Reflection on my first four months in Brazil with the Kayapó Project

When I learned about the Lewin Fellowship, I saw the perfect pathway to do that. The fellowship allowed me to collaborate directly with a locally led organization – one I otherwise couldn’t have worked with, and to contribute my skills in a meaningful, community-centered way.

I had read about the Kayapó Project before, so I reached out to my now-advisor, Matt Aruch, Director of Indigenous Programs at Biome Conservation (a North American partner of AFP). He was enthusiastic about the possibility of me spending the year with AFP and highlighted two major areas where I could contribute: strengthening communications between the partner organizations and supporting the ecotourism and education programs. Both of these programs prioritize Kayapó leadership and decision-making, with key planning happening at large annual assemblies of village chiefs and representatives.

Soon after graduation, it was time to move to Tucumã, a small town near the Kayapó territory. Before beginning my fellowship work, I participated in the Field Course Program, which brings university students to A’ukre, one of the Kayapó villages, for an international exchange. This experience was invaluable. It grounded me in the history of the project and allowed me to learn about Kayapó culture through everyday life: storytelling around the fire, daily river baths, fishing, and long walks together in the forest to Brazil nut groves and Mahogany stands.

At the same time, it was impossible to ignore the pressures facing Indigenous communities in Brazil. On the eight-hour bus ride from Marabá to Tucumã, hundreds of miles of formerly pristine rainforest, now pasture, flashed by the windows. Later, flying by small prop plane into the territory, we could see the vast mining operations pressing up against the border of Kayapó lands. In later conversations with Kayapó leaders, I learned about aggressive offers from miners and loggers to pillage their territory in exchange for pennies as well as the aggressive offers for shady carbon credit deals.

When I finally arrived in Tucumã to begin my fellowship, I expected to jump straight into my planned project. Instead, I was encouraged to slow down, accompany others in their work, and learn first: learn how to work with the Kayapó, how meetings are conducted, and how relationships and trust shape every aspect of collaboration. This slower start, I’ve realized, has been essential for understanding the deeper context of the work and for beginning to contribute in a respectful and effective way.

This experience has reshaped my definition of what effective conservation work actually means and pushed me to question a lot of American ideals of community and work. The pillars of conservation in the US are our national park system, a system that only permits use for recreation and is almost entirely situated on indigenous land. It’s a system that has a history of excluding indigenous people. In contrast, The Kayapo Project has achieved an incredible level of success by supporting indigenous people in living their traditional way. I think that going forward, it would be impossible for me to work on any conservation project without thinking about who the original owners of the land are and whether or not they are being included in land management and decision making. This experience has certainly challenged my ideas of what effective conservation means. My thoughts now have changed more to mean that conserved land can still be in use.

Looking forward to the rest of the year, I am preparing for the forest school sessions. The forest school teaches a combination of traditional knowledge rooted in the local environment as well as modern technologies useful in the fight for territorial protection such as drones, camera traps and cameras. We are working to create lesson plans that include the youth participants in dialogues about current AFP projects with plans to film these lessons for future use during the school sessions this year. I’m planning to spend about a month in the field for the forest school programming as well as other trips in and out supporting several ecotourism trips. Additionally, I’ll be starting to teach English lessons to the indigenous staff at AFP interested in learning which will help them better communicate with foreign tourists and foreign donors