- A new atlas by Afro-descendent and conservation groups shows that across 15 countries (not including Brazil), Afro-descendant communities have settled on more than 32.7 million hectares (80.8 million acres) of rural lands.
- These communities have developed traditional fishing and farming practices, which allow them to coexist with surrounding biodiversity and contribute to its protection.
- However, very few lands have been titled, and many communities suffer violence and displacement from the expansion of agro-industrial activities and mineral resource extraction on their lands, which will likely intensify with the rising global demand.
- The researchers faced several challenges in their attempt to locate and measure the size of both titled and non-titled Afro-descendant territories due to a lack of technical data.
A new atlas by human rights groups assessed tree cover and biodiversity hotspots on lands belonging to Afro-descendant peoples in 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), the Black Communities’ Process (PCN), the Universidad Javeriana’s Observatory for Ethnic and Peasant Territories (OTEC) and the National Coordination of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ) identified nearly 32.7 million hectares (80.8 million acres) of land where Afro-descendant peoples have settled. In total, only about 8.3 million hectares (20.5 million acres) have been titled.
According to the study, around 80% of settled, non-titled lands, 72% of demarcated territories and 83% of officially titled lands are covered in forest and tree vegetation.
However, without the legal safety that comes with collective land titles, environmentalists warn that actors seeking to exploit Afro-descendants’ lands, such as agribusiness and mining companies, may thwart conservation efforts.
“Afro-descendant communities have been fundamental historically in protecting biodiversity and mitigating climate change in those territories, and that’s through the existence of traditional knowledge and ancestral practices,” Esther Ojulari, programs director for the Baobab Center for Innovation in Ethno-Racial, Gender and Environmental Justice, who was not involved in the atlas, told Mongabay over a video call.
The researchers used two methods to reach their findings. First, they analyzed the state of coverage by overlapping maps containing information on land use and land cover with those of titled, non-titled, and demarcated Afro-descendant lands. The second analysis was of biodiversity hotspots, for which they used Global Forest Watch data to determine areas with high levels of endemism, high anthropogenic damage and loss of habitat, as well as other geographic layers.
Antonio Ioris, a professor of human geography at Cardiff University’s School of Geography and Planning, who was not involved in the creation of the atlas, told Mongabay that despite being “very short in methodological and analytical details,” the maps provide “a good socio-spatial illustration of the connection between the colonial past and the prejudices of present-day national development, as well as the failures of the state apparatus and the persistent marginalization of Afro-descendants.”
John Anton, a professor at the Institute of Advanced National Studies, technical coordinator and co-editor of the atlas, told Mongabay that the “greatest surprise” was that only four countries in Latin America legally grant land ownership and use rights to Afro-descendant peoples: Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Bolivia.
“Compared to Indigenous peoples, there isn’t sufficient recognition of their rights to ancestral territory,” he said.
Safeguarding biodiversity
Although the extraction and exploitation of natural resources have been recorded in some territories, researchers say Afro-descendent communities also maintain sustainable ancestral traditions and practices since their ancestors were enslaved and taken from their homelands. The authors suggest this contributes to the high tree cover on their lands, which stands at an average of 78%. Compared with other Afro-descendent lands, titled lands had higher rates of tree cover.
This suggests that “if collective land rights are secured, this could have a positive impact on the conservation of strategic ecosystems,” Elias Helo, an ecologist and researcher at OTEC and spatial and cartographic analyst for the atlas, told Mongabay.
According to their findings, most untitled territories were found in areas of the Cerrado, the Atlantic Forest and the ecosystems of Mesoamerica, and in these areas, there were high levels of land transformation and biodiversity loss. Meanwhile, demarcated and titled lands were found in biodiversity hotspots, mainly in the Andes and the Chocó biogeographic region, “thanks to legal advances in the recognition of collective land rights in Colombia and Ecuador, Helo said.
“What the research shows, which I think is key for this moment, is the role that Afro-descendant peoples play and the importance of actual collective land titling in the conservation and protection of biodiversity in those communities,” Ojulari said.
On Colombia’s Pacific coast, Afro-descendant communities practice sustainable fishing and hunting traditions, which allow them to maintain their cultural traditions and the biodiversity of the area. During February and March, for instance, some communities prohibit the fishing and selling of prawns, shrimp and other types of seafood that are in the process of reproduction, Ojulari said. This practice relies on specific ancestral knowledge about the seasons, the reproductive patterns of certain species and rules about when you can and can’t access or use those species or resources, she explained.
In the Ribeira Valley, Afro-Brazilian communities practice a sustainable slash-and-burn farming system, a century-old subsistence practice that Edmilson Furquim, a Quilombola leader of the Bombas community, said can help restore lost native plant species from the Atlantic Forest.
In 1958, after the Brazilian authorities declared part of the Bombas community’s land in São Paulo’s Alto Ribeira Tourist State Park a protected area, the farming system became prohibited by law. Park officials said the practice was destructive. “They came in and took away our rights to use the slash-and-burn system, which was the way our ancestors planted, harvested and kept the forest standing,” Furquim told Mongabay over voice messages.
However, after winning a historic lawsuit on Dec. 29, 2023, the community obtained legal recognition of its land and was finally able to begin the slash-and-burn farming system again, which Furquim said will “enrich” the land.
“The most important thing for us is the forest,” he said. “We don’t cut down a single tree if it’s not necessary.”
Afro-descendant communities and their presence in these biodiverse territories contribute to global conservation goals, such as those of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), Ojulari said. Land titling, “as well as being important for protecting ethno-territorial rights,” can “enable these ancestral and traditional practices of conservation and protection.”
Mapping and analytical challenges
One of the greatest challenges the researchers faced throughout the mapping process was obtaining accurate data on the location of Afro-descendant lands. In Honduras, for example, the state has recognized 32,000 hectares (more than 79,000 acres) of collective lands belonging to the Garifuna and Black Creole populations. However, where these lands are located is unknown.
“The titles have been issued, but there is no cartography that tells you specifically what the limits of these collective lands are,” Anton told Mongabay over a video call.
He explained that not all countries have official data that show where Afro-descendant peoples are settled or where the limits of their territories are. Therefore, it was important to carry out social cartography work with the communities to establish these details. Later, the OTEC carried out technical cartographic survey work to obtain a more accurate picture.
“With Brazil, unfortunately, we have not been able to get a precise picture of the collective lands of Afro-descendant communities,” Anton said. Only a small fraction of the 506 Quilombola territories have their boundaries officially recognized. Due to a lack of technical information, the researchers were unable to accurately measure how much land is occupied by Afro-descendant peoples in Brazil.
Some early estimates led to debates among organizations, and, in the end, they decided not to include a number for Brazil in the atlas. The only numbers they did decide to include were titled territories, which constituted 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres), and lands with requests for recognition and demarcation, which covered 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres).
The researchers are now seeking to move on to a second phase of research.
“At this moment, we are working on the cartography of ancestral languages, but we would also like to map the state of conservation of biodiversity and genetic resources in the territories and also the threats the territories face,” Anton explained. He hopes the atlas will “bring awareness about the conservation capacity that we Afro-descendants have in our ancestral territories.”
Banner image: Lemur tree frog (Agalychnis lemur) in Colombia’s Chocó rainforest. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
New precedent as Afro-Brazilian quilombo community wins historic land claim
Update (Oct 24, 2024): this article was updated to include the National Coordination of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ) as one of the authors of the report.
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