Featuring Dione Torquato. Fall 2024

Abstract:

In this powerful lecture, Dione Torquato—a rubber tapper from the National Forest of Tefé and Secretary-General of Brazil’s National Council of Extractive Populations (CNS)—presents a compelling case for why defending traditional territories in the Amazon is inseparable from achieving environmental justice and sustainable development. Drawing on his lived experience and decades of grassroots organizing, Dione challenges dominant paradigms that treat land as a commodity and forest peoples as obstacles to economic growth. His lecture begins by emphasizing the strategic importance of collaboration between academia and grassroots movements. These alliances help traditional communities affirm their territorial rights and ways of knowing, while providing academia with critical, situated perspectives on environmental justice. Dione situates his cultural identity within his territory, describing how rubber tapping, nut gathering, and fishing are not merely economic activities but intergenerational ways of life. He argues that traditional territories should not be defined by State-imposed borders, but by cultural, ecological, and collective relationships. This perspective challenges policymakers to move beyond top-down planning and to recognize the protagonism of traditional communities in shaping and implementing public policies. Tracing the legacy of colonialism, forced migration, and the large-scale exploitation of natural resources, Dione explains how the Amazon has long been treated as a frontier to be conquered. He warns that today’s enthusiasm for the bioeconomy and energy transition often masks the same logic, one that imposes projects without consultation, disrupts ecosystems, and disregards community rights. Ecological transition, he insists, cannot become a new frontier of injustice. In this context, across Brazil, forest communities are building sustainable local economies grounded in solidarity, environmental care, and cultural continuity. These alternatives require institutional support, recognition, and above all, protection. Brazil remains one of the world’s deadliest countries for environmental defenders, and community leaders routinely face threats and violence for defending their territories. For Dione, safeguarding the Amazon means safeguarding life. As he concludes, the traditional communities are not defending the past; they are defending the conditions that make a future possible for our global common home. 

Defending the Forest, Defending Life:

Dione Torquato opened his lecture by affirming a fundamental truth: without inclusive public policies, sustainable development, and respect for traditional ways of life, it is impossible to address the climate crisis or achieve socio-environmental justice. Speaking from the lived experience of a forest community in the Brazilian Amazon, Dione framed his talk not as a formal lecture, but as a shared reflection—part of a broader dialogue between grassroots movements and academia. Throughout his talk, he wove together personal experience, collective memory, political context, and analysis to show how traditional communities engaged in sustainable forest-based livelihoods continue to defend their land, culture, and livelihoods despite intensifying threats from state and market forces. At the outset, Dione stressed the importance of maintaining strong ties between universities and grassroots movements. For traditional communities, academic recognition helps validate their knowledge systems and strengthen territorial claims. Academia, in turn, benefits from grounded, empirical insight into the realities of environmental conflict and resistance. In his view, this kind of exchange is not symbolic, but strategic: it helps build political awareness and solidarity across different peoples.

From Forest Livelihoods to Territorial Self-Determination:

Dione introduced himself by situating his identity in his territory. Born into a family of rubber tappers in the National Forest of Tefé, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, his livelihood has always been tied to forest activities like gathering Brazil nuts, extracting rubber, and fishing. These are not merely economic practices; they are part of a cultural and intergenerational way of life. He explained that knowledge of the forest is passed down not through books, but through everyday life and storytelling from the elders to the youth. Drawing on Decree 6.040/2007 and ILO Convention 169, Dione emphasized that traditional peoples are defined not only by culture and/or identity, but by a deep relationship with the land and a sustainable way of life rooted in environmental conservation practices. He questioned the assumption that valid territorial claims require formal geographic delimitation by the State to be considered legitimate. For traditional peoples, it is not about lines and borders on a map, but about life itself. This perspective challenges policymakers to move beyond top-down planning and recognize the protagonism of traditional communities in shaping and implementing territorial policies grounded in their political, cultural, and ecological realities.

Historical Roots of Territorial Conflict:

Dione connected present-day conflicts to a long history of colonization, extraction, and state-sponsored occupation. From the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 to the rubber boom and the construction of the Trans-Amazonian Highway under Brazil’s military regime, the Amazon has been seen as a space to be conquered and exploited, not as the ancestral home of Indigenous and forest peoples. He recalled how Chico Mendes, also a rubber tapper, emerged during the dictatorship as a leader in the fight for forest protection and collective land rights. Mendes helped create the National Rubber Tappers’ Council, which would later become CNS, and proposed the model of extractive reserves — conservation areas managed by traditional communities. These reserves, Dione stressed, are not only ecological protections, but they are also political achievements born of grassroots resistance and territories of life.

Territorial Justice is Climate Justice:

For Dione, defending traditional territories is a precondition for climate action. Land is not a commodity; it is the foundation of food, culture, and collective well-being. When communities are evicted, their entire mode of life is destroyed. “It’s impossible for us to survive as peoples and traditional communities living only on islands, in small portions of forest,” he said. He described how court decisions often prioritize forged or irregular land titles, ignoring the historical presence of traditional communities. This results in what he called a double injustice: first, through land grabbing and violence on the ground; then, through institutional complicity. He also denounced the systematic violation of the right to free, prior, and informed consultation, guaranteed by ILO Convention 169. Large infrastructure projects — including dams, highways, and energy complexes — are routinely approved without engaging the affected communities, leading to dislocation, ecological degradation, and conflicts. Dione’s critique underscores the urgent need for states and international agencies to enforce meaningful consultation practices—not mere formalities—tailored to each community’s language, culture, and decision-making processes.

Bioeconomy and Greenwashing:

One of the most forceful parts of Dione’s talk focused on the dangers of “green capitalism.” He warned that current enthusiasm for the bioeconomy and so-called sustainable energy transitions risks reproducing the same extractivist logic in new forms. Forest-based products are being commodified, and dams and wind farms are being installed on traditional territories without consultation. These projects, he explained, have disrupted fishing practices and introduced health problems in Brazil. He was clear: “Ecological transition cannot become a new frontier of injustice.” He called for a break with the development model that views land and people as obstacles to profit. “We cannot accept that the same system that exploits and expels us now returns to offer solutions.” Policymakers must ensure that ecological transition frameworks are not co-opted by extractive interests and instead are co-designed with the communities most affected by environmental and energy transitions.

Local Economies and Sustainability:

Dione emphasized that resistance is not just about protest, it’s about building alternatives. Grassroots organizations across Brazil are creating and sustaining local economies based on cooperation, cultural resilience, and the sustainable use of forest resources. These efforts include:

• Ensuring collective access to land and resources;
• Supporting culturally grounded economies (particularly through community-based production arrangements);
• Expanding access to education, credit, and healthcare;
• Defending the rights and lives of socio-environmental defenders.

He acknowledged the risks faced by local leaders, many of whom live under threat for protecting their communities. Still, he affirmed the power of collective organization. For traditional peoples, remaining in their territory is both a political choice and a survival strategy. Their model of life prioritizes solidarity over accumulation. This calls for concrete protection mechanisms and institutional recognition of grassroots leaders as legitimate political actors in environmental governance.

Challenges in the Current Political Landscape:

Under the current federal government of PT, Dione noted, there has been renewed dialogue with traditional peoples and efforts to reestablish environmental and territorial policy frameworks. However, he also warned of fragmentation: overlapping jurisdictions, lack of coordination across ministries, and limited budget allocation make implementation weak and uneven. Dione’s diagnosis points to the urgent need for integrated governance structures that align environmental, social, and territorial agendas across all levels of government. Meanwhile, powerful interests in Congress and the judiciary continue to promote deregulation and land speculation. Brazil remains the deadliest country in the world for environmental defenders. The threats are real, and the structural conditions that allow violence and dispossession to persist have not been fully dismantled. The challenge is not only institutional; it is political, economic, and cultural.

A Global Common Home:

Dione concluded by reaffirming that territorial struggles of traditional peoples are not about nostalgia; they are about the future. The Amazon, he reminded the audience, spans nine countries and represents a planetary concern. Referencing Pope Francis’s concept of the “common home,” he urged international solidarity rooted in justice, not in charity or market incentives. To ensure a livable future, he argued, we must move beyond technocratic approaches and recognize the leadership of those already caring for the land. Traditional communities are not recipients of policy; they are its most experienced authors. “We are not defending the past,” Dione concluded. “We are defending the conditions that make a future possible.”

The complete lecture can be accessed at: