1. Introduction

This analysis provides a record of the experience of the SERVIR Amazonia with regard to the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the geospatial services that it provides under its mandate. It addresses the challenges involved, the approach adopted, and the successes and limitations of that experience. It highlights the need for cultural sensitivity and the use of appropriate technology and vocabulary. This chapter updates and expands the range of focus of a previous publication on this subject by the author [1].

2. The program

2.1 SERVIR Amazonia

SERVIR Amazonia is a joint iniative of the [United States] National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Its overall purpose is to contribute to the conservation of biological diversity and to the mitigation of and/or adaptation to climate change through the transfer of geospatial technology, developed by NASA and other institutions, as appropriate, to government and private sector entities active in the countries where it is active. Its slogan “from space to village” reflects that purpose. SERVIR Amazonia is articulated into the SERVIR Global network, which began in 2005 with the SERVIR Mesoamerica program, which has concluded. It makes available NASA-generated and other geographical information services (GIS) at no cost to underserved users in the regional networks. It currently includes two African programs, two Asian programs, and a planned Caribbean program in addition to SERVIR Amazonia.

The principal associates of SERVIR Amazonia are the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the lead organisation, based in Cali, Colombia; the Association for the Conservation of the Amazon Basin (ACCA), in Lima, Peru; the Institute for the Certification of Forestry and Agricultural Management (IMAFLORA), in Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil; the Ecociencia Foundation (ECOCIENCIA), in Quito, Ecuador; and the Spatial Informatics Group (SIG) in Pleasanton, California, United States. It also includes initiatives in Guyana and in Suriname, coordinated by CIAT. And it sponsors an academic partner network, led by the University of Arkansas, in the United States.

SERVIR-Amazonia supports sustainable development throughout the Amazon region by strengthening the capacity of governments, the private sector, and other key stakeholders, including indigenous peoples’ organisations, to integrate Earth observation and geospatial technologies into improved decision-making and to better incorporate the voices of women, indigenous peoples and their communities.

The first phase of SERVIR Amazonia began on December 21, 2018 and concluded on December 20, 2023. A follow-on effort began on December 21, 2023, and will continue for three years for the purpose of expanding the consolidation of geospatial information services in Brazil, Colombia. Ecuador, and Peru.

For more detail on the SERVIR Amazonia program, its team, services, data catalogue, and publications, see its webpage [2].

2.2 SERVIR’s Amazonia strategy for the engagement of indigenous peoples

At its start-up workshop, held at CIAT headquarters near Cali, Colombia, March 4–8, 2019, SERVIR Amazonia adopted its Strategy for the Engagement of Indigenous Peoples [3]. This Strategy emphasises 1) collective empowerment of indigenous individuals to intelligently engage in decision-making processes; 2) leveraging and improving the existing capacity of the indigenous peoples’ communities and organisations (IPO) and reinforcing their networks to connect existing capacity with regional needs by developing opportunity structures among them; and 3) normalising geospatial information and its uses across a broader set of individuals than typical expert users, including IPO leadership and technical staff.

It contemplates at a minimum:

Training of SERVIR Amazonia and core partner staff on indigenous peoples’ values, needs, and priorities, as these relate to the conservation of biological diversity within and around their territories, their perspectives on the development of their own and external economies and interests;
Outreach to the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations in the Amazon Basin (COICA) and its member IPOs to inform them of opportunities in SERVIR Amazonia activities;
Inclusion of the IPOs in mapping of areas of SERVIR Amazonia where the IPOs can make effective use of geospatial technology and information.
Provision of information on available geospatial services and their utility for informing both their own decisions regarding land, forest, and water use, and detection of incursions into their territories by gold miners, timber pirates, drug traffickers, colonist invaders, and other external actors;
Developing criteria for effectively connecting geospatial technology and services with the IPOs in each of the specific geographical areas of SERVIR Amazonia intervention;
Provision of technical assistance to IPO representatives and GIS staff in the use of geospatial services in the selected geographic areas.
Provision of technical assistance to appropriate technical instances of country governments in USAID’s Regional Environmental Program for Amazonia (AREP) to allow them to incorporate information derived from IPO sources into their development planning in a manner that supports indigenous peoples’ values, needs, and priorities in their planning and operations;
Access to vehicles for dissemination of information derived from geospatial technology and tools that raise public awareness of the threats to indigenous territories and options for preventing or mitigating them in a transparent manner.

This Strategy was implemented during the five years of the first phase of SERVIR Amazonia and continues to apply to the follow-on initiative.

3. The indigenous peoples, territories, and Organisations

Much of the available official information on South American indigenous populations is unreliable and reflects undercounts, particularly for those residing outside officially recognised indigenous territories or in urban areas. We have researched the topic over many years with input from a wide range of sources, including government reports, the IPOs themselves, international cooperation reports and others, and we compiled our own data in a 2021 analysis of Amazonian indigenous peoples reproduced in the chart below.

The numbers reported reflect self-identified peoples of Amazonian origin; they do not include indigenous peoples of highland Andean origin or other recent migrants, who merit separate attention and consideration. Indigenous peoples present in two or three countries are counted only once in the totals. The principal sources were the COICA member organisations, governments reports, data obtained from non-governmental organisations in the countries and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The interpretations and final tally are the author’s [4] (Table 1).

Country	Peoples	Individuals	Sources	Dates
Bolivia	34	320,000	CIDOB, VMA, IME	2020
Brazil	256	950,000	COIAB, FUNAI, IBGE, ISA	2020
Colombia	26	52,000	OPIAC, DANE	2018, 2020
Ecuador	10	130,000	CONFENIAE, INEC	2018, 2020
French Guiana	6	13,000	FOAG, INSEE	2018, 2020
Guyana	9	82,000	APA, GBS Census	2012, 2019
Peru	51	550,000	AIDESEP, INEI	2017, 2020
Suriname	25	21,000	OIS, VIDS, ABS	2012, 2020
Venezuela	51	740,000	ORPIA, INE	2020
Totals	431	2,858,000	IWGIA by country

Table 1.

Amazonian indigenous peoples.

Source abbreviations: ABS, Algemeen Bureau voor Statistiek, Suriname; AIDESEP, Asociación Indígena para el Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana; APA, Amerindian Peoples Association, Guyana; CIDOB, Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente Boliviano; COIAB, Coordenação das Organizacões Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira; CONFENIAE, Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana; DANE, Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadísticas, Colombia; FOAG, Fédération des Organisations Amérindiens de Guyane, France; FUNAI, Fundação Nacional do Indio, Brasil; GBS, Guyana Bureau of Statistics; INE, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Bolivia, Venezuela; INEC, Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Ecuador; INEI, Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática, Peru; INSEE, Institut Nacional de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, France; ISA, Instituto Socioambiental, Brazil; IWGIA, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Denmark; OIS, Organisatie van Inheemse Volken in Suriname; OPIAC, Organización de Pueblos de la Amazonía Colombiana; ORPIA, Organización Regional de Pueblos Indígenas de Amazinas, Venezuela; VIDS, Vereniging van Inheemse Dorpshoofden, Suriname; VMA, Vice-Ministerio de Autonomías, Bolivia.

Amazonian indigenous peoples speak approximately 300 different languages within 25 established language families and include an additional 25 language isolates having no conclusively established relationship with other language families [5, 6]. Their traditionally conserved forests, along with those of natural protected areas, provide the greatest stores of diverse biological species and favourable opportunities for addressing climate change [7, 8, 9]. Moreover, they are effective buffers to deforestation throughout Amazonia [10, 11, 12]. The map below shows the locations of the officially recognised indigenous territories in the Amazonian countries (Figure 1) [8].

Figure 1.
Amazonian indigenous territories and protected natural areas.

On an Amazon Region level, the indigenous peoples are organised in COICA, which has member organisations in each of the nine countries: CIBOB in Bolivia, COIAB in Brazil, OPIAC in Colombia, CONFENIAE in Ecuador, FOAG in French Guiana, APA in Guyana, AIDESEP in Peru, OIS in Suriname, and ORPIA in Venezuela, each of which has numerous affiliated more local federations that represent most of the local indigenous communities in each country. In Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru there are also national-level organisations that include Andean and other non-Amazonian indigenous peoples, and there are other national-level organisations, the Confederación de Nacionalidades Amazónicas del Peru (CONAP) and VIDS in Suriname, that must also be taken into consideration, along with their affiliated organisations.

4. The principal experiences and successes

The first SERVIR Amazonia training experience was conducted in Guyana during 2019, where the University of Guyana priority service was for monitoring of mangroves along the northwestern Caribbean coast. APA provided one male indigenous leader and one male member of their technical team for the two training sessions in basic GIS technology which they found useful beyond the purposes of the mangroves monitoring. APA has one member community in the mangroves area, but most of their communities are located in the southern Rupununi Region. Efforts to develop a more complete service directly with APA and their communities did not come to fruition, because potential SERVIR Amazonia partner organisations working in Guyana were unable to obtain complementary funding for computers and infrastructure.

More detailed training was provided indigenous communities and their organisations in Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador. In Peru, SERVIR Amazonia entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Madre de Dios Native Federation (FENAMAD), whereby ACCA provided three week-long training sessions on a range of GIS programs, including Google Earth, Global Forest Watch, Planet, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) applications in rented facilities where appropriate computers were available. The participants demonstrated keen observation and quick learning skills that they will use in future initiatives to strengthen their ability to conserve and defend their collective territories.

Participants included members of FENAMAD’s leadership team, technical staff and, particularly, volunteer community forest monitors. A total of 26 indigenous participants, completed this training with a focus on identifying and documenting illegal gold mining, logging, and drug trafficking by external actors present within their territories. Using one or more of these techniques and programs, community forest monitors locate the threats to the community territory with a global positioning system (GPS). Then they communicate that information to the FENAMAD technical team in Puerto Maldonado. Following analysis and approval by the FENAMAD governance Council, a FENAMAD lawyer presents this documentation to the appropriate agencies, such as Peruvian Government’s environmental prosecutors (FEMA) for follow-on prosecution procedures or to Regional Government departments like Forestry and Wildlife, Energy and Mines, or Agriculture, for administrative action.

Sometimes, when appropriate, the press is called in, and the information is published on the FENAMAD website. Such situations must be weighed carefully and decided upon collectively following extensive internal discussion. There are obvious risks to accusing illegal actors of their crimes.

Similar, but less sophisticated, training was provided to CONFENIAE leaders in Ecuador by ECOCIENCIA and to Muinane Witoto communities in Colombia by Instituto Sinchi, under SERVIR Amazonia contracts. In all cases the indigenous participants defined their own training priorities and located them within their pre-determined development objectives, and the training responded to their needs as they explained them to the SERVIR Amazonia scientists, who thereby became more familiar with the problems the indigenous peoples were experiencing and helped them respond more effectively.

The most successful SERVIR Amazonia experience with the engagement of indigenous peoples was conducted by the University of Richmond, Virginia’s, Applied Science Team in the Ucayali Region of Peru and Acre State in Brazil. It was led by geographers Stephanie Spera and David Salisbury. In those areas, more than 200 indigenous leaders and community members affiliated with the Association for the Integral Development of the Yurua-Yono-Sharakoiu Region (ACONADIYSH) in Ucayali, Peru, and the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Juruá River (OPIRJ) in Acre, Brazil, learned to apply geodashboards in the monitoring of forest roads (MOCAF), and in ecosystem services and evapotranspiration. Meteorological stations were set up and used continuously by the indigenous communities, as well as the appropriate government agencies and non-profit organisations.

For these purposes, the University of Richmond team incorporated training support from ACCA and the Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC) in Peru and the Acre Pro-Indian Comission in Brazil. That experience culminated in a conference at the University of Richmond, Virginia, in which seven indigenous leaders participated, followed by a fund-raising and informational trip to Washington, D. C., in November 2023.

5. The challenges

SERVIR Amazonia began by meeting with the leaders of COICA and its member national organisations, who were invited to participate in the initial program launch workshops in each of the countries where it worked. However, it soon became evident that some of the more local organisations affiliated with these organisations could be more effectively included in the program services in the areas of their presence, while keeping the national organisations and COICA informed of these activities.

COICA and the national-level indigenous organisations operate with modest organisational and financial resources. Moreover, SERVIR Amazonia lacks both the mandate and the budget to provide needed infrastructure and computers to the indigenous organisations, which depended upon other international cooperation funding for their operations and activities; so, they could not provide these resources themselves. SERVIR Amazonia is intended to be a network to foster the use of geospatial services, not a funding source for IPOs or non-profit organisations that work with them. Thus, funding to cover infrastructure and computers must be sought elsewhere. Training, however, is a legitimate SERVIR Amazonia contribution; so, most of SERVIR Amazonia’s support to the IPOs was for training purposes.

However, it was possible to include some of the principal indigenous IPOs leaders and community members in services developed by other public and private organisations, as well as the more local indigenous federations in training programs developed around some of the principal services organised in response to the needs of other public and private organisations, and also to schedule small-scale services under memoranda of understanding with the indigenous federations themselves in Peru and Brazil.

The indigenous organisations and their communities prioritised territorial monitoring and mapping in order to more effectively defend their territories from outside incursions by gold miners, loggers, drug traffickers, land traffickers, traffickers in persons, and unwanted adventurers. So, their own volunteer forest monitors and their organisation leaders and technical staff were prioritised as beneficiaries. Other options for geospatial support sought by the IPOs included the monitoring of fire, floods, and other natural disasters.

Many of the indigenous participants lacked adequate and well-maintained personal computers and appropriate software, or else these were shared by families, so that they were not available when their children needed the computers in school or similar situations arose. Moreover, many of the local communities are located in remote rural areas, where they have no access to electricity or internet signals; so, most of the training activities had to be conducted in larger towns or cities in their regions where rented facilities were available, and the participants had to be brought in from their communities and provided with lodging and meals as well as travel costs. Also, most of the participants had very limited computer skills and lacked experience with online program options and GIS; so, the training had to include learning these skills, and this was done.

Ethical considerations must also be considered and assumed, particularly as regards data ownership, stewardship, and sharing. For example, in 2020, AIDESEP withdrew from discussion of a SERVIR Amazonia-supported grant proposal to integrate and consolidate their database on indigenous territories among their nine regional organisations throughout the Peruvian Amazon, because access to the database would have been public, and therefore available to their adversaries in land disputes or to illegal actors interested in the natural resources in their forested territories. Also, the application of geospatial technology brings with it culture change, which can be either harmful or helpful [13] and mapping, if not controlled by the indigenous peoples themselves, can inadvertently unite or divide kinship groups or other indigenous social organisations for official or private purposes, often without their knowledge [14, 15].

There are also great risks to indigenous peoples and communities that are documenting illegal extractive or other activities in their territories. Since 2020, Brazilian “Comando Vermelho” assassins for hire by those responsible for drug trafficking and environmental crime in remote Amazon areas have entered much of the eastern Peruvian Amazon, and the situation is similar in most of the other Amazon countries [16]. Over the past decade, and increasingly in the most recent years, at least 33 indigenous leaders and environmental defenders have been assassinated in the Peruvian Amazon alone, and the numbers are higher for Colombia and Brazil [17, 18, 19].

6. Other experiences

An important, early analysis of the utility of geospatial services in support of Amazonian indigenous peoples in Peru was published in 2003 [20]. In most cases non-indigenous non-profit organisations and sometimes government agencies employ technical expertise in support of the indigenous peoples’ needs, rather than the IPOs directly, although that situation is rapidly changing as increasingly IPOs are acquiring the necessary software and skills using them for this purpose.

The best known process of the use of geospatial services in support of Amazon indigenous territories is that of the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG), headquarted in the Brazilian non-profit Instituto Socioambiental (ISA). RAISG is a collective initiative of Amazonian non-profit organisations that include the Instituto do Homen e Meio Ambiente (IMAZON) in Brazil, Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN) in Bolivia, Instituto del Bien Común (IBC) in Peru, Fundación Gaia Amazonía in Colombia, and Provita and Wataniba in Venezuela, as well as ISA [21]. Like SERVIR Amazonia, it is supported by international cooperation programs. In some ways RAISG is similar to SERVIR Amazonia in that it fosters access to geospatial information in indigenous territories, although it covers all nine Amazon countries. Also, it prioritises the use of ESRI’s ArcGIS, to which it subscribes, rather than freely-accessible no-cost NASA-produced and other programs.

An Australian source emphasises the greater sense of place that indigenous peoples have and encourages better communication between them and geospatial scientists, so that the latter may better understand the territories that they are mapping [22].

7. Conclusions

By collectively and directly integrating remote sensing, analysis, and mapping into land-use and development planning in territories historically occupied by indigenous peoples, geospatial scientists can improve their understanding of the data that they generate and also empower the indigenous peoples to more effectively manage and defend those territories. Initiatives, like SERVIR Amazonia can demonstrate the power of such cooperative efforts not only by preventing deforestation and environmental degradation, but also foster community resilience through their direct participation in the decision-making that affects their territories and their future lives.

Engagement of indigenous peoples in highly technical geospatial services is not an easy task, but it is an important one for the programs like SERVIR Amazonia that seek to help defend highly biodiverse indigenous forest lands against increasing threats coming from external actors. It requires well-informed indigenous organisations that understand and assume the issues involved and also institutions and individuals that are seriously committed to working with indigenous peoples and addressing their territorial problems. The trainers must be sensitive to cultural differences, willing to use simple, easily understood language that people lacking extensive technical training can understand. They must be willing to treat indigenous participants as equals and with sympathy, as well as master the complexities of the technical subject matter.

The SERVIR Amazonia Strategy for the Engagement of Indigenous Peoples through their representative organisations is highly appropriate. However, for locally-specific services, it is easier to work with the more locally-based indigenous federations than to expect effective coordination from regional or national indigenous organisations based in the capital cities.

Moreover, funding for critical infrastructure and computers is necessary and not likely to be provided by the indigenous partner organisations. SERVIR Amazonia is intended to be a network for spreading geospatial services, not a funding source for indigenous organisations, but to effectively engage and include indigenous peoples and their territories, the necessary budgetary and organisational resources must be found somewhere.

Among the most important personal characteristics for trainers and others who work directly with indigenous leaders and community members are great cultural sensitivity, a willingness to treat indigenous counterparts as equals whose opinions and perspectives matter. They also need strong communication skills that avoid technical jargon; speak plainly, clearly, and simply; in order not just to be understood, but also to listen carefully and fully. There must be an awareness that indigenous peoples know a lot more about their territories than the western geospatial scientists that are studying and mapping them do, and that they have a lot to learn from that. Communication must be a two-way street.

Ethical considerations, such as data ownership, stewardship, and sharing, among others, must be taken into consideration. Programs that provide geospatial services to indigenous peoples and communities must respect the need for privacy; not all of their territorial data should or can be made public. Finally, there must be an awareness of the risks that indigenous leaders and environmental defenders are taking, and their territorial data must be protected against illegal drug traffickers, gold miners, timber harvesters, and traffickers in both land and persons.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the support from SERVIR Amazonia and, in particular, of its Director, Carlos Gasco, in engaging indigenous peoples. He also recognises the technical and social skills demonstrated by SERVIR Amazonia partners, such as the University of Richmond’s Geography program, ACCA, ECOCIENCIA, Instituto Sinchi, the Upper Amazon Conservancy, and, the participating indigenous organisations, particularly FENAMAD, ACONADIYSH, OPIRJ, and CONFENIAE. Helpful explanations of the technological issues involved were offered by Glenn Hyman, Brian Zutta, and Waldir Azaña. Funding for the program was provided by USAID and NASA. However, responsibility for the content of this chapter is the author’s.

Conflict of interest

The sole author declares no conflicts of interest.

Shu-hsien Tseng

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