Brazil: Center for Socio-Environmental Support
Brazil’s rapid economic growth in the last decade has stressed ecosystems all over the country. Part of this stress stems from an unsustainable increase in biofuels production, which has increased demand for land, water, and cheap labor. The expansion of agriculture, ranching, and the logging industry also jeopardize a critical component of our global ecosystem: Brazil’s rich tropical forests.
But deforestation is only one among a host of other environmental challenges that Brazil faces: reshaping the urban environment (70 percent of the population in South America lives in urban areas), addressing ocean degradation, constructing an environmentally sensitive and fair agricultural industry, and confronting climate change, among others. Local communities, many of them indigenous, find their traditions and livelihoods threatened by these challenges; they depend on the continuing bounty of South American ecosystems in order to maintain their income, culture, and way of life.
The Center for Socio-Environmental Support in São Paulo, Brazil, was founded in 2005 by the Greengrants Brazil Advisory Board to work towards solutions for South America’s pressing issues. CASA acts as an advisor for Global Greengrants Fund grants in Brazil and is a member of the Greengrants Alliance of Funds. Its mission is to promote environmental conservation and sustainability, democracy, and social justice by supporting and strengthening the capacities and initiatives of civil society in South America. To learn more about CASA click here.
Grantmaking Strategies
- Support concrete activities of the socio-environmental movement
- Facilitate training for organizations to set priority agendas and strategies
- Expand civil society participation in political monitoring
- Implement strategic activities that reinforce local, national, and international collaboration
- Support innovative projects that bring about environmental solutions
- Build capacity in small and medium size organizations
- Assist in emergency situations
Board Priorities
Community grassroots groups and local NGOs
Environmental sustainability
Poverty eradication, promoting justice, dignity and quality of life
Bolstering democracy and democratic processes
Countries
Association of beekeeper, farmers, and residents of Lapinha
Grant #: 53-275
Amount: $6,843
Country: Brazil
Focus: Indigenous PeoplesAn Association of beekeepers, farmers, and residents work together to promote the environmental protection and quality of life of the Lapinha Community through the creation of a Local Association and the construction of a Community Work House. This work house would be used to produce honey, flour, fuba, candies, and other goods, offering expanded means of financial support to community members while promoting environmentally-sound practices.
Grupo para la Proteccion Ambiental Activa (GRUPAMA)
Grant #: 53-875
Amount: $8,554
Country: Uruguay
Focus: BiodiversityGrupo para la Proteccion Ambiental Activa (GRUPAMA) works for the conservation of natural resources and promotion of sustainable development. Under this mission, GRUPAMA is a leader in the creation of a community led Trinational Park in the border area of Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. To complete the project, GRUMPA is working to strengthen the capacity of communities to develop and manage environmental and rural tourism; to equip the Interpretation Center, hiring a Park Ranger to ensure the effective protection of the area; and finally, to conduct studies and inventories that will be used to promote the establishment of the park.
ONG Anama
Grant #: 53-811
Amount: $5,215
Country: Brazil
Focus: SustenanceONG works to combat the hegemony of transnational agribusiness companies. One of its projects is the management of a seed bank, which enables local communities to determine, control, and protect their agricultural production. With this grant, ONG will build a permaculture shed that will improve the conditions of their seed bank, and they will produce a communication piece to spread information about their free seed distribution, thereby strengthening communities' food sovereignty and security.
View more Brazil: Center for Socio-Environmental Support grants »
Renato Cunha
Coordinator
Rento is a mechanical engineer who specializes in Energy Planning and Environmental Management. An environmental activist since 1981, he is also a founder of the NGO GAMBA and former National Coordinator of the Atlantic Rainforest NGO network. Renato is a member of several state and regional NGOs, including the Bahia State Environmental Council, which represents state NGOs, and the National Council for the Environment, as a representative of the Northeastern region NGOs.
Carlos Afonso
NUPEF, Information and Communications Technology Research and Training Institute
Graduated in naval engineering at the São Paulo University Polytechnic School, Brazil. Master in Economics, YorkUniversity, Toronto, Canada, with doctoral studies in Social and Political Thought at the same university. Co-founder with Herbert de Souza (Betinho) of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses, IBASE (1981), Rio de Janeiro. In this period, he conceived, implemented, and led the Alternex project, the first computer-based information and communication system in Latin America, servicing civil society organizations. He also helped to found the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), representing IBASE, in May 1990. In October 2008, he was chosen as Personality of the Year by the Brazilian magazine ARede. Currently he serves as executive director of the Nupef Institute. Carlos Afonso has authored several articles, studies and books on social and political themes and about Internet development, published in Portuguese, Spanish, French and English.
Enrique Bostelmann
Independant Consultant
Enrique trained as an engineer in aquaculture and is currently working on his PhD in Biological Sciences with a specialization in paleo-ecological evolution from the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay. He has been an independent reviewer for studies on environmental issues in Chile and has served as an advisor to several environmental groups. He recently acted as the Director of the Department of Biological Diversity at the Southern Environmental Law Center (CEADA), where he analyzed natural resource laws and consolidated the Strategy of Biological Diversity of Chile.
Fabiana Costa
Administrator and Financial Assistant, CASA
Fabiana Souza is a Portuguese major from UNIASSELVI University. She worked as a secretary and logistics coordinator for Ecology and Action (ECOA) from 2002 to April 2007. In May, 2007, she joined CASA as Administrative and Financial Assistant.
Jorge Oscar Daneri
M’Biguá
Jorge Oscar Daneri is a lawyer and President of the M’Biguá Foundation for Citizenship and Environmental Justice. He is a specialist in Environmental Law, working for and with socio-environmental and environmental justice organizations in the Southern Cone region. Daneri is also a founding member of the Rios Vivos Coalition and member of several other consortiums such as the Entre Ríos Network of Socio-Environmental Organizations, (IIRSA, Soy Coalition, and the Wetland System Alliance for the Defense of Paraguay-Paraná Wetlands). He is also a professor at the Viltres Marine School where he advised graduate students in the areas of Environmental Education of the CTERA, in the modules of Citizenship and Environmental Justice, Ethics and Sustainability.
Tamara Mohr
Both ENDS
Tamara is an anthropologist, working at Both ENDS – an organization based in the Netherlands, working to enhance the capacity of CSOs in support of local peoples’ sustainable livelihoods in the global south. At Both ENDS, she has been the European Coordinator of the Rios Vivos Coalition since its establishment in 1992. Tamera has over 12 years of experience in (net)working with CSOs in Latin America, supporting them in establishing contacts with donors, policy makers and providing expertise.
Amália Souza
Executive Director, CASA
Amália is the Executive Director of CASA and the point-person for the Greengrants Alliance Funds partnership. She began her relationship with Greengrants as the Coordinator of the Brazilian Advisory Board, and is now leading the establishment of CASA. She is an environmentalist and a consultant on international communications for civil society. Her experience includes five years as the Network Development Program Director for APC-Association for Progressive Communications, a global association of computer networks for civil society working in over 130 countries. She has worked at the grassroots level with environmental and development issues for 20 years, and as a consultant and liaison between national and international indigenous and environmental, organizations and grant makers.
-
“How easy and important it is to live with nature”
Apr, 2012: A Brazilian couple stops bomb fishing, protects a coastal ecosystem, and fosters a new generation of environmentalists. This Earth Day, let's celebrate local action. -
Brazil: Bringing the City to the Farm
Nov, 2011: Urban meets rural in the small farmers' markets of Brazil. Three Global Greengrants Fund and CASA grantees come together to promote local and sustainable products.