The Nature Conservancy

Bailey Hill

  During our trip to Brazil, each student is assigned and required to research a particular company or NGO and give the class a prior briefing the morning of the visit. I was assigned The Nature Conservancy and had been very excited to do so! It is to no surprise The Nature Conservancy was by far my favorite field visit! Not only because I had worked on the research for the class but also because there was an exciting unexpected surprise… the original speaker was not able to attend the meeting last minute due to a flight delay, so Helcio and Fernando stepped in and spoke to the class and I about TNC’S indigenous strategies! The indigenous are the most interesting and complex paradigms I have been learning about in the last year and a half and find it important to (attempt) understanding. TNC is a non-profit organization is committed to preserving the natural areas of 35 different countries. The NGO works with many different partners such as government agencies (federal and local), other NGOs, corporations, multilateral-bilateral institutions and many local and indigenous communities. The indigenous are full of complexities and I was excited and overwhelmed with streaming questions to ask, and believe me, I surely utilized the two hour meeting to ask those burning questions. I also was very happy to have the business students learn about the indigenous because they need to know the effects of capitalism before they commit their careers to such a thing!

Katryna Dillard

Friday 1/17/2014: Our last visit of the trip was to the Nature Conservancy, here in Brasilia. We were able to here from Helcio and Fernando about the indigenous people of Brazil and how they were with together with them. The indigenous population does not officially own any land, the government does, but the indigenous people use 25% of the Amazon land. It was interesting to hear how the Nature Conservancy goes about working with the indigenous people and really just reinforced that to create a good work environment you must befriend and work together not against each other. I am glad I went on the trip and have expanded my knowledge about business and environment from this experience.

Rachel Tegenkamp

DAY 9 – Friday 1/17/2014
Nature Conservancy:

Although today’s visit to the Nature Conservancy was not how it was expected to go, it still ended up being very interesting and it offered a different perspective on things that we hadn’t really had the chance to talk/learn about before. A lot of the other businesses/organizations we visited have mentioned the indigenous people but they never really talked about how they interact with them. I thought the discussion was really cool because I would never have thought that there were young indigenous people who are getting dressed up and coming into the cities to talk with officials and to learn new things to bring back to their groups. I was wondering the same thing as Lara when she asked if they thought that going into the Amazon and working with the indigenous people was actually taking away some of their culture. I didn’t think that the indigenous people would actually be as willing as they seem to be to work with people from organizations like the Nature Conservancy. It was unfortunate that we didn’t have more time to discuss the topic but it seems as though there will never be enough time to discuss these types of topics because they’re so open ended.

Isaiah Sneed

1/17/2014: Our last visit of the trip was the Nature conservancy which focuses on developing conservation in the region. Some of the main focuses of the organization dealt with deforestation in the region as a result of cattle herds. Some of the most interesting things presented dealt with the missuses of land that result in deforestation. He explained how the problem isn’t lack of land rather the lack of knowledge of how to fully utilize the land that’s available. Given all of the other presentations I thought this was a very interesting approach to the issue of deforestation. He also gave lots of information on the indigenous people and how the government interacts with them, educating them in order to improve and sustain their way of life.

Thomas Mehari

This visit to The Nature Conservancy was one that I was really interested in since I wanted to learn more about how this organization worked with the indigenous groups. Both of the speakers really helped me understand all of the efforts being made to help all of the different indigenous groups. There a lot of eye opening things that I learned during this visit. One of the stories I was really intrigued by was about a certain indigenous group that still lives within their community while also making trips to the city to purchase basic necessities. Other than that, one of the hopes of the conservancy is to eventually bring the companies and the indigenous groups to the same table so that matters can be resolved with parties that have a strong vested interest in the Amazon and areas around it.

Rebecca Raya

For our last visit we had the opportunity of meeting with Fernando Bittencourt and Helcio Marcelo de Souza from The Nature Conservancy. It was really interesting to learn about the indigenous populations of the Amazon region. Having previously learned about the sustainability and business firms in the Amazon, it was necessary to learn about the people component of the Amazon, the over 230 indigenous groups that call the forests and waters of the Amazon home. The Nature Conservancy works to protect the waters and environment of the Amazon rainforest and surrounding areas, they do this trough a delicate balance between public policies, projects on the ground, and strengthening the capacities of the indigenous groups.

Lara Cornelius

Shelden Agbayani

On our last day of visits, we were able to tie most of the strings together from this journey.  The Nature Conservancy talked to us about their initiatives to help the indigenous people of Brazil.  The business aspect was presented with their ability to keep their budgets tight while still helping the people.  The sustainability side was also addressed when they talked about how their initiatives are sustainable in the most fundamentally way possible.  Finally, it was nice hearing about the indigenous people for a change. All we hear about is modern people taking their land, however the Nature Conservancy want to allow them to have the land for a long time.

Katherine Lazo

01/17/14: What a fantastic way to end the day and the trip! Thank you to Helcio and Fernando! I only wish we had had more time to continue discussing the issues of the indigenous people of Brazil. Prior to visiting the Nature Conservancy we had heard much about the animals and plant life of the Amazon but very little about the indigenous people. It was very interesting to hear the plans and programs they have in place and want to implement to help support the indigenous people. The work they are doing, providing the indigenous with the resources to support themselves, education to deal with corporations and the rest of society, and the land to live on, is so important. I had never thought much on it before, but they definitely caught my attention as well as that of my peers.

Christiana Frisby

The Nature Conservancy had very interesting information on the indigenous people of the Amazon. It is amazing to think that there are still people without contact with society, especially in a place like Brazil. It makes you think about how truly majestic the Amazon is. Integrating Brazilian society into indigenous society is a sticky topic. The indigenous people of the Amazon can maintain their own culture and partake in that of the city life. I think that this is a very important practice for some tribes, but it makes me wonder if or when the indigenous societies will become one in the same of the Brazilian society with only their history to remind them of their culture. The Amazon is a very beautiful and mysterious place. Helicio Marcelo de Souza was one of the few sociological speakers we had, but he made me very interested in exploring internships that would give me field experience within the Amazon.