Ecological projects addressed in this project are described from the perspective of political ecologies that emerge from Latin America. They are conflicts related to the colonial process of conquest; therefore, they are simultaneously movements of resistance in defense of life in a broad sense. They reveal the unequal distribution, on a global scale, of economic growth and development, as well as forms of plunder associated to the use, access and control of natural resources, to the transportation of these common goods or to residues from chemical and industrial activities. Their cartographies seek to make viable movements of resistance against the plunder of the commons, whether they are natural or invisible and spiritual. These colonizing advances reveal processes and agents that promote multiple forms of violence against Indigenous populations. The project simultaneously strives to support an exchange of experiences of environmental struggle. In this sense, it dialogs with other initiatives underway, in the framework of movements for environmental justice and cartographies of environmental injustice, such as EJAtlas, Rede Brasileira de Justiça Ambiental/Fiocruz [the Brazilian Environmental Justice Network], Observatório de Conflitos Ambientais em Minas [The Observatory of Environmental Conflicts in Minas] (UFMG) and Atmosferas de Violência [Atmospheres of Violence].

The conflicts mapped were described by Indigenous and non-Indigenous student interns who participate as allies to the Indigenous struggles. It is a process that is under construction and the coordinators and associated researchers hope that it can continue and be expanded.

Dozens of conflicts and challenges faced by Indigenous peoples in the Northeast are presented here, as well as those in south and southeastern Pará state. The cases highlighted here have a deep and direct relationship with the position of each researcher, who in some way experiences or is situated in realities that are very close to the cases studied. The type of description and analysis of each context is informed by this position. For this reason, we strongly suggest that, in addition to examining the cases found in the mapping, that you read the minibiographies of the people involved in the project, because it is our objective to highlight not only the global aspects of the concrete situations, but the situated character of their descriptions.