The movement’s structures ensure roles for women, younger and older people. It has now protected 42,000 hectares of land in the Laklãnõ-Xokleng territory, and its involvement in knowledge sharing and legal action are creating impact far beyond the community’s home.

An inclusive movement – rooted in local culture

Instituto Zág was founded 10 years ago, responding to decades of logging, land invasions and destructive farming by outsiders. Guided by ancestral knowledge, the community began replanting its land – in particular, replenishing sacred but critically endangered araucaria trees.

Today its work restores, monitors and protects land around 16 villages. Seeds are collected from sacred mother trees, and shared with partners across Brazil to ensure genetic diversity. Seedlings are grown in the movement’s community nurseries, before being planted. As well as araucaria (140,000 seedlings planted), the movement is restoring tree ferns, imbuia, and yerba mate.

Instituto Zág is also ensuring people can earn a living in ways that protect local biodiversity. This includes supporting beekeeping and sustainable tourism. And it is training and supporting youth forest guardians who monitor fires, invasions, and illegal logging.

All members of Instituto Zág are Indigenous, including its leadership and governance bodies. The board includes the youngest chief ever elected, who is 25 years old, and the first woman chief in the community’s history. Priorities are defined collectively through assemblies with equal participation of women, young people, and elders.

Sharing knowledge, supporting research and legal action

For Instituto Zág, it is essential to reforest minds as well as the land. So the organisation teaches ancestral knowledge in schools, engages young people in forest stewardship, and documents cultural practices through photography workshops and publications.

To create impact beyond its territory, it has shared its methods and training with a handful of other Indigenous communities, and a non-Indigenous women’s collective. It has also contributed to the creation of an Indigenous campus at Brazil’s Federal University of Santa Catarina, and supports work by a range of academics and researchers.

The movement is also directly involved in the Marco Temporal case. This case will result in a landmark judgement by Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, defining Indigenous rights and the boundaries of more than 200 Indigenous lands across the country. Which makes the movement’s work documenting its territory, and activities on it, even more important.

In the years ahead, Instituto Zág aims to grow its training and support for youth forest guardians, and to scale up its tree nursery and livelihoods activities. By nurturing cultural and economic resilience, it will protect the future of local people – which in turn creates climate benefits far beyond the territory.