2025
Cassiano dos Santos J. et al. (2025). Analysis of socio-environmental vulnerability and community resilience in traditional Amazonian communities.
XXI Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing, Salvador-BA
This study looked at socio-environmental vulnerability and the influence of extreme climatic events in the communities of Quilombo do Abacatal, the Tapajós National Forest and the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve, in Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon. The study uses the Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to identify and quantify droughts and critical hydrological events. We used statistical analysis, gap-filling of historical meteorological data and remote sensing data, and participatory workshops. The work highlights the importance of community participation in understanding local perceptions of climate change and vulnerability. The methodologies used aim to provide an integrated view of the challenges faced, especially in contexts where climate change intensifies social inequalities and threatens the livelihoods of traditional communities. The approach sought not only to measure meteorological impacts, but also to strengthen community resilience and engagement in adaptation strategies
Malfetoni Ferreira, I.J. et al. (2025). TEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF THE DRY SEASON IN AMAZÔNIA.
XXI Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing, Salvador-BA
Climate change is predicted to intensify extreme weather events, leading to prolonged dry seasons and reduced rainfall in Amazônia. This, coupled with human-induced ignition, can increase wildfires' frequency across the region. We investigated the spatial and temporal changes in the dry season extent and intensity across Amazonia from 2000 to 2023. Using precipitation and multiple evapotranspiration datasets, Maximum Cumulative Water Deficit (MCWD) and dry season length were calculated. Highlights include increasing frequency, severity and spatial extent of droughts since 2010, with 2023 marking the largest affected area (68%), and 2016 with largest water deficit. Overall, the increasing frequency of extreme droughts in Amazônia raises concerns about the rainforest's long-term resilience and heightened fire risk.
Ulfe, M. E. (2025). Twenty years of reparations, impacts on remediation and the role of care giving women in Peru.
Panel: Reparations or re-victimisations? An analysis of the post-conflict in Colombia and Peru.
Congreso Internacional Consejo Europeo para la Investigación en Ciencias Sociales de América Latina / Consejo de Investigaciones Sociales de América Latina CEISAL 2025, Nouvelle Sorbonne Université, Paris, 2-4 June 2025.
The Comprehensive Reparations Plan is one of the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in its final report (2003). It was enacted into law (Law 28592) in 2005, establishing a programme that would provide various forms of compensation (economic – both individual and collective, in mental health, education, housing, and symbolic areas). For its implementation, the Reparations Council was created, and for its delivery, the High-Level Multisectoral Commission, which would depend on the collective work of several ministries. This programme serves as a reference for other forms of compensation, especially environmental ones. Twenty years later, it is necessary to reflect on this programme, its uses, and the tensions it evokes. Based on fieldwork in indigenous communities in Ayacucho and the central jungle, and highlighting the role of indigenous women leaders, in this presentation I will analyse how compensations work; how they are conceived, what they should be used for, what constitutes reparation in these other cases and what it means today.
Thematic Session 5: Everyday peace, diversity of voices, and intersectional approaches in peace building
UGI Thematic Conference 2025, Antonio Nariño University, Santa Marta, Colombia
Project member Hellen Cristancho coordinated this session and four project members contributed presentations:
Hellen Cristancho – ‘Community agency and territorial precarisation in peacebuilding'
Roger Few – ‘Everyday risks, ongoing crises and the post-pandemic perspective of rural communities in Colombia and Peru’
Hazel Marsh – ‘Peace building through maternal and neonatal health. A participatory approach with Indigenous women in Colombia’
Teresa Armijos Burneo – ‘Territories of pain and transformation: the reinterpretation of ‘territorio’ in contexts of disaster and conflict through action research and art-based methodologies’
2024
Jardel Silva de Sousa et al. (2024). Experience report on the analysis of digital voices: case study of traditional peoples during the COVID-19 pandemic.
IV Tapajós National Forest Research Seminar
The aim of this research was to identify and analyse the narratives of traditional populations in the months leading up to and during the peak of COVID-19 from the perspective of different social actors.
Pismel, G. (2024). Covid-19, work and quilombola communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
III International Conference on Social Sciences
This study aimed to identify the main effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Amazonian quilombola communities. It also seeks to contribute to breaking the universalist idea of ONE Amazon. This idea perceives the region as something homogeneous, a vision that is particularly reinforced by the media. The Brazilian Amazon is black, indigenous, composed of rainforest peoples, quilombolas, riverside communities, territorial and island communities, urban and rural, that is, a multiplicity of traditional communities and indigenous peoples that cannot be classified into a single group.
Rosa, M. et al. (2024). Perceptions of children and young people from the Tapajós National Forest on climate extremes in the Amazon.
IV Tapajós National Forest Research Seminar
This technical report details the activities carried out by the project “Voices of Recovery” with children and young people aged 4 to 15, in three schools within the Tapajós National Reserve (Flona). Through storytelling, drawing, guided walks on the beach, graphic representation, story creation and comic production, the aim is to understand and capture the perceptions of children and young people regarding extreme climate events in the Amazon, particularly the severe drought and high temperatures linked to El Niño 2023/24, which have increased the region's flammability, causing forest fires and burns.
2023
Carvalho, N. S. et al. (2023). Assessing fire extent in primary and secondary forests in rural properties of the eastern Amazon.
XXI Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing, Salvador-BA
The state of Pará has concentrated the greatest fire activity in the Brazilian Amazon in the last years, triggering negative impacts on forests. In this study, we assessed the burned area of primary and secondary forests in rural properties in the state in 2018. Primary forests were the most affected, representing almost 80% of the burned area, nearly 35,000 ha. Of this total, large properties concentrated 48%, about 17,000 ha or three times the area observed in small properties. More than 50% (5,713.6 ha) of the secondary burned forests showed ages between 5-20 years. We also found that 15% of secondary forests burned in 2018 could be illegal deforestation occurring after 2008. Considering the causes and origin of burning is fundamental to reducing fire impacts on the Amazon forest. Solutions need to include strengthening environmental enforcement to curb illegal deforestation and ensuring safe practices in using fire for subsistence activities.
Henao Marín E.T. (2023). Weaving life together after the pandemic: a commitment to the recovery and strengthening of collective agency in ANMUCIC-MAR
XI International Congress on Heritage Socialisation in Rural Areas
This text presented a paper within the framework of a Master's thesis in Social Justice and Peacebuilding, linked to the international project "Voices of Recovery". The research focuses on collective agency for the sustainable recovery from the impacts of Covid-19 in ANMUCIC-MAR, an association of 25 women in Marquetalia, Caldas, Colombia. The participating women, aged between 21 and 70 and with low educational levels, are mostly female heads of household, victims of armed conflict, and Covid-19 positive. The thesis aims to delve into pre-existing conditions of vulnerability before the pandemic, the impacts of Covid-19 on their daily lives and associative process, and how to strengthen their collective agency. The study adopts an intersectional and plural perspective to understand gender-based violence and proposes a qualitative, dialogical, and participatory methodology that builds knowledge from the shared experiences of women.
Herrera Herrera V. (2023). Intersectional impacts and recovery strategies for young people, rural women and the community affected by the armed conflict after the pandemic in Marquetalia, Colombia
XXX National Congress y VI Latin American Social Work Meeting 2023
This paper was developed based on the progress of the action-research process carried out in the municipality of Marquetalia (Colombia), whose objective is to investigate how the pandemic transformed the social, cultural and economic conditions of the territory, and how these transformations deepened the intersectional risks affecting vulnerable communities, including rural women, young people and victims of the armed conflict. This process is conducted by the Social Work department of the University of Caldas, within the framework of the international and interdisciplinary project “Voices of Recovery. Recognising the intersection of risks, capacities and recovery needs in the face of a pandemic in marginalised communities in Latin America (Brazil, Peru and Colombia)”.
López Getial A. y Sandstede Estrada B. (2023). Traditional Amazonian cuisine: a proposal for food sovereignty and the building of peace in Colombia.
XI International Congress on Heritage Socialisation in Rural Areas
The presentation outlined the community process led by the Tropical Fusion Association of the Amazon in Florencia, Caquetá, Colombia, aimed at reviving the ancestral Amazonian cuisine of Caquetá, as a means to promote food sovereignty and peace building. The presentation highlights the association's work to showcase the Caquetá Amazon region as a historical victim of the devastation caused by the armed conflict, environmental damage, state neglect, and structural violence, which has led to the destruction of cultural practices unique to the rural communities of Caquetá. Additionally, it presents the association's initiative to recover the knowledge of traditional Amazonian cooking through the project of collecting and utilising non-timber forest fruits, such as the ancestral Canangucha palm, which have been used for the production and marketing of food for human and animal consumption.
Pessôa et al. (2023). Identification of the environmental forces acting on the increase of vulnerabilities in communities in the Amazon basin.
Proceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing
The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the vulnerabilities of traditional communities in Latin America. Along with the challenges that the disease itself has created, these communities are exposed to multiple socioeconomic and environmental threats, which intersect and shape the recovery paths traced by each one. The ‘Voices in Recovery’ project focuses on understanding and supporting the recovery paths of marginalized communities in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. This work is the first initiative to identify environmental threats that affect each chosen study site. Multiple environmental threats were identified, such as climate change and forest fires. The decision-making process around the sustainable recovery of these communities can be more effective, once these threats and vulnerabilities are diagnosed and better understood.
Silva Camacho S. (2023). Gender-based violence and Covid-19 in rural women of ASONDEMUR: A view from the intersectional perspective
XI International Congress on Heritage Socialisation in Rural Areas
This paper presented preliminary results on how the gender-based violence faced by rural women is influenced by specific conditions of inequality, which were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also analyses the community strategies promoted by the women themselves to understand and transform these vulnerable situations. The analysis is conducted from an intersectional perspective, which highlights that gender-based violence goes beyond being a woman and involves other axes of inequality such as gender, race, class and sexuality.
XX Permanent Seminar on Agrarian Research (SEPIA)
We participated in the 20th Permanent Agrarian Research Seminar (SEPIA), held in Lima in November 2023, where we presented our findings on the ethnic and political dimensions of the Asháninka protest in the central jungle during the social upheaval of December 2022. We analysed how Asháninka communities articulated their collective demands by expressing their cultural identity in the context of national mobilisation, and the tensions between political representation and memory of the internal armed conflict. This work was published in 2024 in the book "Political Crisis and Social Upheaval in Peru", edited by SEPIA.