Centers & Programs

Created in 1997, The Center for Conservation in Indigenous Lands in the Western Amazon (formerly CESLA) is situated within the University of Texas at Austin's Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS), the oldest such institution in the United States and one of the best worldwide. UT's exceptionally strong resources in Latin American issues are enhanced by the largest university collection of Latin American library materials in the United States.UT's departments of integrative biology, geography, geology, engineering, and public affairs rank among the nation's best and all maintain active research and collaboration programs in several areas of Latin America, from Mexico to Chile. As an interdisciplinary, collaborative institution, CESLA serves as an academic hub for UT departments, expertise, and resources within the social sciences and humanities, leveraging the university's broad range of experience in Latin American environmental issues to the benefit of environmental managers on campus and beyond.

CILWA was directed by Rodrigo Sierra.

Mission
The goal of CILWA is to facilitate community outreach, research, and training for UT faculty, staff, and students and the professional community in the broad field of environmental studies in Latin America. CILWA strives to create an active, intellectually stimulating milieu in which the university community can interact with partners and clients throughout the United States and Latin America, including educational institutions, nongovernmental organizations, private corporations, and local, state, and federal government agencies.

Current Project: Western Amazonia
CILWA’s current project aims to support and assist the nations of Western Amazonia in meeting grassroots conservation and development objectives through applied research and institutional support that will produce measurable short and long-term impacts at the community level.The resulting conservation effort seeks to integrate protection and sustainable management of biodiversity with local governance and community based decision making.

To this end, CESLA has established collaborative agreements and is working with the following indigenous organizations in Western Amazonía:

• FINAE (Federación Interprovincial de Nacionalidad Achuar del Ecuador)
• ONSHIPAE (Organización de Nacionalidad Shiwiar de Pastaza de La Amazonia Ecuatoriana)
• ONZAE (Organización de la Nacionalidad Zápara de Ecuador)

Background
Western Amazonia is one of three key deforestation frontiers and is one of the highest pressure areas for both biological and cultural change. Research regarding environmental change in the area has focused traditionally upon quantitative assessments of migrant or colono impacts on tropical forests. Such studies have resulted in a rich and comprehensive literature regarding how policy, economic conditions and demographics affect migrant decision making and impact the environment

However, the dynamics of change within this tropical region is currently undergoing a fundamental shift. Future environmental change will come from within as indigenous and afro-latin american communities assert claims to traditional lands resulting in more localized decisions regarding conservation and development strategies. In response to this shift, CESLA aims to support long term collaborations and research geared towards supporting the decisions and initiatives of local communities.

Project Vision
In accordance with these established agreements CESLA has developed and is currently implementing a project plan with the overarching goal of providing communities with useful information for desired outcomes. To meet this goal, each stage within the project will address three key conceptual components:

• Research Component: Research conducted throughout the project will address those questions posed by communities and local managers which allow them to better confront sustainable conservation and development issues. Research may examine, for example, ecological and cultural factors defining land use choices, minimum resource requirements, local goods and services that have the potential to increase the value of conservation, etc.

• Applied Component: Project activities will seek to translate research findings into measurable impacts on the ground by adressing community level issues with direct social impacts such as tenure security and resource planning. Such an emphasis allows local groups to meet their own social and economic goals and those of sustainable resource management.

• Institutional Strengthening Component: Finally, through direct work with local groups, this project seeks to build information resources, expertise, and training capabilities in environmental and conservation policy issues within local communities. The aggregate experience of planning for land use management at the community level is critical for better informed policy design at scales that simultaneously incorporate and transcend the local level.

Each of these comonents guides the implementation of four project stages, each one designed to generate specific, measurable outcomes and impacts.

Stage 1: Defining Management Units
Presently, local indigenous groups in Western Amazonía identify the legalization of traditional lands as a first step towards securing their rights as stakeholders and beneficiaries of conservation and development projects within their communities. CESLA will provide technical assistance during the legalization process which involves producing the necessary maps and geographic data required for communal title application. In accordance with agreements signed this year, CESLA has already produced various preliminary maps of the region utilizing spatial data collected in the field and local community perceptions of their territories.

In June of 2003, a team of faculty and graduate students spent 3 weeks in the Achuar Territory collecting spatial data, presenting the Achuar with several local area maps necessary for the title application process. One map is currently being used within the titling process while three others are currently undergoing revision pending collaboration with bordering communities. Additional outcomes include plans for the organization of community level trainings which will capacitate community members in generating the information required for territorial decision making such as working with a GPS to define limits and map natural resources.

Additionally, in September of 2003, Dr. Rodrigo Sierra and Amy Weesner attended a workshop hosted by the Pachamama Foundation, during which the Achuar, Shiwiar and Zapara nations met to establish a dialogue regarding territorial boundaries. Dr. Bolívar Beltrán was also present to discuss the legal implications and opportunities resulting from Ecuador’s 1998 Constitutional reforms concerning territorial rights of indigenous groups. One outcome of the meeting has resulted in the generation of provisional paper maps by CESLA based on representative input from FINAE, ONSHIPAE, ONZAE and ONAZE depicting the three territories. Provisional maps will then be brought to community level meetings where they will be discussed and re-worked according to local input and consensus.

STAGE 2: Defining Resource Uses and Requirements
CESLA is currently conducting research regarding land use and land management practices in order to determine how communities are utilizing their lands. Preliminary findings are as follows:

In the summers of 2002 and 2003, faculty and graduate students conducted a preliminary study in the Achuar communities of Pumpuentza, Wichimi, Kupit, and Sawastian to identify resource requirements for farming and hunting using a combination of GIS and aerial photography. Specifically, the team developed and tested a methodology to study land use patterns among traditional communities. The detail obtained by merging GIS and georeferenced aerial photography facilitates the mapping of land uses (e.g., hunting, garden plots) in ways that were previously problematic and at levels of detail that could not be obtained with standard data sources.

Additional results indicated that overall, three productive land-use areas can be distinguished at the community level: Areas where the dominant productive land-use is labor-intensive farming, areas where the dominant productive land use is labor-extensive farming, and areas where the dominant use is hunting and extractive activities. Based on this work, we hypothesize that the spatial configuration (i.e. location and extent) of land use areas among the Achuar is determined by labor intensity requirements of their productive activities and the ecological characteristics of the areas where these can be located.

The area of intensive agriculture is where family gardens are found. Farther out, Achuar households clear forest for pastures for raising cattle and occasionally for small family gardens. Only a fraction of this area is in use at any given time, the rest is in the form of fallow areas or areas where pastures can be established in the future. Surrounding this area is an area dedicated to extractive activities, such as hunting and gathering.

Stage 3: Building Sustainable Territories
Research and understanding derived during Stage 2 will be used to develop conservation and production plans as the Achuar, the Shiwiar and the Zapara begin a proactive approach to land management. Efficient planning for resource conservation and management requires that current land uses are well understood and the resource base is well defined. Research is needed to define conservation and productive options through clear understanding of the ecological, cultural, and economic factors that define current resource use decisions.

Abundant research suggests that biodiversity conservation depends in the long run on the ability of local resource owners to meet their conservation and development objectives through sustainable productive activities. Within this context, we propose to support productive activities that are consistant with the conservation objectives and resource use decisions defined by indigenous communities.

Stage 4: Strengthening Management Institutions
CESLA suggests that long term governance and management conditions be created through a combination of short term and long term capacity building. CESLA will assist and support indigenous federation leaders in developing and implementing appropriate training and professional development strategies for its members. Currently, training in resource management, legal administration and healthcare has been identified by indigenous leaders as fundamental in terms of establishing sufficient infrastructure for effective management and conservation of territorial resources. It is critical that members of each community have the opportunity to participate in the management of indigenous resources as trained professionals in order to achieve longterm grassroots driven conservation and management objectives.

Current Project: Environmental Information System for Latin America and the Caribbean (EISLAC)
Currently under development, the Environmental Information System for Latin America and the Caribbean (EISLAC) is an online resource for teaching and research about environmental issues in Latin America. CILWA will manage this Internet-based information system distributing spatial and qualitative data. Serving as an important source of information about contemporary environmental issues, EISLAC will enhance the University of Texas at Austin's position in the field of Latin American studies.

With a user-friendly design, EISLAC will manage and deliver documents, tables, and spatial information using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Web-based servers. Although working with spatial information typically requires sophisticated training, EISLAC will enable the general public to obtain and query such data with ease. This innovative approach to information delivery also makes EISLAC a working model of how GIS can be applied for teaching and research purposes. Moreover, the availability of unique information makes EISLAC a valuable resource on environmental issues in Latin America.

Previous Initiatives

Community Outreach

• A symposium on environmental data for the Texas-Mexico border region, in cooperation with the Texas Water Development Board and the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

• A commitment among four universities in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to offer joint courses on water resources management in North America.

• A two-year grant program to support fieldwork and language study by Texas graduate students in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.

Trainings

• A long-term cooperative agreement with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research to conduct training in environmental management, initiate intern programs, and develop joint projects.

• An agreement with the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission to provide staff to implement cooperative environmental projects between Texas and Mexico.

Conferences

• A conference session at the 1997 meeting of the Mexican Society of Civil Engineers on sustainable environmental infrastructure development in North America.

The Center for Latin American Social Policy (CLASPO) hopes to strengthen social policy research on Latin America in order to foster the use of effective community development policies. To attain this goal, CLASPO will:

• Train young researchers in the design and evaluation of social policy
• Promote mechanisms of collaboration and exchange of ideas between diverse actors involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of social policy.

CLASPO encourages the exchange of ideas at a variety of levels:

• At the country level, it will bring together government officials, researchers, academics, and the leaders of NGOs involved in the generation of community development initiatives. Special efforts will be made to promote exchanges between specialists in the major Latin American metropolitan areas and poor provincial regions.
• At the regional level, CLASPO will promote dialogue between researchers from different Latin American countries. It will serve as a forum for the cross-national exchange of ideas wherein specialists can analyze successful as well as failed social initiatives.
• At the inter-regional level, it will bring together the aforementioned social policy specialists from Latin America with UT researchers, including faculty and students affiliated with the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS), the Population Research Center, the LBJ School of Public Affairs, the Urban Issues Program, and the Departments of Government, Anthropology, and Sociology. We intend to involve scholars who work on U.S. as well as Latin American social policy, thereby encouraging the exchange of different perspectives and national experiences.

We are tremendously excited about the creation of the Center for Latin American Social Policy (CLASPO) since we feel that this initiative will strengthen the cooperation among all of us who work for the improvement of social conditions in Latin America. We would like to count on your support during the long journey ahead.

A full text archive of papers published under the auspices of CLASPO can be found in the LANIC Etext Collection.

CAPES–University of Texas Research Program
The University of Texas at Austin and the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) entered into a cooperative agreement in 2000 to support collaborative research and training between Brazilian universities and UT. The initiative was intended to encourage institutional linkages for research initiatives. The program ran through 2008.

The competition was open to the following University of Texas System institutions:

• The University of Texas at Austin
• The University of Texas El Paso
• The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
• The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

Priority was given to proposals in the social sciences, earth sciences, environmental sciences, technology, engineering and information sciences, and health sciences.

CAPES-UT awards funded only Brazilian partner universities for their part in collaborative research. University of Texas stakeholders did not receive funds under this agreement and sought counterpart funding in their departments and from traditional sources, such as government programs and public or private foundations.

CAPES-UT Program Guidelines
Previous CAPES-UT Awards (2001-2007)

Rio Branco Visiting Chair
The Rio Branco Chair was one result of the cooperative agreement between the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) and the University of Texas at Austin. The chair was established to bring a renowned Brazilian professor or lecturer to the university each academic year. The main objectives of the Instituto Rio Branco Visiting Chair were to:

• encourage the study of and research on Brazil in internationally renowned universities;
• contribute to the further professionalization of Brazilian scholars who are intellectual leaders in the humanities and social sciences;
• foster contemporary, scholarly research and teaching on the dynamics of Brazilian society at major institutions of higher learning in the U.S.;
• strengthen the academic tradition of Brazilian studies in centers of higher education, by facilitating the contribution of Brazilian specialists to new and ongoing research;
• assist and guide research projects on Brazil at the universities hosting the Instituto Rio Branco Visiting Chair; and
• foster scholarly discussion and debate on Brazilian issues throughout the United States.

The Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) nominated Professor Pedro Luiz Barros Silva to be the 2000–2001 holder of the Instituto Rio Branco Visiting Chair in Brazilian Studies. While at UT, Professor Barros Silva taught the graduate seminar The State, Government, and Public Policy in  Contemporary Brazil. In addition, he participated in the seminar Decentralization of Social Policy in Latin America: The State of Affairs and Prospects for the Future.  The seminar was cosponsored by the Brazil Center, the Mexican Center, the Center for Latin American Social Policy (CLASPO) of LLILAS, and the InterAmerican Policy Studies Program at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Writer- and Artist-in-Residence Programs
The Brazil Center hosted innovative and prestigious writers and artists at UT from 1996–2009 with the support of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture and the Brazil-based Vitae Foundation. The objective of the Brazilian Writer- and Artist-in-Residence Program is to enhance Brazilian studies at the University of Texas through public lectures and workshops, enrich creative life on campus, and educate the university community and general public about Brazilian art and literature.

Visitors included well-known novelists, journalists, painters and filmmakers, who visited UT from two to four weeks. This provides students and faculty the opportunity to interact with highly respected professionals in their fields. The Brazil Center’s Leitorado, the Vitae Foundation, and another academic unit at the University of Texas funded the program collaboratively each year.

The Fundação Iberê Camargo supported an Artist-in-Residence to spend three months at the University of Texas at Austin, hosted by the Brazil Center, the Blanton Museum of Art, and the Creative Research Lab. Emerging artists Vijay Patchineelam and Leticia Cardoso were awarded the residency in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program
The University of Texas has been awarded four grants through the U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program (U.S.-Brazil Program), an initiative of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education, and the Fundação Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessol de Nivel Superior (CAPES), Brazilian Ministry of Education. The purpose of the program is to promote student exchange and training opportunities in a wide range of academic and professional disciplines, and to offer students financial support for the experience abroad.

At UT, the U.S.-Brazil Program has funded four programs with nine university partners in Brazil. These include:

• Consortium for Cooperation in Civil and Environmental Engineering Technologies (2003-2008)
  Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
  Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)
• U.S.-Brazil Sustainability Consortium (2003-2008)
  Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS)
  Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)
• Environmental Responsibility Consortium (2002-2007)
  Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)
  Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA)
• Bilateral Consortium in Social Science and Public Policy (2001-2006)
  Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp)
  Fundação Getulio Vargas-São Paulo (FGV)
  Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)