Despite these problems, the grand exercise of cooperation with indigenous people
which I have observed in the Colombian Amazon over the course of twenty years,
along with the concrete and real advances being achieved, leave me with a feeling of
sincere admiration and with the hope that the Amazon will continue being the
energy heart of the planet for many generations to come.

Vincent Brackelaire
Socio-Environmental Consultant
Brussels-Rio de Janeiro