The Mebengokre-Kayapó people inhabit one of the largest Indigenous territories in the world, in the southeastern Amazon, between the southern state of Pará and the northern state of Mato Grosso. About 12,000 Kayapó people currently inhabit almost 100 villages located in six federally demarcated Indigenous Territories (Badjônkore, Baú, Capoto/Jarina, Kayapó, Las Casas, and Menkragnoti), totaling an area of ​​approximately 11 million hectares in south-central Pará and northern Mato Grosso at what is known as the “arc of deforestation.”

In recent decades, the Kayapo experienced enormous pressure with the arrival of roads, hydroelectric dams, the opening of large farms, illegal mining, and the exploitation of minerals and timber. In this context, between the 1980s and the early 2000s, visionary Kayapo leaders fought to obtain official recognition and permanent, exclusive rights over a contiguous block of their traditional territories. In the early 2000s, the Kayapo established alliances with international NGOs that helped to create and strengthen their own institutions that values Indigenous knowledge and the sustainable use of the forest and the cerrado (Brazilian savanna). This Indigenous-led NGO network became known as the Kayapo Project.

The Kayapo Project is an Indigenous-led NGO alliance supporting Kayapo cultural, economic, political, and territorial autonomy over 9 million hectares of federally demarcated Indigenous lands in the highly threatened southeastern Amazon. It is led by three Kayapo NGOs: the Protected Forest Association (AFP), Kabu Institute (IK) and Raoni Institute (IR) representing communities of the northeast, northwest and southwest sectors of Kayapo territory. The Kayapo organizations receive financial and technical support from trusted external partners like Biome Conservation.

The Kayapo-NGO alliance protects and sustainably manages 9.4M hectares (23.2M acres) of forested Kayapo Indigenous territory. These lands form a critical barrier to deforestation in Brazil’s Xingu River Basin, safeguarding the last major intact forest block in the region, which stores 720M metric tons of above-ground carbon, equivalent to the annual emissions of 574M cars.

The Amazon is home to about 16,000 plant species, of which 7,000 are tree species, and an uncountable number of animal species. Kayapo Indigenous territories are large enough to protect viable populations of threatened species including tree species that require large landscapes to persist. Surveys have shown that much of the huge block of Kayapo land remains relatively undisturbed as judged by population densities of the more sensitive vertebrate species. Large-bodied mammal and bird species, which are preferred game species of local peoples throughout the Amazon, are abundant in Kayapo territory.

Associação Floresta Protegida
The Associação Floresta Protegida (AFP), started in 1998, represents approximately 3,000 indigenous people from 43 villages located in the Kayapó, Mekragnoti and Las Casas Indigenous Lands, in the south of the state of Pará.

Instituto Kabu
Started in 2008, The Instituto Kabu (IK) brings together 12 affiliated villages in the TIs Baú and Menkragnoti, in southern Pará, where about 200 families and almost 2,000 men, women and children live. The Institute is managed by Indigenous people, who have a small team of professionals committed to using their knowledge of both cultures to advise associated leaders and assist in dialogue.

Instituto Raoni
Created in 2001, the Instituto Raoni (IR) was created to defend the interests of the Kayapo people. Today IR represents 24 villages across three Indigenous territories. The IR not only communities of the Kayapó people, but also the Trumai, Tapayuna and Panará peoples.

Biome Conservation – Trusted International Partner and Fiscal Sponsor Since 2007, Biome Conservation, also known as the International Conservation Fund of Canada has supported the Kayapo peoples’ fight for territorial, cultural, environmental, and political autonomy. Biome Conservation is Canada’s leading and award winning conservation organization committed to supporting biodiversity in the tropics. Biome Conservation supports front-line conservation by local organizations and Indigenous peoples in the tropics.

Harvesting Brazil nuts is a traditional activity of the Mẽbêngôkre-Kayapó people, involving the vast majority of villages and their communities during the rainy season, which generally runs from December to March. Brazil nuts represent not only one of the most promising options for generating income sustainably, but also an activity that promotes and values ​​culture, in addition to complementing the indigenous diet.

This activity also contributes to territorial protection, since the Brazil nut groves are scattered across vast areas of the territory, which encourages our movement throughout the Indigenous Land, inhibiting the practice of illegal and predatory activities by third parties. The long stay of families in the harvesting camps provides an opportunity for the transmission of knowledge from the elders to the younger generations, contributing to the strengthening of the culture and the Indigenous way of life.

Kayapo culture and their pristine forests and rivers present innumerable opportunities for educational, ecological, and cultural tourism. Aside from the economic benefits, during tourism experiences, Kayapo meet with nonIndigenous people interested in protecting Kayapo culture and lands. Similarly, tourism participants learn the realities of the southeastern Amazon and become potential long term supporters of the Kayapo. Kayapo tourism initiatives include: sportfishing and ecotourism lodges on the Xingu (xingulodge.com) and Iriri Rivers (kendjamlodge.com); an intercultural field course and internship exchange program with the A’Ukre community (kayapo.org/field-course); and cultural tourism at the in villages of Pykany and Kubenkrankein (https://www.amzprojects.com/etnoturismo).

The Kayapo Indigenous people of Brazil have legal and exclusive rights to their 10.6-million-hectare territory (nearly the size of Portugal), composed of five of their traditional territories (see map). Unfortunately, every inch of their 2,200 km (1,375 miles) border faces escalating external pressures, particularly from illegal logging, mining and land grabbing in a virtually lawless frontier region.

In response, the Kayapo organizations, including the Associação Floresta Protegida (AFP), Instituto Kabu (IK), and Instituto Raoni (IR), and Associação Indigena Pykôre (AIP),- have mobilized significant financial and technical resources to defend and sustainably manage approximately 9 million of the almost 10.6 million hectares of forest under Kayapo control. The other 1.5 million hectares areas have been devastated by illicit logging, mining, or agriculture invasions (purple outline in Figure 1).

In 2016, the Kayapo NGOs and their representative communities began the first guard post on the Xingu River, at the northern border of the Kayapó Indigenous Land. In 2025, 17 guard posts were operated by the four Kayapo organizations of the conservation NGO alliance. Each guard post is managed by at least two village custodians. The Guard Post program guarantees the presence of Kayapo guardians at strategic access points to their territory, signaling to outside frontier society that the Kayapo are organized to defend their ratified land rights, thus inhibiting invaders.

Each year, about 2,000 Kayapo guardians participate in the program, with benefits reaching virtually every family in the Kayapo NGO alliance. At each guard post, Kayapo teams of six rotate weekly or bi-weekly. The rotation of guardian teams, drawn from all Kayapo communities, ensures community engagement and equitable access to guard post work and salaries. The guard posts operate between May and December each year. Equitable salaries, combined with inherent Kayapo drive to protect their territory, culture, and livelihoods against illegal activity generate a strong social antidote to the bribing of individuals by illegal actors for access to Kayapo territory and natural resources.

The Guard Post Program is both an effective and efficient strategy to protect the forest and provide alternative livelihoods to the Kayapo. The guard posts investment translates into a cost of roughly 0,20 dollars per year per hectare and engages close to 2000 Kayapo men and women annually, providing an average annual income of USD 360 per person. In total the average monthly cost of a guard post is 13,000 USD and the total annual cost for supporting 17 guard posts for 8 months is about 1,77 million USD.