The Kĩsêdjê association, which brings together indigenous people from the town of Querência in Mato Grosso state, was one of the winners of the United Nations (UN) 2019 Equator Prize announced in June. The group, made up of five villages, planted pequi trees in an area that had been deforested and produced oil made from this typical fruit from the Brazilian savannah.

The prize selects the best sustainable development initiatives in the world every two years. In this edition, 847 nominations from 127 countries were registered. Only 22 projects were awarded the prize.  Their representatives will take part in the awards ceremony in New York on September 24th. Since 2002, 17 Brazilian organisations have been recipients of the prize.

The Kĩsêdjê Initiative

Last year, an area of 6.200 hectares (the equivalent to 5,700 football fields) was deforested by Querência farmers according to data from the Legal Amazon Deforestation Satellite Monitoring Project (PRODES) and the National Institute of Space Research (INPE). The indigenous people recovered forests by planting pequi trees.

Pequi, an orange-coloured fruit, is food for the indigenous population. Oil is also made from it. The harvest takes place between October and December. In 2018, the Kĩsêdjê established a new record with the production of 315 litres of oil. The product is sold in Brazil, and this year it will start being exported to a company in the United States.

How is the oil produced?

Men and women gather to collect the fruits from the village and nearby areas. Part of the group gets the pequi, cuts it, and separates the pulp (the inside part of the fruit) from the seeds using metal bowls.

To extract the oil, members of the association cook the pulp and blend it with water. The mix goes through a decanting process through which the oil is separated from the water and the pulp after a few days. Finally, the oil is filtered and poured into bottles.

Questions

1. Which is the right option?
a) The Equator Prize selects the best sustainability initiatives in Brazil.
b) 22 Brazilian projects have already won the competition.
c) Over 800 nominations from 127 countries were registered in the award’s 2019 edition.
d) An area of 325,000 football fields was deforested by Querência farmers.

2. Do you know of any environmental initiatives that should win the award? Discuss them here.

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