IIEB - Instituto Internacional de Educação do Brasil

IEB is the lead institution in the FORTIS Consortium (Institutional Strengthening in Southern Amazonas), also composed of IMAZON - Amazon Institute of People and the Environment, the Kanindé Association for Ethno-environmental Defense, and CSF-Brasil (Conservation Strategy Fund). The goal of the Consortium is to increase the capacity of local organizations to deal with the socio-environmental problems associated with the advancing frontier of deforestation and to deepen dialogue among different social agents in order to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of the region’s natural resources.

The FORTIS project proposal was approved in late 2006 within the Amazon Basin Conservation Initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

The work of the Consortium is organized along three themes:

1) institutional strengthening: to fortify local organizations in their dialogue and negotiations with the state and federal governments, thus reinforcing environmental governance within the region. FORTIS also intends to support the strengthening of indigenous organizations aiming at the protection and integrity of their territories, the promotion of the local culture and the improvement of the livelihoods of the various indigenous peoples of Southern Amazonas;

2) environmental and land-use monitoring: to provide high quality information on the dynamics of economic occupation in the region;

3) interchange programs, information dissemination and systemization of experiences: to organize and systematize the experiences and lessons learned, so that they can be used to inform exchanges between programs, projects and organizations that work with similar themes.

Area of activity: FORTIS works in the seven municipalities forming the Southeastern portion of Amazonas State: Boca do Acre, Lábrea, Canutama, Humaitá, Apuí, Novo Aripuanã and Manicoré.