ABOUT AMAZONIALERTA
AmazoniAlerta is a start-up, non-governmental organization that works with Indigenous communities in Brazil to advance the legal defense of their lands and rights and to protect the Amazon Rainforest.
Two facts about the deforestation of the Amazon:
First: More than 90 per cent of the deforestation of the Amazon is illegal.
Second: Indigneous communities are the most effective guardians of the forest. Despite being constantly subjected to illegal land grabs and other territorial violations, Indigenous lands are the least degraded within the Amazon.
Empowering local Indigenous communities to legally defend their lands and rights is not only an ethical imperative but also one of the most effective tactics in mitigating the illegal deforestation of the rainforest.
Protecting the Amazon rainforest is a duty of all humanity, not only because it is home to 15% of the planet's biodiversity and the socio-biocultural wealth of countless traditional peoples, but also because in preserving the rainforest’s capacity as a carbon sink, we fight climate change.
AmazoniAlerta works through these interlinked elements:
Community-based action: Our local, Indigenous team members, ‘App Ambassadors’ gather evidence of environmental crimes directly and, when it is safe to do so, encourage local community members to do so also.
A technological platform: AmazoniAlerta, in partnership with indigenous communities, has developed an easy to use, blockchain-based, smartphone app that empowers users to gather evidence on, and to anonymously and securely report environmental crimes, land violations and other infractions within the Amazon. Our online map displays published alerts.
Indigenous protection techniques: The app is however just one of our fronts to fight illegal deforestation. Together with indigenous peoples, we are perfecting traditional protection techniques, so that indigenous technology works in partnership with non-indigenous technology.
Legal expertise: Our legal team analyzes and deploys actionable evidence in legal actions, domestic and international, to defend Indigenous rights and lands.
Current trial in Araribóia Indigenous Land
Since the spring of 2022 AmazoniAlerta has focused on a trial of its operations in the Araribóia Indigenous Land in the state of Maranhão, Brazil. The territory is home to the Guajajara People and the Awá People. Their lands are amongst the most invaded and vigorously defended indigenous lands in the Amazon.
Our trial field-tests, for the first time, the combination of all three elements of AmazoniAlerta’s operations.
In an early success for the trial, AmazoniAlerta made its first formal submission of evidence, gathered by our local App Ambassador while using the app, to an international legal body, the Washington-based Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The evidence was submitted by partner Indigenous rights organizations in support of IACHR’s Precautionary Measure no 754-20, mandating the Brazilian Government to fulfill its legal obligation to protect Guajajara and Awá Guajá peoples living in the Araribóia Indigenous Land. Our team is currently focused on gathering and using evidence in relevant domestic cases.
At the conclusion of a successful trial period, the AmazoniAlerta team will fundraise to scale-up our operations and aim to deliver legal outcomes that mitigate and halt illegal land violations and deforestation in other regions within the Brazilian Amazon.
Click here for our interactive map of published alerts.
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