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Maparajuba Advocacia Popular na Amazônia

Santarém, Brazil
Joined July 2020

Mission: Promote popular legal advice aimed at the defense of waters, forests, traditional peoples and communities and indigenous peoples of the Amazon, especially in the western region of Pará.

Presence in: Brazil
Focus: Community / Customary Land Rights, Education, Environmental Justice, Right to Information

Maparajuba Advocacia Popular na Amazônia is an autonomous and non-profit organization formed by legal experts in the areas of constitutional, agrarian, environmental, land, ethnic and international law. The group operates throughout the Legal Amazon, with a focus on the Lower Tapajós region, Western Pará.

It emerged in 2020 in Santarém, state of Pará, with the objective of promoting popular legal advice to indigenous peoples, traditional communities and organized collectives in the Western Region of Pará, in the Amazon. The organization’s name refers to Maparajuba Firmeza, one of the main leaders of Cabanagem – a popular uprising in the former Province of Grão-Pará – and reinforces the group’s political identity.

The proposal for a differentiated, Amazonian legal advice, built from the local perspective, takes place through 4 lines of action: popular advocacy, strategic litigation, popular legal education and action research. Among the principles of action are: decolonial thinking, anti-racism, feminism, legal pluralism, interculturality and self-determination.

At the same time that the Amazon is recognized for its biodiversity, ethnic and territorial multiplicity, it is also the scene of environmental crimes, dilapidation of environmental and land assets, deforestation, real estate speculation, violence in the countryside, land grabbing. The presence of an organization whose role is to defend rights is an urgent demand. These human rights violations require specific understanding and follow-up proposals, especially in the legal field. In this context, the group stands as an organization focused on the fulfillment of this mission, based on dialogue with popular movements in the Amazonian perspective.